LIFE LESSONS
BRANT BJORK
The godfather of stoner rock remembers generator parties, the breakdown of Kyuss, and supporting Metallica
WORDS: RICH HOBSON
BRANT BJORK IS
the godfather of stoner rock. As the drummer and one of the chief creative forces in Kyuss, he helped put desert rock on the map in the early 90s. Even after his departure from the band – following 1994’s seminal
Welcome To Sky Valley
– he continued to popularise stoner rock via his work in Fu Manchu, Fatso Jetson and Mondo Generator, as well as a solo career that launched with 1999’s
Jalamanta.
This century, he’s remained a prolific creative force. Between the short-lived Kyuss reunion (sans guitarist Josh Homme) under the name Vista Chino, side-projects Ché and Stöner and a whopping 16 solo albums to date, Brant continues to shape the stoner metal pantheon. Hammer cornered him to find out what gems of wisdom he’s picked up along the way.
MUSIC TRANSCENDS GENERATIONS
“I wasn’t raised by my blood parents; the folks who raised me were older than my peers’ parents by about 10 years. They were in high school when rock’n’roll first came around, so I grew up with a lot of their music – Little Richard, Buddy Holly, Fats Domino… That was probably the first music that got my blood boiling.”
HARD LIVING BREEDS HARD PEOPLE
“When I got older and met my real mom, she was the most powerful woman I ever met in my life. She was a heavy, heavy woman, very radical. She’d lived on the streets and ran with the Hells Angels, she’d lived a very difficult life but she was so strong, you know? She could make anybody laugh and was very, very cool.”