the white mountain sound
What is “the White Mountain Sound” exactly? Well, to be completely honest, I didn't think there was one at first.
It seemed like all of us bands and songwriters who were either born in or grew up in the White Mountains were trying to sound like our favorite artists, who were all very far from our little remote high desert towns in Indigenous Country. Los Angeles, the Midwest, New York City, London…all the bands and artists we liked were from somewhere else we all wanted to be.
We brought all those sounds to the White Mountains and built a sound and scene here of our own.
So what is the White Mountain Sound? In its most basic terms, I would describe it as rooted in indie rock and folk rock, primarily, and from there it branches out into alternative, pop-punk, garage rock, country, hip-hop, funk, psychedelia and other genres. But it has grit. It has attitude. It has cajones.
These are songs about nostalgia, romance, and boredom. They are socially conscious and sometimes politically incorrect. Sometimes they're religious, or anti-religious. Other times they're really horny.
There's songs about high school, marriage, and children. There's songs about doing drugs, getting wasted, and even chasing giant mythical sharks.
I didn't realize that we had made this sound all our own until I got out of Show Low and moved to Portland and discovered that Portland had its own sound, and thought “hey this sounds a lot different than how I remember it sounding back home.”
So I started listening back to all of our tunes, and…by golly, there is a White Mountain Sound.
In a big way, I would argue this sound came to the public in the mid-2010's. Zella Day had brought it to LA and was successful there, and Charles Ellsworth developed his own sound in Salt Lake City after leaving the mountain and headed back East to NYC. Gorky stayed in the White Mountains for the better part of twenty years, and while there helped nurture and foster a scene that has now blossomed into multiple bands and projects.
Do you hear it? Sounds like “back home” to me. The real southwest.
Please check out the playlist above and please support the artists below if you're a fan of any of us!