Interview by Mark Lacey
Despite a 13 year career, and five albums to their name, the illustrious Blacktop Mojo have never ventured across the pond. However, the success of their recent album ‘Pollen’ combined with their longstanding friendship with Shaman’s Harvest, cemented an opportunity for both bands to take the plunge and come across together. For two acts who have never toured the UK, the warm and enthusiastic reception has been both a welcome surprise to the bands, but also a validation of the hard work it took to make it happen. Shortly before their sold-out date in London, Matt James (vocals) and Catt Murtis (bass) took time to talk backstage with MyGlobalMind.com.
MGM: You’re over in the UK for the first time, and you’ve travelled over from Texas, right? Where abouts are you from?
Cat: We’re from a little town called Palestine. It’s about two hours south of Dallas and two hours north of Houston. When we started, we would have to head into Dallas or Houston or Austin; one of the bigger cities. But we’re a few hours from all of them.
MGM: For a lot of people coming to see you on this tour, this will be an introduction to Blacktop Mojo’s music? How would you describe what you do?
Matt: It’s a mix of a lot of different genres, I’d say a little bit of metal, a little bit of grunge, a little bit of country, blues. Just all in a melting pot together, man.
Cat: Yeah. Heavy rock with a little Southern swagger.
MGM: MyGlobalMind.com recently spoke to Nate from Shaman’s Harvest, and he discussed their plans to come across with Black Stone Cherry a few years ago, but it fell through because of COVID. There’s a lot of similarities between Blacktop Mojo and those two other groups, and you’re sharing the stage with Shaman’s Harvest on this tour. It’s a great combination. The band have been playing together just over 13 years, but it’s a different line-up now to those early days. Bring us up to speed with the origins of the band and your journey so far.
Matt: I graduated college. I was working in a coffee shop in Palestine, and I would book acoustic gigs in there, and if I couldn’t get anybody to play that night, then I would play myself. So, there were a lot of nights where I told the owner, I couldn’t find anybody, because it was a lot more fun playing than making sandwiches and coffee. But our drummer, Nathan and I would run into each other. We got drunk one night, and I was like, I’m playing at the coffee shop tomorrow. Come check it out. He came with a couple of buddies, and he likes to say that he scouted me like an A&R rep. I went back to his house that night and I brought a bottle of Crown whiskey over. He had a drumset set up in his living room, and he played on it for just about a minute. I was like, alright, why don’t we start band? Let’s do this.
MGM: So, after you and Nathan started this out, Catt joined 2-3 years later, and Malcolm joined just a few years ago. What was your vision for Blacktop Mojo when you originally put the band together?
Matt: I just wanted to play music. I didn’t even know what that meant, man. I just liked playing guitar in my apartment, and I liked playing guitar at parties and stuff like that. I was the annoying guy in the corner with the acoustic guitar at parties in college. I just figured we’d start a band, whatever that meant. And then we just figured it out along the way, I guess.
MGM: You’re now five albums in, and amazingly it looks like the majority of those albums have been self-released. What’s that journey been like, putting music out under your own steam?
Matt: All of it, actually. It’s been a labour of love for sure. There’s drawbacks to whichever way you do it; whether you’re with a label or whether you’re doing it on your own. We’ve been fortunate enough to have enough success doing it on our own thus far, and hopefully that continues.
MGM: Your first album ‘I Am’ is quite different to your current sound; it’s raw, and almost feels like it was recorded live, whereas your new album has a really high level of production. Was that a conscious decision to move on that direction?
Matt: It was for the most part. I think most of us had never been in a studio at the point of our first album, so it was a learning experience, and a learn by doing type of thing.
Cat: I think we all just got better. My first record with the band was the second record, ‘Burn the Ships’. I had grown up in studios, so I already had that experience, and they had already gotten their feet wet from the first album. From that album forward, we just kept getting better and better at what we did. I think this last album, we just really refined it, but we also simplified everything. The last couple of records, we did a lot of pre-production. We would work the songs, hammer them out bit by bit, so that when we went into the studio, it was like we’d press record and we were getting it all done right there. This last album, we took our time, just the basic ideas and structures of the songs, and we did it old school and just wrote the songs in the studio. Making them in studio was a different path for us. But it turned out to be what it is. We think the ‘Pollen’ record is one of the best things we’ve done.
Matt: I think it’s like anything. Practise makes perfect. We went in the first time and you learn a little bit, you go in the second time and you have more of an idea of how we can do this. After five albums, you get a lot of practice.
MGM: Your last album ‘Pollen’ came out last year. It’s really anthemic, and it feel familiar to bands like Black Stone Cherry and Nickelback with a mixture of hard-hitting sounds and a Southern flavour. There’s some interesting song titles on there; ‘Should have just gone to sleep’, ‘Please Don’t Call’, ‘The End is Gonna Come’ and ‘As The Light Fades’.
Kiss me darlin as the light fades
Hold me close before it’s too late
Free and easy baby don’t wait
Kiss me darlin as the light fades
Matt: The best songs come from pain, right? You take a little inspiration. I like to say they’re not all super autobiographical. It’ll be like this one little piece of a moment, and then you blow it up and make it into a story. You know what I mean?
MGM: You’re on tour with Shaman’s Harvest right now. Their singer, Nate, recently talked to MyGlobalMind.com, and he mentioned that people could always tell when he was working on a new record because he used to put himself in a place of misery when he starts writing. You know these guys from back home, right? How well do you know each other?
Matt: Really well, actually. We’re friends. Nate actually did a song with us on the last record. He lives out there in Nashville now. That’s where we cut the record. He was there pretty much the whole time, hanging out. We’ve played a lot of shows together too.
MGM: It seems like your brand of music is really resonating right now, both here and in the US.
Matt: I think there’s a resurgence going on right now for authentic types of music. You’ve got guys like Tyler Childers and Zack Bryan. They’re just getting up there with acoustic guitars and stuff and really leading the charge for authentic music.
Cat: What we consider country now is getting so close to the edge of where we’ve already been playing in the rock world, that it’s like everybody’s gravitating more toward the original rock n roll sound.
MGM: It seemed like quite a brave move for Blacktop Mojo and Shaman’s Harvest to be venturing over to the UK for the first time, and playing these large venues across 16 dates. You’ve hardly released any music over here, but the shows have been jam packed. You must be really pleased about that?
Matt: We’re really excited, man. We’re very pleasantly surprised by the reception here.
Cat: It’s turned out a bit insane. We’re a bit taken back by it.
Matt: It’s been amazing, man. The tough part was all the planning and all the getting it together. And now we get to enjoy it. We were definitely looking forward to coming to London. We’ve never been to London.
Cat: I’ve been excited about every place because this is all a new territory for us. None of us have ever been here.
Matt: When you set up in a band and you start touring, you get the opportunity to come and see all these new places. People save up their whole lives to go on vacation and come to these places. We get to do it, and at the same time, we get to go play rock n roll and just have a good time.
MGM: What are your plans beyond this tour: Do you have more plans across in the US?
Matt: We’re putting together a tour right now for June. We got a couple of things going on later in the year. It’ll be a heavy touring year for us, for sure. Then hopefully, over the holidays, maybe we can write some more music and put a new record together.
We bow out with ‘It Won’t Last’ although given the star that is rapidly rising for Blacktop Mojo, somehow we doubt it…
For more information:
https://blacktopmojo.com/
www.facebook.com/BlacktopMojo
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