Photo: Press
Desert Mountain Tribe are a London based three-piece who have been picking up a global following with their heady psych-rock, falling perfectly between the reverb-smitten shoegaze of The Verve circa A Storm In Heaven, and the hedonistic rock’n’roll of The Black Angels or Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. Following the release of their 2016 debut Either That or the Moon they’ve been busy picking up rave reviews across the board and touring continually across the US and Europe, and they’re showing no signs of slowing down either.
Having only recently finished their second US tour, DMT – comprised of Jonty Balls (guitar and vocals), and brothers Philipp and Felix Jahn (bass and drums respectively) – are in the midst of another European run in support of their new EP If You Don’t Know Can You Don’t Know Köln. After an apparently much-need weekend off from their busy touring schedule I caught up with the band before their show at London Fields Brewhouse to discuss their busy year and what lays ahead.
So, how’s tour been going? “Absolutely brilliant. The people, the crowds, it’s just fucking nuts. It’s been quite a surprise actually, it really shows the progress of how it’s all going” This progress Jonty talks about is impossible to ignore, in the last few years they’ve been touring non-stop, playing shows with the likes of Damo Suzuki of CAN, Ringo Deathstarr and TOY. Felix excitedly adds: “We’ve finally got to the stage where people are singing along to the songs which is really cool”- further proof that their dedicated fan-base is continuing to grow.
The current tour is in support of the new EP, If You Don’t Know Can You Don’t Know Köln, a four-track that sees the band take a different, more acoustically-driven approach. They explain that following an acoustic session for Sofar Sounds they made a spontaneous decision to just go into the studio and mix things up, ditching the full blown-out amps: “When we hit the studio none of the songs had proper endings, some didn’t have any lyrics and one of the tracks wasn’t even written until the day… it’s a completely different approach to the album and you can definitely tell”.
The title of the EP, and the opening track in particular, see DMT pay homage to the seminal krautrock greats of Felix and Philipp’s homeland, Germany – it’s a declaration of love for the likes of Kraftwerk, CAN and Neu!. When asked how the name of the EP came about Felix harks back to a drunken night out in Köln: “There’s a really big techno scene out there and the DJs think they’re kings or something but they don’t know anything about Köln’s musical heritage... We went out and this DJ didn’t know who CAN were and we were just like ‘What the fuck, if you don’t know CAN you don’t know Köln’ and we just decided to call the EP that”. Philipp explains that whilst Hitzefrei sounds pretty different from the rest of the tracks on the EP he “imagines there will be much more of that on the album” – I certainly hope so too because in my opinion it’s their strongest cut yet.
They also recently released a new version of the single ‘Enos In Space’ with a brand new mix from Youth (or Martin Glover, a founding member of Killing Joke and producer extraordinaire). When asked about how this collaboration came about Jonty explains: “Me and Andrew [DMT’s manager] went to his birthday party a few years ago and they were all very drunk, put it that way, so we gave him an EP and Andrew stayed in contact and sent over the track at some point. We didn’t hear anything back for ages but then he just sent over the new mix out of the blue and it sounded fucking amazing”
In regards to future plans, there’s talk of the second LP being written and recorded in June/July when the band finally get a break from touring and it certainly looks like they’re going to be keeping themselves busy in the meantime too, Felix revealing: “We’ve got a mini tour documentary from our East Coast tour coming out sometime this year and we have a new video for ‘Interstellar’, the last song from the debut, which will be quite ground-breaking… this idea has never done before”. There’s clearly a lot in the pipeline for Desert Mountain Tribe and if the last year is anything to go by then these guys are clearly only just getting started.
DMT play Camden Rocks on Saturday 3 June
