Someone once told me the difference between intelligence and genius is that while intelligence takes something simple and explains it in a complicated way, genius is taking something complicated and explaining it in simplified terms anyone can understand.
Talking with him one gets the feeling that Stephen McBean—the frontman for Canadian psych band Black Mountain (which once boasted Santa Cruz musician Rachel Fannan) and the single, constant member around a revolving cast of musicians for indie rock act Pink Mountaintops—is probably too down-to-earth of a person to accept the term genius.
However the plasticity of his music shines with its qualities. For instance, take his upcoming solo show at the Crepe Place on Thursday, Sept 4.
“It’s just me and a band in a box,” he laughs. “Just a drum machine and whatnot.”
It might seem like a long way from his last Pink Mountaintops album—2022’s Peacock Pools. He started that album at the beginning of the 2020 Covid lockdowns and ended up having an array of friends play guest spots on it, from Dale Crover (The Melvins), Steven McDonald (Redd Kross), Emily Rose Epstein (Ty Segall), violinist Laena Meyers (who has played with a who’s-who of Angeleno musicians, look her up) and even two of his Black Mountain bandmates: Jeremy Schmidt and Joshua Wells.
“When the pandemic hit a lot of friends around town asked if I was working on anything because their tours were cancelled,” McBean remembers from his Southern California home in Arcadia.
“We all had to do our Covid tests before recording. I was really excited to go into the studio with them and I remember thinking, ‘I really gotta bring some bangers,’” he laughs.
The result was Pink Mountaintops’ most experimental album to date. It starts with an industrial cover of Black Flag’s “Nervous Breakdown”—one of McBean’s favorites growing up as a Canadian punk in the 1980s—and travels through a galaxy of new wave, dance pop and the band’s signature indie rock that rides the thin white line of Americana and psych.
Over the last three years McBean has bounced between the two projects, sometimes touring with various musicians as Pink Mountaintops and most recently just finishing a tour with Black Mountain. However, earlier this year he dropped a new Pink Mountaintops single: “Paranoia,” featuring Andrew Moszynski (Deadly Snakes/Quest for Fire) on drums and Steve Frishman (Chrome) on bass.
In true Pink Mountaintops fashion, “Paranoia” draws from influences but retains its own unique identity. Despite its name, the song is a fun—dare I even say happy—fuzzed-out frolic of a track that draws from Hüsker Dü, the Stooges and Dinosaur Jr. with a sound that makes it the best ’90s college rock song that never was…in the best possible ways.
As for the theme, its lyrics explore the meaning of freedom and space within an individual.
Or that’s one way to interpret it.
“Songs are weird,” McBean says. “I always have a folder of demos—either with Black Mountain or Pink Mountaintops—and sometimes it can be 10 years later when you find a little thing and all of a sudden it makes sense.”
He takes a pause then recounts that at same time he released “Paranoia,” he saw a post by Spun Out, the Chicago band featuring ex-Black Mountain drummer Josh Wells.
“They were releasing a song called ‘Paranoia’ and it was the same chorus,” McBean says in shock. “They are almost identical songs—even though neither of us had heard [the other]. It’s an example of how you pull them and they just appear.”
Which leads back to the genius of McBean’s work.
Whether he’s jamming with old friends in Black Mountain, crossing new terrain with Pink Mountaintops or traveling from gig to gig with his band in a box, it’s hard not to think that he somehow has it figured out. Not that he knows everything—or even what his next move will be. But that somehow, no matter what happens, his work will continue to evolve and deliver just what the listener needs. That things are going to be OK.
It’s a philosophy that comes across in his music because it’s one embedded in the man himself.
“During the L.A. fires earlier this year I was right outside the evacuation zone but I still had the car packed,” he says. “I had my favorite microphone, my favorite guitar and a punk seven-inch record that meant a lot to me. I looked at my stuff and thought, ‘If this happens, I’ll still find happiness.’ There’s so much stuff in America that keeps people in this little check of comfort. It’s ‘just good enough.’”
Pink Mountaintops play at 8pm on Sept. 4 at The Crepe Place, 1134 Soquel Drive, Santa Cruz. $12 adv/$15 door.
