Not Fest headliners Bong Mountain have a chat with Luke about the worst way to describe them and the best way to tour.
Luke: So the first thing I have to ask is about the name. You bill yourselves as not a stoner rock band. Where does the name Bong Mountain come from?
Matt: So, I was in a band with my friend Dallas probably like four years ago. He lived in Australia for a little while. He’s the one that kinda helped set up this whole tour. But we were watching some stoner metal band play for way too long in some giant theatre to nobody and we were like, what is this band called? Like Bong … Bong Wizard? Bong something? And I don’t know, just calling a band bong something always kinda appealed to me as a dumb thing, and … It’s just like why not Bong Mountain?
Adam: That’s actually more insight than I’ve ever heard. You’ve never said that before. That’s great.
Luke: Can you tell me a little bit about how the band formed, how long you’ve been together, and what you sound like?
Matt: So, we just had to Google this a couple days ago to figure out when we played our first show, ’cause me and Chris, our guitar player, were having a conversation like, “did we play our first show three or four years ago?” So yeah, we started up three years ago in November. Me and Alex, one of the guitar players for Bong Mountain had been in a band … same band I was talking about with Dallas, and we broke up, and me and Alex never really stopped playing music together. And one night me and Alex went to a show that Adam was playin’, he was playing in a Pinhead Gunpowder cover band. And we asked him to just to start jamming with us. We had never really had an idea that we were actually gonna start a band that would play shows or anything like that or not. And then eventually Chris kinda came along because his old bands, Cain Marko and Low Cloud, they kinda disbanded so he just kinda jumped in and we started writing songs together and yeah, we played our first show three years ago in November, so, 2014.
Luke: How would you describe the sound of the band?
Adam: We basically … We’re a shower pop band, so I think you pretty much, you can think of other bands that are in that same genre. It’s pretty much, kinda what we sound like.
Matt: Somebody described us sounding like Bad Religion one time. That is completely incorrect.
Adam: We do have guitar, bass, and drums so I do … I see the comparison.
Matt: Yeah, but so does 311 and I’d rather be compared to them.
Adam: So we sound kinda like 311 mixed with Bad Religion, basically.
Matt: Mixed with shower pop.
Luke: That’s all I’ve ever wanted, to be honest with you. You recently did an Australian release of your album, You’re Doin’ Great. It’s a ripper, I love it. It came out through Whisk and Key Records. How did that get hooked up?
Adam: So, Dallas … He’s the one that kinda set this whole tour up, and he introduced us to James, just via Facebook and seems like a really good dude that has good intentions and as part of the bringing us over to play, coordinated with our legal head, Andy, who runs Stonewalled Records and they kinda worked something out to where Andy ended up just shipping some records over for them, and kinda put it as the label we released for, Whisk and Key, over in Australia. So, kind of like a co-release kind of thing. So far it’s been working out really great. Working with James has been awesome so far. Can’t wait to meet him in a few weeks at Not Fest.
Luke: Jimmy’s a great dude. He’s a really great dude. So, Not Fest is running for its fifth year, and you’re headlining this year. What have you seen of the festival so far? What are your impressions and expectations for it?
Adam: I’m very much looking forward to the vegan popcorn chicken eating contest.
Matt: Yeah, I’m pretty excited about that too. We’re both vegetarians, so I will partake in eating some vegan popcorn chicken. No, I’m really excited to check out the whole fest. I have no expectations or no even imagery in my mind of what it even looks like so I just wanna be surprised when I get there. I dunno, it looks fucking awesome.
Adam: Yeah, yeah basically just hanging out, watching a bunch of other bands. I don’t know. It sounds like it’s gonna be a cool time.
Matt: I was gonna say, I’ve never been to a fest I didn’t really like but that’s… We played this festival called Electric Kanna Karnival and … Yeah, so maybe like three people watched our set. We had like an hour and a half soundcheck. I think the promoter just never even listened to us and was like, oh, that band has the word bong in its name, they probably really like weed, so we’ll throw ’em on the show. They paid us a bunch of money. It was pretty awesome.
Adam: Yeah, it was fine. It was good. We played a house show that same night. It was a great day.
Luke: Cool, lads. What can you tell me about the enigmatic Eradicator that you’ll be touring with?
Adam: We toured with him last spring up to Pouzza Fest in Montreal and so we played like a week’s worth of shows with him. But I never saw him in between, I never saw him after a set, never got to hang out with him or say like, hey nice job or whatever. Like he would disappear. He would get a cab after every set. So the guy would come in, pack up all his stuff, and then drive it. We’d see him at the next place. I don’t know.
Matt: It was pretty wacky. It’s like, you’d figure he’d get an Uber or like a Lyft but he’s very intent on … him calling a cab and you definitely are not allowed to follow him.
Adam: And we never tried to follow him. We’ve always respected his demands. We like his music. A couple of us are gonna be part of his backing band when we’re in Australia playing some shows with him, so looking forward to that.
Matt: Yeah, I wonder if he’s got numbers for Australian cabs, like that’s already planned out. ‘Cause he’s gonna have to drive. That’s … some of these drives are gonna be pretty crazy.
Luke: Bong Mountain seems to have toured the US and Canada quite extensively. You’re playing Fest this year in Gainesville, and then pretty much heading straight out for Australia. What are your tour survival tips?
Matt: Oh man, so, three of the dudes in the band, myself, Adam and Chris, we all live together so we see each other fairly often. It’s definitely been a growing relationship where we learn how to communicate with each other and not try to take things too personally when stuff happens, but I think it’s just-
Adam: I think what’s really good to do, what I like to do is save up socks that are almost completely worn out, that are only good for like one or two more wears, they almost have a hole in ‘em, save those for your tour socks because then you can just throw them away every time you’re done using ‘em. That would be my advice.
Matt: Yeah.
Adam: Yeah, communication and saving socks.
Matt: Oh, definitely smoking a lot of weed helps, too.
Luke: That’s a good tip. Last question I’ve got, just any future touring or recording plans following the Australian tour?
Adam: So we just recorded, or started working on what will probably will be a second, or actually a first full length album for us, because the first record is kind of a combination of a couple things. So we actually recorded a couple songs earlier this month, and we’re just in the process of writing some more material for that and kinda putting the polishing touches on the stuff that we’ve done so far. So probably early next year hopefully we’ll have that done and figure out a way to get that out.
Matt: After we get back from Australia and Hawaii and Fest and everything… We don’t really have too much planned as far as tours or shows go but we’ll be back on the road next year, springtime. Nothing’s planned, but we always do some stuff around then so we’ll definitely be back on the road.
Luke: Yeah, fantastic. Well that’s all I’ve got for you guys today. Thanks for taking the time to talk to us and I’ll see you in two weeks.
Adam: Yeah. Thank you so much.
Matt: Awesome! Thank you, Luke. Take care, man.
Check out Bong Mountain at this year’s Not Fest. Discounted weekend passes available for a limited time at http://bit.ly/2yLpE1d. Their work is available at bngmtn.bandcamp.com.
Interview by Luke Seymoup
Ragged Press 