Lots of punk rock kids leave the lifestyle behind when they hit their 20s and get real jobs, and if you were to run into Quinn Goodwillie or Jason Sprague or any other members of Mt. St. Helens out on the street, you might not guess they’d come up going to all-ages shows at the Fireside Bowl. Sprague works at a psychiatric facility in the north suburbs, Goodwillie works for a Chicago firm that makes custom learning software, and all the guys in the band are pretty clean-cut these days. But talk to them for five minutes or so and the Black Flag references start to slip out. They’ve abandoned punk-kid fashion, sure, but not their dedication to punk’s DIY ethic–and they prove it with the kickass posthardcore rock on their new album, Of Others, due this week on local label Two Thumbs Down.
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Mt. St. Helens started in 1997 with Goodwillie on vocals and guitar, Sprague on bass, Matt Fast and Sprague’s brother Michael on guitars, and Ben Geier on drums. They were a bunch of suburban punks straight out of Geneva High School, amped about the thriving Chicago scene, and their lineup hasn’t changed since–unless you count Fast leaving to go to college in Normal, then rejoining as a utility player on guitar, keyboard, and percussion. “I think our very first show was at the Fireside Bowl with Cursive,” says Goodwillie. Other early gigs included plum opening slots for the Metroshifter, Elliott, and Planes Mistaken for Stars, but that initial burst of momentum didn’t carry them too far. “It was a pretty awesome way to start,” he says, “and then after that there wasn’t anything for a while. And then there was drudgery. We got the wrong impression at the start.”
The songs on the new album wouldn’t have sounded out of place at the Fireside in its late-90s heyday. The guitars are choppy and blown out, the structures tend to contain more than just verses and choruses and the occasional bridge, and the overall mood–unfocused aggression mingled with other, less aggressive emotions–harks back to a time when you could call a band emo without insulting them.
At this point, though, they probably wouldn’t change much about the way they work even if nobody was downloading the album. They’re making music they like, and none of them can see a good reason to stop. “We joke about it,” Sprague says. “When the hell are we going to stop playing together? I don’t ever get tired of doing this.” After nearly ten years, in fact, it’s apparently still at least as much fun as a cookout. “We’ve moved into a new space now,” says Goodwillie. “We noticed that we’re much more productive when there’s no access to a Weber grill and beer.”
