Living a (desert) rock life
Eastern philosophy inspires Brant Bjork on latest album
Brant Bjork is sitting in a van traveling to his next stop on tour.
“It’s been good,” he says in a recent phone interview. “We’re having fun.”
Bjork has a long career in music. He is the drummer and a founding member of the legendary stoner rock band Kyuss, from Palm Desert, Calif., and one of the pivotal players in the desert rock scene.
The influential band also featured Josh Homme, John Garcia, and Chris Cockrell, who went on to perform in bands including Queens of the Stone Age, Fu Manchu, Dwarves, Eagles of Death Metal, Mondo Generator and Them Crooked Vultures.
Bjork was part of a movement of desert rock that originated as friends jamming at parties in the desert in the late ’80s and early ’90s known as generator parties, at which musicians and fans would gather at throw parties powered by a generator at locations announced shortly before the parties.
Since the end of Kyuss in the mid’90s, Bjork went on to play in a number of bands, including Fu Manchu, and has enjoyed a successful solo career, releasing eight studio albums. He has also released several more with Brant Bjork and the Bros and Brant Bjork and the Low Desert Punk Band.
His latest is the “Tao of the Devil,” which took nine months to complete.
“We kind of took our time with this record,” he says. “Not to say we were in the studio endlessly recording. We tried out different sounds and engineers over
that course of time.”
Bjork says he wanted to make the best batch of songs that made a solid album.
“I really don’t know where the title came from,” he says with a laugh. “I’ve always had an interest in Eastern philosophy. And I was taking an interest in the concept of the devil and the occult and how it’s a scary thing. I found the humor in it all.”
After years of touring around the world, Bjork says it’s still the music that keeps him on the road.
“It’s difficult to be away from my family,” he says. “But I do enjoy being on stage and sharing the music. That makes it worth all of the horrid travel.”