Stuck Mojo

When zealots declared “The South will rise again!” the farthest thing from their minds was a black man leading the charge, fronting a band inspired by Twisted Sister and World Championship Wrestling. But obviously, the people that swooned over “Sic Semper Tyrannis” had never heard of heavy metal music, let alone Fender guitars, Pearl drums, and Marshall stacks that project a din loud enough to stifle any Civil War cannon blast.

Enter Stuck Mojo, Atlanta’s metal godfathers, the South’s reigning kings of musical fury and onstage chaos, and underdogs turned favorites to topple the loud rock hierarchy.

Selling a combined 75,000 copies of their first two releases on Century Media Records, Snappin’ Necks (1995) and Pigwalk (1996), Stuck Mojo are indie-metal’s marquee attraction, having chiseled a name for themselves through aggressive touring, explosive live shows, and an attitude that defines heavy metal as it was always meant to be.

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Subatomic

We listen to music to feel something, to relate to something or to just plain have fun. And it’s becoming harder and harder to find a local band that you can listen to and just plain enjoy yourself. No corporate puppetry or influence laced through what could be and should be killer music. That’s why when we came across Subatomic it was something extremely refreshing. Their jam-oriented sound with catchy riffs and groovy basslines is just plain good music. Maximum Ink caught up with the hard rock groove trio to talk about their music and how they got their start.

Maximum Ink: Tell me about the history of the band. Where did you get started? When did you all start playing and writing music?
Bryan Moll (Guitarist/Vocals): Jim and I have been playing together since grade school and about 15 years ago, we got to know Sparko (Mark Dvorak-Drums).  So over the years the three of us have worked together on different projects, with different folks in a variety of bands, but the true version of subatomic came into being in 2006, when we began writing music together.

MI: Describe your music to someone who has never seen/hear it before.
Jim Roof (Bass): It’s our motto: Hard rock groove jams!

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SUMMERFEST 2013

Growing up in Milwaukee as a music-addicted teenager during the years of the Alternative Nation, we always got the big summer tours because of the proximity to Alpine Valley, but some of the smaller acts would often skip the city. Unless they were looking to fill a date between Chicago and Minneapolis, there were plenty of shows that we just didn’t get. That is, unless it was that blessed time between the last week of June and the first week of July. Milwaukee was the center of the live music universe for the 11 days of Summerfest. It was also a place my parents were fine with just dropping me and my friends off in the morning and picking us up when at night. But it was the place where you could see almost every good band that was touring that summer. Where else could you see The Lemonheads, Dio, and Ringo Starr ON THE EXACT SAME DAY?!? It’s like Lollapalooza with more diversity, every single day, and this year there are more great bands than ever.

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Summerfest History - 35 Years

Summerfest

: The world’s largest music festival and it’s right here in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Started in 1972 and in it’s 35th year, here is a brief history of the event.

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Sunflower Bean

New York City’s vibrant SUNFLOWER BEAN channels an almost psychic musical tightness into colorful, combustible chemistry to design serpentine Valentines that seduce in lubricated grooviness while courting fiery desires with a heady mix of acid-etched textures drawn from haunting lyrics, shaman beats and liquid licks. Fresh from a stellar SXSW appearance and riding high from a critically acclaimed debut, the power-trio heads to Madison’s The Frequency, headlining a can’t miss show on April 6th with WEAVES and PILES. Bassist JULIA CUMMINGS and guitarist NICK KIVLEN were kind enough to answer some questions via email about the band’s sound, influences and life on the indie-rock bandwagon.

MAXIMUM INK: Psychedelic seems to be the go to label for rock bands these days, do you think of Sunflower Bean as psychedelic?
NICK KIVLEN: To me psychedelic rock means creative rock. Things that we think of as weird or trippy are things that haven’t been done before or seem strange and new. New experiences make the brain feel confused and “psychedelic”. So new sounds and music people haven’t heard before has the same effect. We don’t take drugs but we want to make something new and fresh. Psych isn’t retro, it’s the future.

MI: Why do you think psychedelic music is trending these days?
JULIA CUMMINGS: Trends kind of happen in cycles, and bands like Thee Oh Sees who are so great, kind of re-ignite some of that passion for guitar music. I’m not sure how “trendy” psych rock is in comparison to other genres like electronic music or rap, but bands like Tame Impala and Unknown Mortal Orchestra (who are some of our favorites) really push the genre forward by making really innovative and ambitious music.

MI: Your debut, “Human Ceremony,” had you laying down songs you’ve played live for quite some time; are there songs you left off the album or will you have to start from scratch for the follow-up?
JC: We are currently writing new music for the second album, when we have off time or during sound checks. There is one fully done song and a few that are close. We didn’t really leave anything off the album, we were basically able to fit everything we wanted to make it cohesive in our minds.

MI: Do your songs come from jamming together or does someone have a song they bring to the group to work on?
JC: Usually Nick brings in riffs or ideas or songs in various degrees of doneness to the basement and we all jam on them and figure out where the song is going to go. Sometimes a song becomes a pet project of one of us, whoever has the most vision for it.

MI: Seems like the band spends a lot of time together, was there an immediate clicking when the three of you first connected?
JC: We were definitely all friends before we started making music together. We got along well and had similar influences and ideas about what we wanted out of a band.

MI: Is there an band or artist that you all agree on?
JC: We love Lou Reed. We are trying to talk about him less in interviews but he is probably the biggest point where we all agree.

MI: You’ve worked the most in New York City where you also live, what’s the oddest thing you’ve confronted on tour outside the city?
JC: Playing the college shows can be a little weird because anything can happen. One time we all slept in a room with an escaped snake

MI: What do you miss the most when you’re away?
JC: Probably our beds!

MI: The buzz on the band skyrocketed rather quickly, have you experienced any perks in all this sudden media attention
JC: We’ve all been playing in bands and making music since we were 13 and 14, so it doesn’t feel as sudden as it may seem on the outside! But it’s definitely an exciting time. We are getting to travel to Japan this summer, which is amazing and we’ve always wanted to do that.

MI: Do you have a strategy for surviving the flash and establishing long-term credentials?
JC: We are going to keep making music!

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Sunset Black

Brandon Sammons of Minneapolis band Sunset Black (MCA) interview

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Sunshine For The Blind

As the creative outlet for one-half of DNA Studios’ production masterminds, Brian Daly, SUNSHINE FOR THE BLIND, has been performing guitar rock with pop inflections in the Madison area for the better part of the last decade. Their latest album, Second Self, is an absolutely sonically masterful collection of straight-up classic alternative rock songs. There’s plenty of excellent guitar work, big chorus hooks, and a solid (and wonderfully complex) rhythm section provided by bassist Ken Stevenson and drummer Andrew Rohn.

As the guitarist and vocalist for SUNSHINE FOR THE BLIND as well as one of Madison’s most prolific audio engineers, Daly has been into music since he was a kid, “I have always experienced music that I like as transporting,” he says, “as an entry to another world. A world that generally seemed better than the normal world..  Part of this experience was a desire to create music myself. This isn’t logical; it’s possible to love music and not want to make it. But I was infected with this viral aspect of music.“

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