an island, close to the sea, full of sun and green

in a huge and chaotic, besides beautiful and unique city

BIG MOUNTAIN COUNTY is a relatively new but great psych garage rock band somewhere in Rome. They are blessed with ability to write hits, even in the manner of Butthole Surfers. Moreover the bassplayer Wolfman Bob is our old comrade. He played at rnr666 party in Budapest with three different bands: wild garage rock Ultra Twist, lo-fi punk Trio Banana, and of course Big Mountain County.

How you have become musicians?
As for many other musicians: listening to music at home, trying to play any instrument and finally being completely captured by the desire to play over and over.

Your hometowns are Catania, Bari, Pescara, Rome. There are long distances between these cities. How you have got together? You understand each other without problem, or there are difficulties because of the language differences?
We come from different and quite far towns, but there are no particular language differences. So no communication problems. Alessandro and Bruno have met each other in Catania, their common hometown. They met Bob in a music festival, where they were performing with their respective past bands, Bruno and Alessandro with “The Boliers” and Bob with “The Ultra Twist”. A few years later, they all moved to Rome, where Alessandro and Francesco met each as roommate. They began playing guitars and writing songs together and soon they decided to start a new band, involving Bruno as drummer and Bob as bass player. We believe that the difference between our origins is one of the keys of the band. Alessandro and Bruno come from Catania, a hot and spirited city, Bob comes from another lively and dynamic town, whereas Francesco comes from a quiet village close to Pescara. These differences reflect on our music styles. So yes, we have different languages, but just “musical languages”. However, this is not a problem, but an unbelievable resource, since playing and writing together is a continuous mutual exchange, which every time creates new songs, new sounds and new atmospheres. We definitely like to be different but to appear as a unity on the stage.

You spent a month together to produce a better sounding in a house on the base of Etna. Was the session successful? Could you use that under ground latent energy?
Definitely yes! We live in Rome, a huge and chaotic (besides beautiful and unique) city. Sometimes we need to escape from the rhythm of the city life in order to find new inspirations. Therefore, when we had to complete our first LP Breaking Sound, we decided to stay a month in a nice house on the base of the Etna, where we had more time and the right atmosphere to write new songs and find out new sounds. Those days were relaxing, inspiring and stimulant. That was the right place in the right moment.

In some songs (e.g. Brain Machine) I have discovered the strong influence of Butthole Surfers. Are there accidents, or are you also big fans of those funny guys?
We know Butthole Surfers and we like their music. Anyway, we do not know if they directly influenced some of our songs. As said before, we are four and we have various and very different musical influences.

Psychedelic music is very trendy nowadays, almost every second village has a psych fest. What do you think about this revival?
We like psychedelic music, we play psychedelic music, so we follow the trend… Psych music surely is not new, but we believe that many bands are proposing new different, modern and interesting interpretations. We think that this kind of music can be fully expressed just during live shows. Therefore, we promote the spread of psych fests and we hope every second village will have more than one psych fest. We are so sure about this that we are contributing to the organization of the first Rome Psych Fest, which will be held in next October.

As band what was your biggest show experience?
We had many unforgettable shows, but if we have to choose one, that is Sarajevo in 2013, during our first European tour. We were very far from home, not only because of physical distance, but also because of history and culture. However, we felt at home. People got really involved by our show and our music. The atmosphere was perfect, in poor words, unforgettable.

Where is Big Mountain County geographically?
As for songs, pictures, or poems, each can have its personal idea about the Big Mountain County. Therefore, we cannot say where it is. In our minds, it is probably on an island, close to the sea, full of sun and green lands. Do you know any place like this?

What are your plans for the future?
In this period, we are promoting out live CD Anachronicle, out for Area Pirata Records. In the same time, we are writing new songs to record our second studio LP, which will be more psych and experimental than “Breaking Sound”. Our idea is to record in autumn and release the album at the beginning of 2017. Meanwhile, in next October, we will share the release of a 12 inches split, out for Annibale Records with the Italian band “Lame”, a project of Stefano Isaia from Movie Star Junkies. It will contain two new tracks by Big Mountain County, one to dance and one to dream.

And for the past? What would you change in the history if you could?
To answer this question is not easy. Everything could be better, but worse also. We think that what is done is done. Fortunately, just music and songs remain. We prefer to learn from the past in order to make the future better.

pic: Gyerage. More BMC at RNR666 Party in Budapest pics