Podcast Premiere: ‘I Only Listen to the Mountain Goats’ w/ John Darnielle – ‘All Hail West Texas’

The first episode of ‘I Only Listen to the Mountain Goats,’ premiered today (September 28, 2017) and can be streamed below. The podcast is collaboration between Night Vale Presents, the Mountain Goats and Merge Records.

The show finds Joseph Fink, creator of ‘Welcome to Night Vale’ and ‘Alice Isn’t Dead,’ in conversation with one of his artistic heroes, John Darnielle, singer and songwriter of the Mountain Goats. Season One explores the stories behind the Mountain Goats’ album All Hail West Texas, one song at a time. Today’s episode focuses on the first song from the album, “The Best Death Metal Band from Denton.”

All Hail West Texas is the sixth studio album by the band and is the last Mountain Goats album to be recorded solely on John Darnielle’s trademark Panasonic RX-FT500 boombox. During the interview, Darneille revealed that they were sitting next to the actual reels on to which All Hail West Texas was transferred at Tiny Telephone by Alex Newport. “There was in fact a lot of EQ work done,” Darnielle tells Fink. “It’s not exactly what was on the cassettes, it needed EQ-ing.”