Last year, Hillstomp released Darker The Night (In Music We Trust). We experienced something grittier, deeper, and more hypnotizing than we have from this Portland band. We knew this duo could churn out some impressive garage-junk blues and make the Northwestern duo sound like a group of rebel-rousers barefoot stomping their way from the Kentucky bluegrass to the Mississippi sweat of the Delta. This ideology has saturated their career, and you should thank them for preserving a style of American music that not just anyone can do and do it well. John Johnson will be the first to say are just musicians doing what they do. But listening to the new album, we know better.

Link: http://www.hillstomp.com/

Your latest album “Darker The Night” takes the Hillstomp sound up a notch. How do you view your accomplishment?

Well, we’re really proud of it.  We worked pretty hard on this record trying to get something that sounded better and captured more energy than our previous albums.  We think we did a pretty good job.

What were you influenced at the time to create an album like “Darker The Night?”

Nothing terribly different really.  The songs that we happened to have ready to record were a little darker in nature, so that’s how the record came out.  Our sound has definitely taken on a more Appalachian feel in the last year or two.  Henry bought a banjo and went on a Doc Boggs binge, so that’s coming out these days.

How do you keep your non-traditional elements and instruments as an integral part of who you are and not just novelty?

Honestly, we don’t make much of a specific effort in that regard.  All the stuff about our band that some might see as novelty is simply how we learned to play this music. And we’ve been doing it so long we don’t really give it a second thought. The buckets, cans, car parts, old mics and the like are just our instruments plain and simple.  If people think they’re novelty, then in my humble opinion they aren’t listening very closely.

There is nothing quite like what you do. How did the band’s sound come about and what brought you to the musical style that the you exhibit today?

Thanks! Honestly, it’s a long series of happy accidents. Way back when, Henry bought a slide and it fit on his index finger so that’s where he played it.  Nobody told him he wasn’t supposed to do that, so he just did it.  Figured shit out as best he could his own way.  It’s helped give him a really distinct guitar style.  I set out to play on junk because we didn’t really plan to be a “real” band and I didn’t have any drums (or know how to play them) and it just grew from there.  We just kind of set about trying to play this music together any way we could.  Over the years things have honed naturally as we’ve played more and more shows and it just is what it is at this point.

With the latest album, you utilize the musical community of the Portland scene to help out. What led to that decision and how did that meet your expectations? Why did you add these musicians to the recording roster?

We’ve used a couple of them in the past as well.  We’ve kind of always used friends on our records.  The harmonica player has played on all four.  We did a little more than usual this time around mainly because we consciously decided to make a record for it’s own sake and not worry about the live show.   The result is, in our opinion anyway, the best record we’ve ever made, so it worked out quite well.  All our friends played beautifully I think.  We couldn’t have been happier with their contributions.

How does all of this transcribe to the live stage?

Well, most of these songs were honed live before we recorded them, so it’s not been a problem for the most part.  We just continue to go out and play our asses off and it seems to work fine.  I think most people still think that no record can compare to the live experience at a Hillstomp show.  I’m proud to say we got a lot closer with Darker the Night. Gave the live show a run for its money.

How avid blues fans are you and do you include any favorite traditional songs in your live context?

A good friend once said something to the effect of “I don’t like about 90% of what passes for blues in the world.  The other 10% is what I live my life for.”  It’s kind of like that.  We are big fans of a lot of the old stuff.  Guys we’ve mentioned a ton: RL Burnside, Junior Kimbrough, Fred McDowell.  Lightnin Hopkins, Bukka White and on and on.  Then, we’re also big fans of a lot of what might be called “punk” blues or “alternative” blues.  Jawbone, Bob Log III, Scott H Biram, Black Diamond Heavies and the like.  But the vast majority of mainstream blues for the last 50 years is…pointless to me I guess.  We’ve always played old traditional and blues numbers live John Henry has always
been a staple as well as tunes by a lot of the old guys I mentioned above.

What attracts you two the most to the blues style?

Well in the case of the blues we like, I guess it’s probably the primal, raw nature of it. Also the trance-like qualities that you often get from it.  For me, it’s the same as attracts me to the other styles of music I like.  The feeling that something real and human is taking place.  That someone is making this music not because they can, but because they have to.

Do you ever feel limited to what you do, or do you feel like the pairing down of the sound to its bare-bones primal essentials of musicianship is liberating compared to many of the other groups out there?

It’s still working for me.  Liberating is a good way to put it.  I get to spend a lot more time feeling and a lot less time thinking when we play.  I get to get lost.  Disappear.

What do you have planned for 2011?

We’ll be in Europe for 3 weeks or so in May and June.  Other than that, things are nebulous.  We’re bad planners.