![\"\"](\"\/beta\/\/media.wonderlandmagazine.com\/uploads\/2011\/06\/blackmountain1.jpg\" "\\"Black")
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Stephen McBean, Amber Webber, Matt Camirand, Jeremy Schmidt and Josh Wells are five longhaired Canadian stoners on a crusade. When they\u2019re not unleashing epic psychedelic rock on bleary-eyed revellers as Black Mountain, they\u2019re busy helping out at Insite \u2013 a Vancouver-based charity for the chronically poor, drug addicted and mentally ill. Not many bands can mix a punishing schedule of tour hedonism with a keen social conscience. But Black Mountain have a knack for straddling extremes: they\u2019ve managed mainstream success \u2013 their song “Stay Free” was featured on the Spider-Man 3 soundtrack and they supported Coldplay on their 2005 US tour \u2013 whilst still retaining their hard-rocking credibility.
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Describe your sound in one word?<\/strong><\/p>\n Josh Wells:<\/strong> Wide.<\/p>\n Stephen McBean:<\/strong> Ecclesiastical.<\/p>\n Jeremy Schmidt:<\/strong> Minus the really heavy religious connotations.<\/p>\n Matt Camirand:<\/strong> But with the gold leaf.<\/p>\n Photography: Ben Rayner Any rituals before a show?<\/strong><\/p>\n Amber Webber:<\/strong> I pee like five times.<\/p>\n SM:<\/strong> We don\u2019t do soul circles \u2013 no group hugging and apologising for all the bad things we\u2019ve said to each other.<\/p>\n AW:<\/strong> I would actually like a soul circle.<\/p>\n MC:<\/strong> OK. We can try it sometime for you.<\/p>\n JW:<\/strong> I try to get my blood moving around my body so there isn\u2019t such a harsh contrast between sitting around all day and then suddenly playing the drums.<\/p>\n Are you going to do any short songs?<\/strong><\/p>\n SM:<\/strong> We\u2019ve got one on our new record, which is only a minute and a half. But we never play it live because somehow we always fuck it up.<\/p>\n JW:<\/strong> It\u2019s too short with too many chord changes.<\/p>\n MC:<\/strong> We\u2019re used to taking a long time to make a statement.<\/p>\n AW:<\/strong> Plus it\u2019s on acoustic guitar so Steve would have to switch guitars. It would take like 30 seconds just to swap guitars and then the song is only a minute and a half anyway, so there doesn\u2019t seem much point.<\/p>\n What\u2019s playing on the tour bus stereo at the moment?<\/strong><\/p>\n AW:<\/strong> We haven\u2019t played a single tune yet. We\u2019ve only been on the bus for two days.<\/p>\n MC:<\/strong> Our driver isn\u2019t part of the usual touring crew and he doesn\u2019t seem too predisposed to listening to music on the bus.<\/p>\n JW:<\/strong> We don\u2019t have any idea what kind of music he\u2019s into yet.<\/p>\n SM:<\/strong> I think we\u2019ll have figured it out by the end of the tour.<\/p>\n MC:<\/strong> It\u2019s going to be like Rammstein or something.<\/p>\n JS:<\/strong> Yeah, it\u2019s definitely some Euro industrial metal shit.<\/p>\n MC:<\/strong> We\u2019ve got to get in there before he gets in there.<\/p>\n If you had to have one extra member\u2026 who would you pick?<\/strong><\/p>\n AW:<\/strong> We could definitely use someone to dance round the stage and add some theatrics.<\/p>\n SM:<\/strong> What about Stacia, the topless dancer from Hawkwind?<\/p>\n JW:<\/strong> Or Bez from The Happy Mondays?<\/p>\n MC:<\/strong> A laptop might be useful.<\/p>\n A full version of this article first appeared in<\/em> Wonderland #15, Oct\/Nov 2008<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Stephen McBean, Amber Webber, Matt Camirand, Jeremy Schmidt and Josh Wells are five longhaired Canadian stoners on a crusade. When they\u2019re not unleashing epic psychedelic rock on bleary-eyed revellers as Black Mountain, they\u2019re busy helping out at Insite \u2013 a Vancouver-based charity for the chronically poor, drug addicted and mentally ill. Not many bands can […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":425,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9419],"tags":[110,53,111,109,112],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
\nWords: Ben Cobb<\/p>\n