Brant Bjork Doesn't Dig The Hype, Man

06/06/07 6:00pm

by Shehzaad Jiwani (CHARTattack)

Brant Bjork has been a figurehead of stoner rock for a long time. He's one of the founding members of seminal desert rockers Kyuss, bashed the skins for Fu Manchu and has released his own material. No matter whom he's affiliated with, though, the one constant in his music is that it's always pure and true rock 'n' roll. This has never been better exemplified than on his new release, Somera Sol, with his latest band, Brant Bjork And The Bros.

"To me it's just a rock record in the traditional sense," says Bjork. "It's a live record performed by live musicians on analogue instruments and to analogue tape.

"It's traditional and it's ritualistic, and it's classic rock the way I grew up on it. Everything up to about early to mid-'90s, before the whole digital revolution took over. I don't play that game."

The songwriter has always maintained a grassroots aesthetic to both his music and the way he does business through his own label, Duna Records. Bjork doesn't jive with the current musical climate, both in terms of how it's made and how it's distributed.

"I think it sucks," he states flatly. "I don't think it's evolution.

"I think it's devolution. I don't like where the state of music is. I'm just part of it indirectly because I love music and that's what I do, so I have to be part of it. But as far as rock goes, there's very few bands that I respect, and I don't even listen to contemporary music, really.

"I don't care for it, man. It's all corporate, big business now. It's all digitized and there's no respect for the tradition. I do my own thing. That's the way I hear it and that's the way I like it."

Bjork retains a grizzled attitude many rockers share, but there's never any bitterness in his voice. As a student of music, he simply remains entrenched in his own work and doesn't concern himself with whether or not the mainstream will come around.

"There was a time when Led Zeppelin would do three nights at Madison Square Garden, and it must have been a beautiful world. In this day and age, again, we can write novels and go on and on about why that's not the case, but I play music in that tradition. It's heartfelt, it's roots rock and it's real and organic.

"I feel I grew up on the best of rock music, so I feel like I'm just giving back to the world of rock. If the mainstream's not into it, that's not my problem. There's so many reasons why, and I can't get caught up in those reasons, man. I'd drive myself nuts. I just play my music. I'm not anti-anything, I just know what I like."

Like many of Bjork's desert rock compatriots, he has the outlook of someone who's been around the block a few times and understands the game and his place in it.

"It's independent, I'm moving at my own pace and I don't got the big corporate bucks hyping it up, man. I'm appreciative of that. I'd rather move 20,000 records with no hype than two million with a shit load of hype. There's no hype. It's the real deal."

When asked to define the spirit of rock 'n' roll, Bjork sums it up in a word (and an extra word that he adds to almost every sentence).

"Freedom, man," he declares without a pause. "Fuck yeah."

Brant Bjork And The Bros play Toronto's El Mocambo on Thursday and the Bovine Sex Club on Friday as part of the North By Northeast Music Festival.