{"id":18152,"date":"2019-09-11T09:00:04","date_gmt":"2019-09-11T16:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=18152"},"modified":"2019-09-13T09:16:26","modified_gmt":"2019-09-13T16:16:26","slug":"vancouver-psych-rockers-black-mountain-talk-success-and-balance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2019\/09\/11\/vancouver-psych-rockers-black-mountain-talk-success-and-balance\/","title":{"rendered":"Vancouver psych-rockers Black Mountain talk success and balance"},"content":{"rendered":"

Any performer can appreciate that distinct feeling that comes with the responsibility of holding a crowd\u2019s attention. As a stand-up comedian, I can value that feeling of nervousness or excitement that fills you when everybody\u2019s eyes are on you, waiting in anticipation. Black Mountain keyboardist Jeremy Schmidt has found his band playing in front of some pretty big crowds over the years as the Vancouver band has grown in popularity; he says that, for him, tapping into something perhaps not associated with his band\u2019s big psychedelic rock sound is key before a show.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou know, usually just serenity,\u201d he says. \u201cTry and hold onto a fraction of serenity and get into the game spirit.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The members of Vancouver\u2019s Black Mountain have had to learn to balance success with their personal lives (photo by Olivia Jaffe).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I don\u2019t think anyone could argue that being an aspiring musician, or any artist for that matter, is an incredibly difficult and exhausting pursuit. Living your dream is certainly not a path that comes easy. It\u2019s important to have people in your life who can support the idea of chasing something other than a 9-to-5 job. Schmidt says that his experience juggling a job and performing music has been difficult but worth it.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe all had pretty flexible jobs in the beginning, which was cool,\u201d he says. \u201cI had a boss who was pretty amenable to the whole idea of me playing in a band that toured. I think he thought it was kind of\u2026 I guess to him it seemed sort of exotic or cool. I mean, he was sort of in my corner for as long as he could be, and then after a while the powers that be kind of took notice of me being on the payroll but hardly clocking in any hours. They\u2019re like, \u2018Okay, this guy\u2019s gotta go.\u2019 <\/i>So I had to choose, you know\u2026 had to choose the rock over the stock.\u201d<\/p>\n

When people think of fame, they often think of being bombarded by a thousand screaming fans or living an eccentric lifestyle. From reading your own Wikipedia page to meeting admirers of your work in foreign countries, artists experience a lot of unexpected curveballs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThings like that are kinda weird when they happen, when you go and play a show in, I don\u2019t know, Sweden or something. You\u2019re like, \u2018Who the hell in Malm\u00f6, Sweden is going to know our band?\u2019 and then a whole bunch of people turn up and they want you to sign their record or something. It\u2019s a pretty surprising, humbling, and cool thing, and you sort of realize, \u2018Okay, this thing that we\u2019ve engineered, that we\u2019ve done, it actually does exist out in the world and there\u2019s people that we would never connect with otherwise that know it and are interested in it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Black Mountain
\n8 pm Sunday, September 15
\n$25, Distrikt
\nstrathconahotel.com\/venue\/distrikt<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Any performer can appreciate that distinct feeling that comes with the responsibility of holding a crowd\u2019s attention. As a stand-up comedian, I can value that feeling of nervousness or excitement that fills you when everybody\u2019s eyes are on you, waiting in anticipation. Black Mountain keyboardist Jeremy Schmidt has found his band playing in front of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18182,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,239],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts","category-september-11-2019"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18152"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18152\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18154,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18152\/revisions\/18154"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}