Year Zero: The Original Soundtrack

Black Mountain
Black Mountain performing at the Mercury Lounge, New York City on October 10, 2007.
Background information
Origin	Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Genres	Psychedelic rock,stoner rock,space rock (as of IV), progressive rock, alternative rock
Years active	2004–present
Labels	Jagjaguwar, Outside Music
Associated acts	Pink Mountaintops, Grim Tower, Blood Meridian, Ex-Dead Teenager, Jerk With a Bomb, Lightning Dust, Sinoia Caves, Obliterations, Jerk Ward, Mission of Christ
Website	www.blackmountainarmy.com
Members	Stephen McBean Jeremy Schmidt Brad Truax Amber Webber Joshua Wells
Past members	Matt Camirand

Black Mountain is a Canadian psychedelic rock band from Vancouver, British Columbia. The band is composed of Stephen McBean, Amber Webber, Matt Camirand, Jeremy Schmidt and Joshua Wells. Since forming in 2004, Black Mountain has released four LPs, Black Mountain (2005), In the Future (2008), Wilderness Heart (2010), and IV (2016), two EPs and a number of singles, mostly on the Jagjaguwar label.

Stephen (Gord) Gordon McBean (b. 1969), was born in Vancouver and grew up in Kleinburg and Sidney (BC). As a teenager he became interested in music and became part of the local punk-rock scene in Victoria. He formed his first band, Jerk Ward, in 1981. in 1984, the band recorded a demo that was re-released in 2009 as Too Young To Thrash. The band evolved into Mission of Christ (MOC) who recorded a split 7" in 1987. Two years later the band broke up and McBean moved to Vancouver where he started the band Gus. They released two singles, a split EP and an album The Progressive Science Of Breeding Idiots For A Dumber Society (1995). The band gave McBean his first experience with extensive touring and he later described the experience as a "bit of noise, bit of Melvins, funk, the Amrep stuff that was going on then. Lots of screaming. Lasted four years".

In 1996 McBean asked drummer Joshua Wells (Radio Berlin) to join his band Ex Dead Teenager. By 1999 it had morphed into a duo of Wells and McBean as Jerk With a Bomb. They signed with Scratch Records and Jagjaguwar in the US, and released three albums: Death To False Metal (1999),The Old Noise (2001) and Pyrokinesis (2003). The latter featured Amber Webber of Dream on Dreary on vocals.

While McBean and Wells were still performing as Jerk With a Bomb in 2003, McBean began to demo material that included the song "Black Mountain". At the start of 2004, the two began working on the demos under the same name with contributions from Webber, bassist Matt Camirand and keyboard player Jeremy Schmidt. They recorded the eight track, self-titled debut album during the first half of the year. McBean would later describe the change as "it was almost like a release. I mean, I loved Jerk With A Bomb, but it got to a point where I was done with it, I was through with that part of my life".