This interview was conducted by Philip A. Wickstrand with bass guitarist Dave Hoopaugh and vocalist Uta Plotkin at Plan B in Portland, OR on June 10, 2010.

The Metal community in Portland, Oregon has been steadily raising it's stock over the last decade or so, both in terms of quality and visibility. One of the older active bands, and the first Doom Metal band in the area, is WITCH MOUNTAIN. Formed in 1997 and long toiling away at the music they love, WITCH MOUNTAIN have been a staple in our community. However, prior to the introduction of vocalist Uta Plotkin, they had only recorded one album, Come the Mountain, all the way back in 2001. Ten years is a long time to wait between records, but their new album, South of Salem, proves that good things do indeed come to those who wait.

Phil: First of all, tell us a bit about the new album, South of Salem.

Uta: I jumped on at the last minute pretty much, so most of the songs were written. I think there was one song that was written afterward; there's one song that I did all of the vocals and lyrics for and the rest are all of Rob's vocals and lyrics, but I changed some of them, so partially co-written. I jumped on and it worked out.

Dave: I would say in addition the record is literally ten years in the making as far as compositions are concerned. Wing of the Lord is probably the first tune that we wrote after I joined the band, so that probably goes back to at least early 2001 and Hare's Stare followed shortly after that. The rest of the tunes… I guess South Sugar, originally titled South Salad, we had to change the title and some lyrics on that, and End Game was actually the last song we wrote before the hiatus of WITCH MOUNTAIN that Rob [guitarist] and I also did in [IOMMI] STUBBS, though it became a much better song when Rob and I returned to WITCH MOUNTAIN, but Plastic Cage was also written when we were doing STUBBS for that year or so with the original drummer, Dean. I think that's about it. And the record was pretty much off the cuff, but it's the live, more amped up take on End Game.

Uta: It was just a happy coincidence that I too grew up south of Salem. [laughter] The recording process was really easy and fun at Smegma. I spent maybe one or two days doing the vocals. It was really easy to work with Billy Anderson.

Dave: Yeah, recording with Billy… that was a very long running process. We've been talking with him… we've all known Billy since the '90s and even way back then we were talking about doing records with Billy, whether it was any number of the bands that Rob and I were in or myself and so forth, so it was excellent to finally have the opportunity on South of Salem.

Phil: How's the distribution process going for the album? Are you finding that you're able to get it into a lot of different markets around the U.S.?

Uta: Well, I have absolutely nothing to do with the distribution process. [laughs] From what I've seen, our publicist is doing a really good job getting our album reviewed on all sorts of sites.

Phil: Kim does good work.

Uta: Yeah. So that's all I know. [laughs]

Dave: It seems like the demand is there at least. I mean, it's kind of a limited run on vinyl initially. The avenues that we have at this point have been really successful. I think more or less people are pursuing us for the record. It's done really well in the stores locally, which is neat for sure. I know that both Nate and Rob do a lot of personal distribution; they've hand delivered quite a few records and I think that's really important to have access to make something like that happen. Most bands probably aren't actually hand delivering their records these days. But yeah, hopefully opportunities will exist that either we can continue repressing it ourselves or seems like there's some interest otherwise, so we'll see how that all pans out.

Phil: Are there currently any plans to issue the album on CD?

Uta: Not that I know of… but there was one person who approached us about a short run.

Dave: Yeah, I think the offers are there. Once again, that's Nate's business and I appreciate that - he's far better at those things than I am myself. I think it will eventually come out on CD, probably sooner than later.

Phil: Uta, tell us a bit about how you came to join WITCH MOUNTAIN.

Uta: I was interning with Nate for Nanotear at first and that just happened because I'd been going to Nate's shows and noticing that a lot of them were really good. So he advertised on MySpace and for some reason I happened to be browsing the bulletin board at the time and I said "Hey, I'm interested." So I did that for a few months before they found out I could sing well [laughs] and then asked me to do A Power Greater at the PENTAGRAM at the Satyricon. That was the first time I sang with them and I thought that was just going to be a novelty thing, but I guess they were auditioning me. [laughs] And it went well, so they asked if I wanted to start singing with them full time and thought it made a lot of sense, so I said yes and here I am.

Phil: Dave, tell us a bit further history, back to when you were new in WITCH MOUNTAIN for those readers who may not have heard of you prior to this year.

Dave: I joined in 2000 and of course I'd known both Nate and Rob many years prior to that; Rob and I had first started playing together in '94 when he joined IOMMI STUBBS. Then when we kind of wrapped it up initially in '98, Nate and Rob started WITCH MOUNTAIN and went through a series of bass players; I don't remember whether I'm number six or number seven, but the previous bass players were all pals of mine. I was a fan of  the band when Homegrown Doom had come out,  I'd listened to it quite a bit so I was very familiar with the music when they asked me whether or not I wanted to join, so it was a pretty simple process. We got together in 2000, Come the Mountain was done at that point, complete… but we all agreed that it would be beneficial if we got my bass parts on the record, so I went in after maybe a week of just kind of running through the material, myself and a second guitar player, Johnny Belluzzi, who had recorded Come the Mountain. So we got the material together and basically started overdubbing our parts onto the record. It's kind of funny, the fact of the matter is that more or less was my first involvement with the band was re-recording the bass parts. Over the years, of course, of those songs we still perform… I mean, all our parts have probably changed drastically, but yeah, it went from a very primitive period of just learning the songs to actually playing it throughout the last ten years. WITCH MOUNTAIN has changed consistently through the years and now we're definitely at our best with Uta in the band.

Phil: Tell us a bit about what's going on with IOMMI STUBBS right now - on hiatus again or…?

Dave: IOMMI STUBBS has probably, for all practical purposes, been put to rest indefinitely. The record, Rockandrollodor, I would love to see eventually repackaged and re-released. It's been so long as far as dealing with that band from a business angle that it'd be great if that opportunity came about. I mean, there was only 666 pressings done on vinyl and I like the fact that it's relatively exclusive and I get a kick on seeing it pop up on eBay these days. I don't really know. If we did it, it would definitely have to be with Chris Cuthbert, our drummer on the record, who's been in POISON IDEA now for eleven or twelve years, something like that. We're relatively out of touch and it would take coordinating with him and having everybody in a healthy mindset to do it again, which I know Rob and I would enjoy immensely but I think we both feel like this is the band for us right now certainly.

Phil: Uta, tell our readers a bit about your other band, ARANYA.

Uta: My personal project, which I've been working on for a couple years before I joined WITCH MOUNTAIN, and we're definitely starting from scratch and WITCH MOUNTAIN is helping us get some more visibility which I am grateful for but it's way more artsy; a crazy mixture of a bunch of different styles, so that's an outlet for my creativity and my spirituality on a grand scale and then WITCH MOUNTAIN… I'm especially excited about it because I get to sing Blues-ier and a more Soul style, which I never really thought I would get to do in the Metal scene, but I've always loved Soul, so it's great. I get the best of both worlds with both those bands.

Phil: Tell us why there are no WITCH MOUNTAIN stickers. [laughter]

Dave: Well, as you heard, probably both Nate and Rob talk of and this is what I was told when I asked on first joining the band - you print a sticker, then your band will break up. [laughter] So in order to avoid that silly superstition, WITCH MOUNTAIN decided early on, well before me, that they would do no stickers and that's why we have no stickers. [laughter]

Phil: Recommend a book for our readers and then explain why you recommend that particular work.

Uta: I just finished reading Indian Killer by Sherman Alexie, so I'll recommend that one. It's a really great book. He wrote a bunch of other books and he also wrote the screenplay for Smoke Signals. He's a Native American writer and this book is set in Seattle and it deals with a lot of race issues, stratification issues, but it's also a murder mystery about a murderer is going around and killing and scalping white men. It's really well written, it's a great book and I would recommend it because it addresses a lot of important issues and at the same time is entertaining.

Dave: That's a tough question, but I'm going to say Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson. I'm not going to go into any detail as far as why I really enjoyed that book but more than anything, I feel it was just very representative of what it would be like to be raised and grow old in rural Norway across the border from Sweden. There's some really interesting contrasts and darkness in the story that was relatively simple. It was a thoroughly engaging, easy read. I haven't read a book recently that I've been as engaged with, so I would recommend it.

Phil: What are the future plans for WITCH MOUNTAIN?

Uta: We're planning on more touring, West Coast and otherwise, planning on Europe. Eventually Japan would be nice. We're planning on another album, hopefully getting into the studio by the end of this year. Just keep trying to keep this momentum going.

Dave: I'd say at this point we're halfway there as far as another LP is concerned, so we'll continue working on the material we have been, including what is in our current setlist and a number of other ideas on the table, but in the meantime we're going to try to get out as often as we can. Still kind of waiting for that really nice opportunity to take advantage of, but we've been having some good offers for tours and such and as Uta said, I think we all would love to get overseas. I would think that would be a priority as far as I'm concerned. I know the rest of us feel the same thing - getting over to Europe is probably a very important endeavor for WITCH MOUNTAIN.

Phil: Just one last question - which mountain?

Dave: Mount Shasta.

Uta: Mount Olympus.

Phil: Is there anything else you'd like to add?

Dave: We appreciate this opportunity, Phil - you've been an important aspect in the current Portland Metal scene and it's bigger now than it ever has been and it's really cool to have been in this sound for nearly twenty years and watch the evolution of Portland Metal. Mind you, it wasn't always like this, so it's pretty fun to see it happen.

Uta: Thank you for always being so supportive of the local bands. We really appreciate it.

Witch Mountain

Interviewer: Philip A. Wickstrand

June 21, 2011

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TO THE TOP

(Click on Photo to Enlarge)

Formed: 1997
    Portland, Oregon  USA
Label: Rage of Achilles Records
Genre: Stoner Metal / Rock

CURRENT LINE-UP:

Uta Plotkin:  Vocals
Rob Wrong:  Guitars
Dave Hoopaugh:  Bass
Nate Carson:  Drums

DISCOGRAPHY:

Homegrown Doom EP (2000)
Come the Mountain (2001)
South of Salem (2011)

PHOTOS BY PHIL A. WICKSTRAND

(Click on Photos to Enlarge)