This coming Sunday, October 29th, Mudhoney will be playing their most intimate stop in the City of Brotherly Love and Sisterly Affection since their 2003 show at North Star Bar (I mean, they’ve only played here twice since, but still…) However, we’re equally excited for openers Hooveriii, who are supporting the Seattle grunge pioneers on their current jaunt. The Los-Angeles-based psych-rockers are currently touring in support of their fourth full-length, Pointe, which dropped earlier this month, courtesy of The Reverberation Appreciation Society / Levitation, and, ironically, sees the band getting away from guitar rock… “It’s definitely a departure from the last few that we’ve done. We have this sort of tradition where each record is a response to the last record… Maybe on this one we’re getting away from guitar rock, but maybe on the next one we’ll get back to guitar rock [laughs],” Hooveriii founder and mainperson Bert Hoover tells me during a recent phone chat.
Despite opening up for very guitar-heavy rockers Mudhoney, Hoover tells me that he’s been loving being on the road with the band, and that Hooveriii’s sets have been going over really well every night: “Dude, they’re great! They have a great crew, the fans are great, even though we’re doing something different… It seems like the response has been generally positive.” And while Hoover tells me that he wasn’t super well-versed in Mudhoney’s catalogue until recently, he does have some background with the group, and he’s become a big fan over the course of the last year or so: “I grew up with my parents being fans, with CDs and stuff in the house… I knew Superfuzz Bigmuff, but we played a show with them in Paris, and playing with them just really blew me away, and I was converted.”
Hooveriii has already released a number of singles off of Pointe, most recently “Dreaming,” an exercise in future-folk and the album’s final track, featuring vocals by Anna Wallace. Hoover has previously described the song as, “the border where dreams become nightmares, a lullaby of contradictions, a love song? A little homage to Angelo Badalamenti.” Fittingly (both to the description and the fact that the band will be playing in Eraserhood), the music video resembles a less dauntingly ominous take on The Man in the Planet’s sequence in Eraserhead (Yes, I realize that was a different Lynch composer, R.I.P.)
Pointe features a plethora of Hooveriii contributors, past and present (Kaz Mirblouk, James Novick, Owen Barrett, Gabe Flores, Gabriel Salomon, Wallace, Paco Casanova, Matt Zuk, Jon Modaff, Shaughnessy Starr, Olaf Selland and Ari B. Jones), and draws on inspiration from ‘60s psych-rockers Pisces, electronic pioneers Tangerine Dream, and the solo work of Phil Lynott. The band considers the album to be, perhaps, their most accessible yet, but it also seems to be their most eclectic, likely inspired by the fact that it was recorded over an extended period of time, without an intention of recording each track in a linear fashion.
Hooveriii have played the 215 a handful of times in recent years, with a date at PhilaMOCA in 2021 and a stop at the Dolphin Tavern this February. But, in addition to gallery spaces, barrooms, and punk and metal basement venues, Hooveriii also find themselves playing major festivals with some regularity. “They’re very different experiences, but we’re the kind of band that can adjust ourselves to any environment. Like, we’re not totally a DIY-kinda band, or totally some other kind of band. We’re always changing and thinking about things like, ‘This could be really cool in this environment,’ and stuff like that,” Bert tells me, before going on to admit, “We played Levitation last year, and open-air festivals are just always an experience.”
Hoover tells me that Hooveriii have really been enjoying these shows with Mudhoney, all of which he tells me have been sold-out or almost sold-out. He also adds that they’re especially excited for a few dates, including their show right here in Eraserhood: “I’m really stoked to play a good show in Nashville, because it can be hard to play a good show on your own there, and places like Philly are kind of like that, too… I’m really looking forward to that one. Philly’s awesome, and we have some friends there.” He also tells me that the artwork for Sunday’s show (seen above) is exceptionally amazing: “The poster for that show is also super cool!”
This current run with Mudhoney goes through November 19th at The Crocodile Showroom in Seattle, the second of two nights of homecoming shows for Mudhoney, the first being 21+ and the second being All Ages. Hoover tells me that there will be some additional touring of Pointe next year, but that they’ve already got brand-new, unreleased music that they’re working on getting out: “We’ve got a small run of stuff that’ll be in January/February, and then Europe, and there’s another record that we’re mixing right now, which will come out at some point next year, and then we’ll do it all over again…”
*Get your tickets here.
