Packed with riffs more infectious than the influenza virus, Blackjack Mountain are Georgia-based trio playing a powerful and groovy blend of southern rock, stoner and bluesy hard rock. The band's debut album "Holding Time" was recently released on Swamp Records so it was the perfect opportunity to caught with the band to hear all about this new release. Read on...
Firstly, congratulations on your first album album Holding Time. It's a great album and is garnering some very positive reactions from both press and public, so I take it you're quite pleased with this album and its reception?
Yes! We are very pleased with the recent attention the album has been getting. It’s something we worked hard on and were really excited to see so many people enjoy it!
What can you tell us about Holding Time? How much of it is the result of individual songwriting and how of it is the result of you guys having some jam sessions in the rehearsal studio?
It’s definitely been a long time coming that’s for sure. A lot of jam sessions and not missing practices mixed with some good weed and alcohol. Haha. As far as the songwriting goes it’s a definitely a collective effort, everybody has there input on every song we write. Being lifelong friends our respect for each other and each other’s opinion goes into all of the song writing. We are a band! To us if everyone isn’t on board with what we are doing then we just start over until we are all on the same page. We are not a one man band and egos never play a factor into any of our writing. We feel as if everyone is just as important and significant as the other.
The album was actually written in 2018-2019. We recorded in January of 2020 right before the pandemic really hit. The biggest thing was when to release the album being that we originally had our eyes set on 4/20/20, but of coarse as we all know that’s when the pandemic was at its peak. We decided for 1/1/21 in hopes that a new year and medical advances would have things getting back to “normal” We also didn’t think it was fair to our fans to keep them waiting.
Going back a bit, tell me something about your background and how you got together in the first place?
Wow that’s a good question especially since we have all been friends since middle school. We all started playing music around the same time in high school. We all played in various local bands some were death metal bands, blues bands, and even a few cover bands (which now we hate) Luckily we decided to start something new in our local scene and we all just came together and it just kinda started happening. We had an idea of what we wanted the sound to be, but we never imagined what would actually came out of it. We wouldn’t change it for anything!
I hear influences of classic hard rock, stoner rock and psychedelic rock in your songs, but are there any bands that influence you that might be considered a surprise?
Going back a bit, tell me something about your background and how you got together in the first place?
Wow that’s a good question especially since we have all been friends since middle school. We all started playing music around the same time in high school. We all played in various local bands some were death metal bands, blues bands, and even a few cover bands (which now we hate) Luckily we decided to start something new in our local scene and we all just came together and it just kinda started happening. We had an idea of what we wanted the sound to be, but we never imagined what would actually came out of it. We wouldn’t change it for anything!
I hear influences of classic hard rock, stoner rock and psychedelic rock in your songs, but are there any bands that influence you that might be considered a surprise?
Well being from the south of coarse we were spoon fed classic rock and southern rock growing up. Some of our biggest influences are bands like mountain, Black Sabbath, ZZ Top, and Free as far as some of the bands that you wouldn’t hear in our sound or think we would listen too would be Type o Negative, Him, CKY, Colter Wall, and Outkast. We actually all listen to a lot of outlaw country also. This list could honestly probably go on forever. We are fans of all genres and types of music.
From the album cover to the song titles, it seems that you draw inspiration from mythology and some folklore, what can you say about your lyrical inspiration?
We draw lyrical inspiration from a lot of sources. Mythology and rock standards are a definite go to, but we also try to work in local folklore and things that really showcase who we are and where we’re from. Hell, even our name is a local landmark. Nothing is off limits when it comes to lyrics, but we try to stay true to ourselves.
With Covid still affecting everyone it makes a bit difficult to ask about the future plans, but do you have anything at all in the works? I take it you're anxious to get back on stage?
Covid definitely fucked us this year, but we feel we made the best of it. Hopefully things will take a turn for the better in 2021. Our debut album is fresh, so we’re riding the high of that, but we have no plans of slowing down. We’re ready to roll! We’re ready to play live anytime! (Safely of course) Until then we plan to spend time with family, keep practicing, and continue working on album 2 so that when everything does open back up, we can deliver what our fans expect: loud, heavy, hard drivin’, rock and fuckin’ roll!!!!
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From the album cover to the song titles, it seems that you draw inspiration from mythology and some folklore, what can you say about your lyrical inspiration?
We draw lyrical inspiration from a lot of sources. Mythology and rock standards are a definite go to, but we also try to work in local folklore and things that really showcase who we are and where we’re from. Hell, even our name is a local landmark. Nothing is off limits when it comes to lyrics, but we try to stay true to ourselves.
With Covid still affecting everyone it makes a bit difficult to ask about the future plans, but do you have anything at all in the works? I take it you're anxious to get back on stage?
Covid definitely fucked us this year, but we feel we made the best of it. Hopefully things will take a turn for the better in 2021. Our debut album is fresh, so we’re riding the high of that, but we have no plans of slowing down. We’re ready to roll! We’re ready to play live anytime! (Safely of course) Until then we plan to spend time with family, keep practicing, and continue working on album 2 so that when everything does open back up, we can deliver what our fans expect: loud, heavy, hard drivin’, rock and fuckin’ roll!!!!
Follow Blackjack Mountain
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