Mordecai’s No-Frills Rock Sounds Best Sitting on the Porch With Cheap Beer

Mordecai create and play music for nobody but themselves. Sure, they are grateful that their fourth full-length album Abstract Recipe, is about to be released on Richie Records//TestosterTunes, but even if they had no record or audience, the three-piece would still be huddled in their practise space in Butte, Montana and blasting their no-frills and world weary rock n roll.

The core of the band is the Bodish brothers; Elijah on bass and the younger Holt on guitar and vocals. The two create music that is informed by the Electric Eels,  Meat Puppets II,the Velvet Underground's Quine Tapes and all seven-minutes of the Stooges' "Dirt".

Their latest track (which you can listen to below) may be called "In a Hole" but it could easily be "Next to a Whole" in reference to Berkeley Pit, the open copper mine located next to Butte, Montana's fifth largest city.

But Butte seems to suit the band's modest attitude and approach. It may be a long way from Bushwick but that's a good thing, and the relative cultural isolation feeds into their repetitive riffs and loud and loose squall. Few local contemporaries has freed the brothers to create and develop their own style that places emphasis more on volume than rhythm.

Listen to the track and read a brief chat we had with Holt.

Noisey: Abstract Recipe is your fourth full-length. How would you says it's different from others?
Holt Bodish: They are mostly different just by accident. Most of side a was recorded in Butte two years ago over a summer when we had been playing together more than ever before or since. They are live recordings of us in a studio. The b-side and the song "Wanton" are recorded on a Tascam 4-track that we still really have no idea how to operate but every attempt leads to something new. Honesty, we usually just lose control of the medium and scramble to record something.

Do you feel you are becoming more competent as musicians and songwriters? 
This record is probably our most competent as far as standard "playing rock music" competence goes. We don't think that we are progressing as musicians in any way. We are now consciously trying to regress and become less competent.

Some, myself included, think that you are one of the most interesting and unique bands in America. What do you say or think about comments like these? Do you care?
We do care, but we don't really know what to say when confronted with these comments. We really enjoy making the music that we make and would do so without an audience, but are not really getting off on the lack of popularity or sales. Especially since we are losing Richie's money, not our own. As to being unique and interesting, we point to the vapidness of society.

Does having a mathematics background help you being in a rock n roll band in any way? 
Definitely not. In fact they do not help each other one bit. It's not like we are thinking about music theory when we play. The one thing that ties them together is the importance of memory and habit to both subjects. You become accustomed to a strange new vernacular by using it and playing around with it.

Did you study at Montana Tech? Is the school's motto 'De Re Metallica'? That's pretty rock! 
None of us studied there but I think they love Metallica there. We all spent some time at the University of Montana in Missoula, which is where we met Gavin and started actively playing together, recording the three subsequent Richie releases with him.

Have you ever toured the Dumas brothel in Butte?
No! Sadly most of the time when we have been 18+ in Butte it has been closed and out of commission. They were open well into the 1980s servicing Butte gents though. The building is about a block from the high school.

In an interview with Negative Guestlist you said, "Essentially, Butte is a place of opposing forces of awesome stupidity and at the same time genuine character and beauty. See the Berkeley Pit." Has it changed much? 
Not one bit. That line applies more than ever. The town is in a bizarre state. So desperate and downtrodden in the town proper, with more and more rich people building houses on a hill behind the mine. The character and beauty are still there in the town despite it being reduced to basically a Potemkin village.

Is there a dive bar called Pissers Paradise? That sounds rad. Have you been there?
Never been. It is really too far out of the way. The band does not like to drink and drive, or drive at all for that matter. Preferring to watch TV and eat microwaved pork rinds at The Silver Dollar, or drink 2.75 Jameson's while playing Stooges songs on the digital jukebox at Maloney's. Can say that it is built entirely out of cinderblocks and has the same intimidating air as an NRA meeting.

You hosted a show on the local radio station. What did you play?
KBMF, the new community radio station in Butte was started by our friend Clark Grant. He recorded half the new record.Here is a selection of what I played on the show:

Bill Direen - "Dirty and Disgusting". Direen means a lot to us. 
Tim Evans - "Rotting Spring". I like his new Ever/Never release. It is desperate and comforting. 
Gaseneta - "Untitled". The best band
Strapping Fieldhands - "In the Pineys". This fieldhands song is exciting. 
The Fall - "Print Head"
Peter Jefferies -  "Electricity"
Departmentstore Santas - "Kids on a Merry-Go-Round at Eucalyptus Park". We could do with more music like this in all our lives. 
Harry Pussy - "Showroom Dummies"

"Abstract Recipe" is available Jan 27 on Richie Records//TestosterTunes.