The Mountain Goats, who play Floridian Social in St. Petersburg, Florida on Dec. 4, 2024. Credit: Photo by Jackie Lee Young

In 2010, the Mountain Goats came to Tampa Bay to work with producer Erik Rutan at Mana, a St. Petersburg recording studio known internationally as a destination for extreme metal bands. Eight years later, the band reunited with Rutan onstage at the Orpheum in Ybor City, playing two songs together, including fan favorite “The Best Ever Death Metal Band In Denton.”

In advance of his band’s Dec. 14 show at Floridian Social, Mountain Goats’ drummer Jon Wurster spoke about those sessions, and the band’s new record, Jenny From Thebes. Wurster is also known for his comedy writing, and frequent appearances on Tom Scharpling’s long-running radio program “The Best Show.” He joined Creative Loafing Tampa Bay over the phone from North Carolina.

~~Tickets to see the Mountain Goats and Peter One play Floridian Social in St. Petersburg, Florida on Thursday, Dec. 14 are still available for $45.~~

UPDATE: Due to a bus breakdown, The Mountain Goats have canceled the band’s Dec. 14 show in St. Petersburg. Refunds are available at point of purchase, according to show promoter Aestheticized Presents.

I’ve read that you’re a fan of the Cannibal Corpse documentary, “Centuries of Torment.”

I really have no interest in that kind of music. I never listen to it, and it doesn’t really appeal to me. But I could watch this movie five times. And it’s three hours long. It’s just fascinating to me. I think probably because it’s a whole world I didn’t know existed, and it’s so specific and it feels very contained.

Did you have any questions for Erik [Rutan] when you met him to record All Eternals Deck?

It was a really interesting meeting, because at that point we were just a trio–guitar, bass, and drums. John mainly played acoustic guitar. He played some electric, but the main instrument was acoustic. We decided on working with him [Rutan] just from watching the Cannibal Corpse documentary. We just thought, “We need to see if this will happen.”

My memory is that we met him through MySpace. We said we’re a band, and we love what you do with your kind of music, and we wonder if you would be interested in this. And he said sure. So we went down, and it was my first experience hearing about how those kinds of bands make records. It’s so the antithesis of what we do, or what a “normal rock band” will do—you know, you set up in a studio and the three of you, or the four, or five just play together. There’s separation, there’s baffles and isolation rooms, but you’re all playing together.

In the world he lives in, those records are so precise in just how everything is put together. It’s all done one at a time. It’s painstaking. And because that’s the world he came from, he wasn’t really set up to record a band like us. So it was a real learning process for all of us. And we just loved him. He’s really fun and cool and it’s fun to work with someone who’s just not in your world at all. We kind of thrive on those situations.

On “Clean Slate,” the first song from the new record, Jenny from Thebes, there’s this sound at the end of the bridge—was that a vibraslap?

Yes. Part of my contract with all the people that I record with is that I have to put vibraslap on at least one song. But I did it on a lot of songs on this record. I put them on Superchunk records, Bob Mould records…a lot of times you can’t hear it, but it adds a little sparkle when you can.

Would you say that it’s your preferred alternative percussion device?

I would say that I’ve gotten pretty good at maracas and tambourines and things like that. So those are the ones I’m best at. But the vibraslap…I’m going to claim it as my thing. Hardly anyone else is doing it, right?

I’m curious which songs on the new record changed the most from the time you first started working on them to now.

Sometimes, as on the last couple records, John [Darnielle] will record a skeleton of the song over a pre-programmed drum machine, just whatever the preset was on the keyboard. That will just give me an idea of the tempo, whether it’s a rock song, or a samba, or a jazzy kind of thing. My memory is the song “Fresh Tattoo” didn’t have anything underneath it. It was just him at the piano.

So I think that’s the one that the biggest evolution. I’d been playing along with this Devo record a lot during the pandemic, and got really good at playing this super fast, almost disco hi-hat pattern that’s on the song “Whip it” and other Devo songs. That was the inspiration for what I’m doing on “Fresh Tattoo.” I guess I just thought it would be cool to not really come in with a full beat for a long time, which was dumb on my part, because it’s an intense forearm workout.

What is the most tiring Mountain Goats song to play on drums?

The song “Werewolf Gimmick” is the exact identical pattern, but on the floor tom, and I feel like it’s faster too. And I’m the reason we don’t play it live. I couldn’t do it in one shot [in the studio], so I think the record is at least three sections put together. But I think I could do it live now. I almost want to suggest it, just to prove to myself that I can do it.

Which Mountain Goats character would you most like to have call into “The Best Show”?

There’s a song on Goths called “Rage of Travers.” Pat Travers was this guitar player back in the ‘70s, and he had some success, but basically the story of the song is he’s on his slide down in terms of popularity and he’s playing this kind of goth club. And I would love to be in his head during the first five minutes that he’s there, to just see what he’s thinking and feeling about once playing the Oakland Coliseum and now playing Batcave night somewhere. That’s one, but probably any of those wrestlers, without having to feel their pain. That would be a great conversation.

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