Interview by Marek Steven
Photos by Abbey Braden


Stephen McBean is unquestionably the Arch Duke of Vancouver rock. Building on his ‘90s punk roots and work with Jerk With a Bomb he formed Pink Mountaintops and Black Mountain from the ever growing collective of musicians initially called The Black Mountain Army. He’s released two incredible Black Mountain records and now a third in his mellower – and sometime solo – Pink Moutaintops series. Outside Love is another beautiful album to add to his super cool body of work. Stephen is a busy guy, just finishing some US dates with Black Mountain and readying a Pink Mountaintops European tour for May. But he made some time to talk to SUP about the new record, some future plans and what ‘retro’ music means to him. He has a steady and incredibly deep stoner-sounding drawl that’s full of wisdom and punctuated with plenty of good old Canadian ‘You knows.’

The name Pink Mountaintops came before the bands formation right?
Yeah, it was like the name first. Certain things always bring things into focus quicker. Whether it’s like a song title or the name of a band. As soon as I thought of the name I knew it had to be a band. It was a given.

The formation of Pink Mountaintops (and Black Mountain around the same time) came out of your band Jerk With a Bomb right? How did that that happen?
It was certain people we were playing with – certain things kinda opened new doors. It’s one of those things. Like when Amber (Webber; also in Black Mountain) started playing in Jerk With a Bomb, her voice and that aspect of it, brought out a different dimension for playing and writing. It’s life churning its way. Things inspire you differently along the way and you pick up on them.

The new record has a huge, amazing list of musicians involved, but the one previously you did all on your own.
Yeah, that second one was a real quick summer thing – I wrote it and recorded it. But the new one – a lot of people are on – maybe 15 or 20. Different friends, some old, some new. Which is nice.

You have quite a bit of experience of working in collectives.
Yeah, there was no rush to put out a new record. There were little bits and pieces lying around for a couple of years of a few songs. It was me and Sophie that decided to do a record together. That’s when it started becoming a thing. After that we’d think of different people, like Jessie Sykes singing, different friends that I could call on to add their special little thing to it. It’s nice to ask friends to help you out.

It must take a certain amount of focus and calm leadership to take a collective of friends and musicians and turn it into an effective world spanning acts like you do.
I think it just comes from learning certain tricks to music and just having the drive. There’s this thing – when a few people like your music it kind of builds a bit of confidence to push things a bit more and to just trust your instincts. I can’t stand it when I don’t finish things you know? Seeing something through to the end… even it at the end if it doesn’t work out – or you hate it – at least you got it to that point, and you can judge it then. You can’t really judge a half finished work.

And are you still learning things like this at this point in your career?
Oh yeah there are tonnes of things. It can be recording, or lyrics or anything. I always find that one of the big struggles with song writing is stripping away all the bullshit. If you listen to so many classic songs, they’re SO simple. You always have that thing – you want to add a bridge, add this thing here. It doesn’t always need it. It’s learning to take away as opposed to adding to everything. It’s something that’s interesting to work with. But on this record there are a million things on everything!

It’s a beautiful record, but it is very layered.
Yeah, ha, there are definitely lots of layers on there!

Was there a general plan for how you wanted this album to turn out? The previous two have slightly different vibes.
No it just kinda came – because it was made over such a period of time and Black Mountain were on tour – I’d go home and work on it. Being on tour would give me a good perspective on it once in a while to listen to stuff in the van. And Black Mountain played a show with Jessie Sykes and it seemed her voice would work with that song. We played with them in Paris but she only lives three hours away in Seattle, yeah.

The album cover – with the novel lying on satin – is great. Does the album have a loose literary theme?
I think there was a mild Danielle Steele romance side to it, slightly tongue in cheek. There’s a lot of love songs, break up songs, celebration-of-love songs on it. It’s what Jeremy and I came up with, and he did the cover.

Do you have time outside of your musical projects to do the other things you want to do?
Sometimes. If I’ve got nothing to do I tend to get bored pretty quickly, but sometimes when you’re travelling in different cities it’s hard to have time so see friends which is kind of a drag. But it goes with the lifestyle I guess.

But you’re looking forward to upcoming tour?
Yeah I’m really looking forward to coming over with Pink Mountaintops cos it’s a new line up of people, a couple of which that have played before and couple who never have. There’s me and Matt from out here, then some friends from Toronto, Montreal and London playing in the line up. It’s different. Different people from different continents, which is kinda cool.

And you’re playing ATP Festival also in May during those European dates.
Yeah, right that should be cool. It’s a great line up… Devo, The Jesus Lizard are playing right?

Yeah, and Sleep have reformed for it too.
That should be great; I was really into Sleep’s Holy Mountain when that record came out.

Black Mountain had a great show at ATP and I also loved your Glastonbury show. It might have been the drugs but I got pretty emotional. Was it fun experience or a bit crazy?
We had a good time, is was a little intense, haha. I mean so many people, but such an amazing spectacle. Yeah, there’s not much personal space there! But I like the fact it’s been going how many years, since the ‘70s, ‘60s?

1971 I think.
It still has that built-on-it’s-roots kind of thing.

Probably too early to worry about it, but have you thought about the next Black Mountain record?
Yeah we have a few things. But we’re barely starting to think of a record and where we might go. There are so many options when there are five people – it’s always interesting to see what comes out of it all. So yeah there’s some material but it hasn’t quite yet reared its head, we’ll see whether it will be on the next record or not.

Do you feel like there is a bit of a movement towards psychedelic or retro music and fashion at the moment? Is it annoying to be called retro?
I think certain things always come in and out of vogue you know. Part of our early attraction to what people always say is ‘60s or ‘70s music – although it’s not like we’re intentionally doing that – has a lot to do with the craftsmanship of the instruments back then. The old amps just sound better, old keyboards. I don’t want to play a meaty synth through a laptop, but standing in front of an old Marshall feels great. You try and put something new into it, a new spin on it, but at the same time people will criticise it, like it’s a rehash. For us we’re playing rock and roll for the love of it you know, we’re not necessarily trying to re-invent it or perhaps add an element that it doesn’t even need. But it’s partly a homage to stuff we love. There’s so much music and there’s so much music from the ‘60s and ‘70s… it was almost like a renannaisance period of music, where it was so perfected and went so fast. The early ‘60s through to the late ‘60s, just the realm of recording technology and song writing and crazy stuff. People like Bob Dylan putting out double records you know… it moved so fast. I think at the time people didn’t have so many distractions as nowadays; internet, phones, Facebook…

I know what you mean.
I also enjoy early ‘70s American filmmaking, “Paris Texas”, all that stuff, these really slow, spacious movies; they leave a lot to the imagination and your interpretation of them.

Yeah, a lot of mainstream work at that period was arguably of a higher quality than now.
Yeah, it’s kinda weird. Like Pink Floyd was essentially a massive mainstream band. Mainstream in the sense that they played stadiums and sold tonnes of records but they were also a band that really pushed things. They put out records out with four songs, 20-minute songs. Now with music, 75 percent of it is product placement or an endorsement for something you know? I don’t know, it could be that I’m getting older and I just think it’s crap (laughs)…