Mammatus plays 105 Pioneer Street on Saturday, Nov. 26.
The members of Santa Cruz experimental metal band Mammatus have a time-tested method to ensure that all their music reaches a high standard. They look for what they call the Yes Factor—that moment during practice when a song comes together and everyone knows it.
“That’s what we’re always looking for, the part of the song that gives you goosebumps. It’s all about finding that magical moment,” says guitarist Nicky Emmert. He adds, “It takes us a really long time to write a song.”
When he says a long time, he means a really long time, like months, even years. That’s because there isn’t just one single moment when the song comes together. Each section of every song needs to pass the Yes Factor test, and each song has several sections. Not to mention most of their songs are lengthy–some are over 20 minutes.
“When we write new songs we’ll jam and find maybe one 20-second part that’s cool. Then we’ll play that repeatedly for months trying to figure out what the next part is,” says drummer Aaron Emmert.
The rules of the Yes Factor are so strict that it doesn’t matter how much time the band’s put into a song. If it doesn’t make them say “Yes!” then it doesn’t become a song.
“We definitely have scrapped entire songs after having them for six months, or even years. They just didn’t cut the mustard,” says bass player Chris Freels.
Mammatus’s approach to songwriting might seem extreme, but their music is anything but traditional. They play a combination of explosive rock & roll and bizarre, psychedelic space jams. Their riffs have the power and simplicity of Black Sabbath and other early ’70s metal, but the intention is different. All the rock conventions, like the guitar leads and distortion, serve as texture and create a strange moody musical journey. The songs have long instrumental stretches, varying from trance-like to highly dynamic. With song titles like “The righteous path through the forest of old” and “The Dragon of the Deep,” the band conjures up images of psychedelic trips and heavy metal album covers of the ’70s.
The songs are all carefully crafted and structurally intricate, yet all of the members of the band claim to be modest musicians.
“To a real musician our music is pretty elementary, but we make it sound cool the way we do it. We definitely are always maxing out our technical abilities,” says Aaron.
From 2005 to 2007, the band released two full–length albums on Holy Mountain Records and went on three tours, the last one with Japanese psychedelic outfit Acid Mother’s Temple. Now it’s been four years since their last album, and their third record is almost finished. (Actually, they recorded it two years ago and have been continuing to tweak it and remix it—even the mix has to pass the Yes Factor test.) A few months ago they decided that one of the songs wasn’t good enough, so they tossed it out and recorded a new song instead.
They have enough material for a fourth album. They just haven’t been able to get to it yet.
“People don’t make albums anymore. They just make relevant blog–worthy mp3s so they’re posting a new song to their sound cloud every week,” says Aaron. “To me it seems you would not have the quality control of being able to sit back and listen to it and decide if it’s good or not.”
Even if they produce new music at a totally different speed than other bands, the members of Mammatus are happier now than ever before with the growing quality of their music, however long it takes to produce.
“I don’t see success in the same terms anymore,” says Chris. “If we’re still playing Santa Cruz in 10 years and 25 people come out and it’s awesome and we had a great time, that’s good enough for me.”
Saturday, Nov. 26, Time TBD – All ages
105 Pioneer St, Santa Cruz
$8
