Mount Carmel Interview: SXSW 2010

Posted on Mar 1st 2010 3:00PM by Christopher Engelhardt
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For an unsigned band that's never been on tour and has only existed for a year, Mount Carmel is slowly but steadily becoming an on-the-rise act. The three-piece rock band from Columbus, Ohio is heading to Austin, Texas to play at this year's SXSW festival, and their debut LP is being released on Silt Breeze Records in May. The trio, influenced by bands such as Derek & the Dominos, Ten Years After, and the Allman Brothers, doesn't plan on slowing down anytime soon. Spinner recently spoke with Patrick Reed, bassist and secondary singer, about the band's upcoming performance at SXSW.

Describe your sound in your own words.

[We're] just a rock band, man. Pretty simple.

How did your band form?

[Matthew Reed, frontman and guitarist and I] just started fooling around jamming, and we found Kevin [Skubak, drummer] and started jamming around. A buddy of ours was in a band and [asked if we wanted to] open a show for [them]. We opened a show for them, and we started playing shows, man. It all just kinda happened like that, pretty much. It wasn't really like a thought-out process or anything.

What are your musical influences?

A lot of old rock, blues, country-stuff, jazz-stuff we listened to on the radio coming up when we were younger. Bands like Derek & the Dominos, Ten Years After, the Allman Brothers.

How did you come up with your band name?

[Mount Carmel is] a hospital here in town. Me and my brother were both born at that hospital.

What's your biggest vice?

We don't have a lot of vices. I wouldn't really say that there is one, man. We're not super crazy dudes I guess.

What's in your festival survival kit?

We got a van, we got our equipment. Some clothes, a little bit of money and a spare tire.

What's your musical guilty pleasure?

The Rascal Flatts [laughs]. We really like that 'Fast Cars and Freedom' song. Anything that we like we're not ashamed of. We like what we like, and we're happy to tell you what that is. We're not too concerned about it.

Beatles or Stones?

That's a tough one. It's too hard of a choice to make. [We] love both the Beatles and the Stones. Let's say this: Which band would I rather be in? The Stones. I think they had more fun. They had a bit of a dark side to their music that I like.

What can you tell me about your upcoming LP?

It's a seven or eight song LP. The CD has an extra track. It's just a straightforward rock album. We did it in a day at Musical Studios on a two inch tape. We had been a band for about five months when we did it. Basically, it wasn't planned out. We just played kind of what we were playing as our live set at that point and time. None of us had ever been into a studio, or done anything like that. So, we went in there, played it all live together. Tom, from Silt Breeze, somebody in town had given him a copy and he contacted us and said, "Hey, I'm really interested in putting this out." And we were like, "We just made it as a demo. We want to put it out just like it is." And that was that.

Are you guys excited to be playing in Austin, Texas?

We're real excited. To come down, have a good time and play a good show. We've never done anything like this. And none of us have ever tried to do anything like this. We weren't trying to do anything when we started the band. We're definitely excited. Playing a couple of shows in our hometown with no expectations, to within a year going down to Austin and having a record [coming] out, has been really cool for us. We're all real happy about it.

Christopher Engelhardt is a contributor from Seed.com. Learn how you can contribute here.