Latest / Ghost Cult Magazine Podcast / PODCAST: Episode 831 - The Mojave Experience Festival 2026 Lineup Reveal - Two New Bands

Transcript

PODCAST: Episode 831 - The Mojave Experience Festival 2026 Lineup Reveal - Two New Bands · Ghost Cult Magazine Podcast

• 1:06
  None. What's up everybody, it's your
• 1:22
  boy Kefi of Ghost Cult med.com. I am back once again with a very
• 1:26
  special live stream on this Monday in spooky season October.
• 1:31
  I hope everybody's good out there and had a great weekend, a
• 1:34
  great and safe weekend. Looks like a lot of people are
• 1:36
  joining up across the web. I am super stoked today and you
• 1:39
  know why that is? Because I love music festivals,
• 1:43
  specifically metal music festivals, and we're here to
• 1:46
  talk about the Mojave Experience taking place in March of 2026.
• 1:50
  Today we partnered up with the festival to make this
• 1:53
  announcement. We shared the news recently of
• 1:56
  their first band announcements and today I am here to give you
• 1:59
  the next two bands on this epic lineup and I am so honored to
• 2:04
  help support this fest because it's close to home.
• 2:07
  Ghost Cult was founded in the Netherlands in 2012 to cover
• 2:10
  metal festivals and we covered the original Desert Fest and
• 2:14
  Incubate Festival and Road Burn. And then I came in here, we just
• 2:18
  turned 13 last week and we built this thing into a monster, which
• 2:22
  I'm really proud of. Shout out to my partner Omar
• 2:24
  Cordy and all our staff all over the world doing the good work
• 2:29
  here to support rock and metal wherever we can.
• 2:32
  So we are here and I'm just waiting for a few more people to
• 2:35
  come in. What's up Pat Salerno, good to
• 2:36
  see you brother. Upgrade next door, former Ghost
• 2:41
  Cult friend and interviewee and appreciate the merch drop we did
• 2:47
  with y'all way back during the plague years.
• 2:49
  But yeah, I'm here. I'm hanging out.
• 2:51
  The best experience for this, if you're new here, please give us
• 2:53
  a like and a sub. If you're new here, the best
• 2:55
  experience for the show is YouTube, Facebook, Twitch.
• 2:59
  We're on Instagram on a couple of accounts and I'm also hanging
• 3:02
  out on TikTok just in case y'all want to watch and I probably
• 3:05
  will. This will live as a podcast and
• 3:08
  a website post and other things this afternoon, but in the
• 3:11
  meantime, I wanted to just jam on it and share the good news
• 3:15
  with you all. So I have prepared, as usual, a
• 3:18
  little visual aid here, a little boom goes the dynamite.
• 3:22
  There it is up in the top corner.
• 3:24
  And you know, for those that don't know, again, not only do
• 3:26
  we cover the gamut of rock music and metal music and other things
• 3:31
  and outsider avant-garde music, I love Stoner rock and Stoner
• 3:36
  doom and psychedelic rock. These are my this is my home in
• 3:39
  in terms of music is my home base beside, you know, the other
• 3:42
  things I grew up on like crash and pumpkin things.
• 3:45
  So I really love what this festival is doing.
• 3:48
  What's up Chase? Yeah, we'd cover a lot of death
• 3:52
  metal buddy. But today we're here to reveal
• 3:54
  some bands for the Mojave experience line up.
• 3:57
  So normally I do a lot of Q and AI can only there's a tip menu
• 4:02
  in the description. If you feel so generous and you
• 4:04
  want to give us a tip, that's cool.
• 4:06
  If not, that's also cool. We still do everything.
• 4:09
  We do all the same hardcore all the way.
• 4:12
  And yeah, I'm really excited to talk about this.
• 4:16
  We got a lot of people joining in on Instagram and Facebook and
• 4:20
  YouTube. Really appreciate everybody
• 4:22
  who's tuning in. And if you watch this on the
• 4:24
  replay, you can check it out. So already the Mojave Experience
• 4:29
  has, you know, they did their first band announcements and
• 4:33
  Earthless and Dead Meadow are two bands that I absolutely love
• 4:37
  and I'll talk about them in a minute too, right before I
• 4:39
  reveal the two new bands. And I really appreciate all the
• 4:42
  support that made these cool graphics.
• 4:44
  We've been kind of posting about it all weekend in in different
• 4:47
  places in our community. And if you're watching on
• 4:51
  YouTube also feel free to drop us a super thanks or a super
• 4:54
  like anything helps. We really appreciate it.
• 4:57
  Otherwise, just check this out with us a like and follow and
• 5:00
  check us out at ghostcalledman.com where we do
• 5:02
  seven days a week music coverage.
• 5:05
  We never take a day off. Yeah, I don't have the answer
• 5:09
  for that chase, but definitely DM the Mojave Experience and
• 5:13
  we're going to share all their links in the description as well
• 5:16
  where you can get tickets and also hit up their socials.
• 5:19
  Maybe they're still looking for bands, I am unaware.
• 5:22
  Just some housekeeping. I'm here multiple times a week
• 5:25
  to live streams. We run our video interviews
• 5:27
  multiple times a week on our YouTube and our podcasts.
• 5:30
  I will be back Thursday afternoon with my weekly recap
• 5:33
  show, which I will again talk about this topic, but we do a
• 5:36
  weekly recap show every Thursday afternoon evening, depending on
• 5:39
  where you are in America. And yeah, definitely Jimmy says,
• 5:44
  Yep, true desert experience. Yeah, I'm going to talk a bit
• 5:46
  about that. Man.
• 5:47
  Absolutely. Drunk with Bud's pot is here.
• 5:51
  Karina's here. I appreciate everybody for
• 5:54
  tuning in. This is epic.
• 5:55
  I'm so thankful. And there's our tip menu.
• 5:58
  And again, if you want to pause it on the Cash App and hit us
• 6:00
  up. I appreciate it.
• 6:01
  If not, no big deal. We are not corporate back so
• 6:04
  Mojave experience look at this gorgeous poster.
• 6:08
  Really this festival was founded kind of on the guiding
• 6:12
  principles kind of of like the way this genre evolved in
• 6:17
  American Music. You know, Patrick Brink, who's
• 6:24
  the former vocalist for Fu Manchu, has the and and the band
• 6:29
  volume is doing this festival March 20th and 21st in Joshua
• 6:33
  Tree, CA. I'm going to see where my life
• 6:35
  is at. I might go cover it.
• 6:37
  I might go do some extensive work there.
• 6:39
  We shall see. I am in Northern California
• 6:41
  where some of these bands are also from and we are super
• 6:45
  stoked that the original Co headliners were announced right
• 6:49
  off the bat. I think that's enough of a draw
• 6:51
  personally to get a lot of Stoner and metal fans to go
• 6:55
  Earthless. One of the greatest live bands
• 6:56
  going and Dead Meadow. These are two legend status
• 6:59
  bands who put on phenomenal concerts.
• 7:02
  We have been lucky enough to cover them all over the world
• 7:05
  and you know this is going to take place in Joshua Tree, CA
• 7:10
  and campground attendees are encouraged to make use of the
• 7:12
  camping and hiking and rock climbing in the area while
• 7:15
  taking in the vast beauty of the region.
• 7:17
  It's not just a backdrop, it's the raw, unfiltered stage where
• 7:20
  art and chaos collide. I love these lines from the
• 7:23
  press release and really calls back the spirit.
• 7:26
  What's up skull bashers here? The spirit of these shows, that
• 7:29
  it's kind of the scene the American scene came from really
• 7:33
  is these generator shows out in the desert.
• 7:36
  You know, other festivals have copied this idea and there have
• 7:40
  been some great Stoner doom and psychedelic rock festivals in
• 7:43
  the USA, but this might be the next great one.
• 7:49
  The way it's shaping up, I have to say just, you know, some
• 7:53
  prior Intel of some of this stuff that was coming down.
• 7:56
  And I'm just blown away by these first four bands that have been
• 7:59
  announced. And you should be too, because
• 8:01
  if you love this genre, we need to come out and support these
• 8:04
  bands and go to festivals and concerts and buy merch and buy
• 8:07
  stuff when they're not on tour. Also because, you know, this is
• 8:11
  the environment we're in. Touring is very expensive now,
• 8:13
  so Dead Meadow here. Seen the Desert Fest New York
• 8:17
  back in the day. This is a photo from our own
• 8:20
  Dante Torieri. Useless rebel imaging.
• 8:23
  Dante goes all over the world to cover festivals for us.
• 8:26
  He was just at Fire in the Mountains in Montana.
• 8:28
  He did part of our Rd. Burn coverage this April.
• 8:32
  And yeah, man, Dead Meadow is just a an incredible band and
• 8:37
  I'm such a huge fan. It's so killer.
• 8:39
  And of course, Earthless with their liquid light shows and and
• 8:42
  Isaiah Mitchell and their whole band.
• 8:44
  And really, we've interviewed them a few times.
• 8:45
  Isaiah, of course, plays with Black Crows, one of the best
• 8:48
  guitarist going. If you just worship riffs and
• 8:51
  guitar, you need to, you know, get down with that band.
• 8:54
  Earthless is incredible, mostly instrumental and just visually,
• 9:00
  visually stunning, which I'm always a huge fan of.
• 9:03
  And so yeah, let's. Without further ado, the next
• 9:07
  two bands on the Mojave experience are Dramatic Pause.
• 9:12
  John Garcia. You know, John Garcia is the
• 9:16
  legendary lead singer, formerly of Caius and Unita and Slowburn,
• 9:22
  and his vast solo catalog. John is incredible and he's been
• 9:30
  doing a tour where he really is celebrating his entire body of
• 9:33
  work. So this is kind of like, if you
• 9:35
  have a chance to catch this act, you need to go.
• 9:38
  He's got a killer band behind him now.
• 9:40
  John is really one of the preeminent voices of metal, in
• 9:43
  my opinion, and Stoner doom. And he was really one of the
• 9:46
  first guys not trying to sound like either Ozzy or Dio or
• 9:50
  Robert Plant. He was just being himself,
• 9:53
  pretty soulful, expressive, and you know, really stunning.
• 10:01
  And again, obviously his set list will feature stuff from
• 10:04
  across his career and we don't have Kaius anymore.
• 10:07
  I'm always bummed that Kaius Libs didn't get a chance to kind
• 10:09
  of become its own differently named band that could have done
• 10:12
  the Kaius music and originals. I actually photographed Kaius
• 10:16
  Libs about 1314 years ago and they were doing that.
• 10:19
  Kmor I will check out your stuff.
• 10:21
  DM me any links to your music and I will check it out.
• 10:25
  So that's the first new band on the line up.
• 10:28
  So now you've got 3 and the 4th is humongous like I this is not
• 10:32
  an understatement. One of the most important bands
• 10:34
  of all time. And I know I just talked about
• 10:36
  Caius who's one of the most important heavy bands of all
• 10:38
  time. But Acid King, man, Acid King is
• 10:42
  the 4th new band on this line up and or the second announced
• 10:46
  today by me and Mojave experience and acid King is just
• 10:50
  stunning and phenomenal. I love Lori.
• 10:53
  She's here in the Bay Area. I see the band whenever they
• 10:56
  play whenever I can and I have the whole acid king discography
• 11:01
  on vinyl is one of my favorite things.
• 11:03
  You see like a pile of behind me of my vinyl there to put up in
• 11:08
  my discos. But yeah, just if you love doom
• 11:10
  metal, you, you know, Acid King is one of the premier bands that
• 11:14
  were kind of, you know, inactive for a while.
• 11:17
  But now that they've been back with a new record very recently,
• 11:21
  this is tremendous. They're doing minimal touring,
• 11:24
  but this festival will be one of the highlights of of the weekend
• 11:28
  like this. This festival and and the
• 11:30
  performance of Asset King is going to be tremendous.
• 11:33
  And again, they always put on a stellar show and they've just a
• 11:37
  cooking line up now behind Lori. And you know just what a
• 11:41
  tremendous, tremendous band. I've seen some great shows
• 11:45
  recently. I saw the Sword reunion play all
• 11:47
  the warp writers. I saw Baroness do red and blue.
• 11:50
  I'm going to bottom of the hill for a few doom rock and Stoner
• 11:53
  rock shows and occult rock bands.
• 11:56
  But yeah, this is going to be already kind of an early
• 11:59
  signpost of what's looking like a very great year for American
• 12:03
  metal and metal festivals next year.
• 12:05
  I'm really excited about this, probably more than I have been
• 12:08
  in a long time about anything. Coastco covers a lot of
• 12:11
  festivals. We just did Shakey DS Fest,
• 12:14
  which is a little more commercial and and a little bit
• 12:16
  more eclectic. But like this is going to be
• 12:19
  phenomenal. And we have all the details in
• 12:22
  the description, all the links where you can buy Believe early
• 12:25
  Early bird tickets went on sale about 10 days ago.
• 12:31
  Just looking at the link here in our post, you know it, it looks
• 12:37
  phenomenal. It looks like a real lot of fun.
• 12:39
  There have been some similar things that have happened but
• 12:45
  Friday and Saturday, March 20th and 21st Yucca Valley on Friday
• 12:50
  at Mojave Gold, Joshua Tree Lake and Campground on the 21st.
• 12:55
  The poster is by Matt J Adams. Art, I said that correctly.
• 13:05
  And yeah, just absolutely phenomenal.
• 13:08
  I'm really excited to see the rest of the line up.
• 13:10
  I really appreciate partnering with them to share this today
• 13:14
  and I appreciate all of you for watching.
• 13:16
  Check out the links in the description.
• 13:18
  I was thinking about this just just for a last little bit here.
• 13:22
  I feel like this is the anti Coachella, real metal fans, real
• 13:25
  music fans, real psychedelic rock fans, real Dune fans want
• 13:29
  to get out there and just have an experience and have a great
• 13:33
  time and it's not some corporate horrible overpriced bullshit.
• 13:37
  You're actually going to be supporting this independent
• 13:40
  outlet, underground bands, artists, creators and fellow
• 13:45
  like minded crazies like yourself.
• 13:47
  We're going to all be Heschers out in the desert and and enjoy
• 13:51
  this weekend. So I highly recommend this.
• 13:54
  This looks amazing. I'm so stoked just on these
• 13:57
  first four bands. Cannot wait for the rest of the
• 13:59
  line up to be revealed. Check everything out at
• 14:02
  mojaveexperience.net. Thank you for watching.
• 14:04
  I'm Kefi at Ghost Cult man one more time.
• 14:06
  Please like and subscribe if you're new here and you enjoy
• 14:09
  what we do. There's a lot of this happening
• 14:11
  all the time. Thanks so much and I'm out.
• 14:14
  Peace.