Stöner: Boogie Nights

STÖNER have just released their latest EP Boogie To Baja and it’s a fun blast of epic grooves that is sure to get any party started and keeping with the bands uplifting and free vibe that they have created with their music. On the day of release for the EP, we had a chat with guitarist/vocalist, the illustrious Brant Bjork, who told us all about Boogie To Baja and what will be coming up from STÖNER in the future as well as discussing his solo career, his love of hardcore and more.

Speaking to Brant on the day that Boogie To Baja is released, the first line of enquiry is what he will be doing to celebrate the EPs arrival and his response was low-key but excited for it as he also expanded into the creation of it. “Well, it’s not such a big celebration on my end. I mean, I love the record and we recorded it at the same  time as the Totally… sessions. So we look at it as an extension of Totally…. I mean, I love this EP. I think it’s great. We had a good time putting those songs together, and my celebration is just being excited to it finally being released.”

As with the Totally… album, Boogie To Baja also features a guest appearance by CIRCLE JERKS/BAD RELIGION guitar legend Greg Heston, who guests on the band’s cover of City Kids by PINK FAIRIES (also memorably covered by the supreme MOTÖRHEAD) and Brant enthused about another appearance on a STÖNER release by the hardcore punk six stringer extraordinaire as he told us how it was working with him. “Oh, it was great, we were all huge fans of CIRCLE JERKS, BAD RELIGION and Greg specifically. We’ve known Greg, as a person and as a musician, for many years and it was a pleasure. He decided to come up, sit down and sit in on a track and we were really stoked, he’s a great guitar player.”

With hardcore royalty in the shape of Greg Hetson discussed, the Boogie To Baja track It Ain’t Free which is a total hardcore song comes up and Brant excitedly tells us all about how hardcore influenced him and his STÖNER bandmate Nick Oliveri in their music. “Punk rock and hardcore was my main influence and I think I speak for Nick as well. I came of age in the DIY era so of course I was going to the store and buying records which was DIY stuff too, all the first wave punk rock like THE RAMONES, THE SEX PISTOLS and GEN X and then it got even more more intense and more real with MINOR THREAT, BLACK FLAG and D.O.A. Those are the records that I grew up on and it wasn’t just the music, it was the urgency and the energy. I just took note that these guys were putting out their own records as well.”

Going back to the music of STÖNER, Brant told us all about the ethos of the band and how they wanted their music to be the fun soundtrack to an epic backyard party. “That was the idea that I had when I conceptualised the band. I told Nick, I want to take this music back to a time when we weren’t so ambitious and we just wanted to rock for the fun of it, almost like an escapism, if you will, which is  predominantly what rock music is.”

This aspect of fun is what makes STÖNER so exciting and Brant tells us that making music with Nick and drummer Ryan Güt in the band is as fun as it gets for him. “Having fun was what it was all about! For me personally, putting this band together, of musicians that I’ve been playing with for years, Nick, I have known my whole life. I was like, Hey, man, let’s just get together and have some fun and it just kind of snowballed.”

While there will be a new STÖNER album in the future, the band are actually taking a bit of time off but will be back soon with new music. In the meantime, Brant reveals that he is hard at work on a new solo album. “I’m back to solo work as we speak. I’m currently writing and working on a project that I am kind of keeping under wraps for the moment, but I’ll be busy all year, then I’ll be back. I’m going to do some scattered shows solo shows this year. I got Mario Lalli on bass, Ryan Güt on drums, a power trio.”

We end this brilliant chat with Brant telling us in hardcore fashion about how it feels to still be doing what he loves so long after that first backyard party and he references one of the greatest to ever do it in not just hardcore, but music in general about how it shaped his music and work ethic which is instrumental in him still doing what he loves to this day. “I wanted to be BLACK FLAG. I wanted to be in a van touring the country and playing shows to all the freaks, all the weirdos, all the misfits, all the outcasts, because that’s what I was, and that’s what I still do.”

Boogie To Baja is out now via Heavy Psych Sounds.

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