Best of What's Next: Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band

Hometown: Seattle, Wash.
Album: Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band
Band Members: Benjamin Verdoes (vocals, guitar), Marshall Verdoes (drums), Traci Eggleston (percussion, keys, vocals), Matthew Dammer (synth, guitar, trumpet), Jared Price (bass, vocals)
For Fans Of: Queen, The Pixies, Tim Burton

Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band’s self-titled debut twitches and writhes with capricious tempo shifts, quiet harmonies dissolving into frantic Brian May-inspired riffs faster than you can say “time signature.” But the Mad Hatter-like switches and jolts aren’t just there to ward off would-be background music-seekers. Formed when lead vocalist Benjamin Verdoes decided to start a band with his then-13-year-old adopted brother Marshall, the album is the the electricity-charged product of fused adulthood and adolescence.

Many of the album’s riffs and lyrics were written by the elder Verdoes when he was in his early twenties. A few years later, he scrambled and rearranged some of them to help his brother practice the drums. “Marshall had been playing the drums since he was very young, but I wanted him really learn the parts, so we just did all these crazy arrangements,” Verdoes says. “I used to write a lot of very philosophical, cryptic, even self-obsessed lyrics. But with Marshall, he was 13, he was kind of almost ADD and I wanted us to write these really active narratives, with characters, to be more like short stories.” Verdoes’ wife, Traci Eggleston, guitarist Mathew Dammer and bassist Jared Price eventually joined up. Marshall (now 14) was given naming rights, and “Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band” leapt from his hyperactive brain.

Like the Brothers Grimm’s fairy tales, these stories for the young were written by the old (or at least the older—aside from Marshall, the other bandmates are all in their twenties) and melancholy permeates songs that seem at first so carefree—it’s a mythical parallel universe filled with adventure, but it never quite rids itself of the burdens of loss and loneliness that come with growing up. Mournful ballads are woven throughout the album and “Tempting Fate,” a song written about an obsessive relationship, adds an especially dark layer. Even “Going on a Hunt,” which tells of snaring a giant squid, is not untouched by sadness. “It’s about that ridiculous desire to go places and do things and conquer the world, but the people you used to do it with are staying behind,” says Verdoes. “You write them letters so they can still kind of participate, but you don’t stop because it would take away your joy.”

With Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band, at least, there’s a little more joy to go around.