Black Mountain

Black Mountain is a Canadian psychedelic rock band from Vancouver, British Columbia. The band is composed of Stephen McBean, Jeremy Schmidt, Adam Bulgasem, Amber Webber, Arjan Miranda. Since forming in 2004, Black Mountain has released five LPs, Black Mountain (2005), In the Future (2008), Wilderness Heart (2010), IV (2016) and Destroyer (2019); two EPs and a number of singles, mostly on the Jagjaguwar label. Overview Early career Stephen (Gord) Gordon McBean (b. 1969), was born in Vancouver and grew up in Kleinburg and Sidney (BC). As a teenager he became interested in music and became part of the local punk-rock scene in Victoria. He formed his first band, Jerk Ward, in 1981. in 1984, the band recorded a demo that was re-released in 2009 as Too Young To Thrash. The band evolved into Mission of Christ (MOC) who recorded a split 7-inch in 1987. Two years later the band broke up and McBean moved to Vancouver where he started the band Gus. They released two singles, a split EP and an album The Progressive Science of Breeding Idiots for a Dumber Society (1995). The band gave McBean his first experience with extensive touring and he later described the experience as a "bit of noise, bit of Melvins, funk, the Amrep stuff that was going on then. Lots of screaming. Lasted four years". In 1996 McBean asked drummer Joshua Wells (Radio Berlin) to join his band Ex Dead Teenager. By 1999 it had morphed into a duo of Wells and McBean as Jerk With a Bomb. They signed with Scratch Records and Jagjaguwar in the US, and released three albums: Death to False Metal (1999), The Old Noise (2001) and Pyrokinesis (2003). The latter featured Amber Webber of Dream on Dreary on vocals.