From Secret Stages to Sloss Fest, The Burning Peppermints have quickly become Birmingham’s favorite garage rock band. They were deemed one of the bands with the strangest names at SXSW, and their performances have been described as “nonstop, full-throttle energy.” They’ll bring their unique sound and energy to the Shaeffer Eye center main stage at Art On The Rocks on June 23, following a set by Birmingham hiphop collective The Green Seed.
Check out our exclusive Q&A with the band, and purchase your tickets immediately to avoid missing a show that promises to be anything but boring.
Birmingham Museum of Art: Everybody wants to know the band’s story. How did you all meet, and how did you combine musical tastes to develop your sound?
Jake Whittig: I started The Burning Peppermints in 2013 with a high school friend. We were a duo then and heavily influenced by The White Stripes. Sometime after our formation, I first heard Thee Oh Sees and it launched me into an odyssey of discovery of the West Coast Psychedelic Scene. After that discovery, the band experienced a major shift in artistic direction. We added a bass player and wrote our first album, Dirty Rainbow!!, which we recorded with Ahmad at King Of The Jungle Productions. Ryan actually was the drum tech for our session- he and Ahmad had a band at the time called The Betas. They were a bass and drum duo and I was looking for bass and drums. Since then we’ve written three albums together, played Secret Stages together, opened for St. Paul and the Broken Bones, and played Sloss Fest. Ahmad and Ryan, both being older than me and the three of us really being of different generations in a way has created a diverse appreciation for different musical styles, simply because of the different music that was popular when each of us was growing up. Those perspectives have definitely been helpful as we’ve worked on all of the different music we’ve been making.
Ryan Colebeck: Ages ago in time men do not speaketh of, three beings were imbued with magical powers to preserve their souls throughout time. They each fused with a different gem stone… etc.
BMA: Art On The Rocks is about blending the best of Birmingham culture (music, performances, food, and more) with the beautiful Museum environment. In the spirit of fusing music and art, tell us which visual artists might best represent The Burning Peppermints?
JW: Yayoi Kusama, Jen Stark, Vincent Collins.
RC: Dubuffet sculpture. Wham! by Lichtenstein. Pollock. Dali. Keith Haring. Any of those would do.
Ahmad Farzad: Salvador Dali and James Turrell.
BMA: Birmingham has an incredible food culture. If your music were perfectly paired with a delicious meal and cocktail, what would be on the menu?
JW: Depending on the night I could say Stupid Hot Tenders from Eugene’s Hot Chicken or an Emperor Gochujang from Hot Diggity Dogs, but definitely either paired with a cold Trimtab Burning Peppermints Saison would be a treat.
RC: Hot Family Dollar brand Coffee and an L&M Red.
AF: A Lava Bowl from Collins Bar and Eugene’s Hot Chicken.
BMA: What can we expect from your show at Art On The Rocks?
JW: Loud music that we wrote with nothing held back.
RC: A seated crowd, no dancing, mild applause.
AF: An electricity of good feels and high energy. Bring your dancin’ shoes!