Billy The Mountain Album Goes Gangbusters On The Net

Progressive rock/urban R&B band Billy The Mountain have released thier album Drifting To Valhalla and the songs are being welcomed by industry experts and music fans alike across the Internet and beyond. The band play the Kuala Lumpur Blues festival in August, headline the Kathmandu Music Festival in November and plan to play South By South West 2009 in Texas, with Byron Bay in Australia and the UK’s Glastonbury Festival under negotiation, and a raft of other festivals looking to book the band.
Band leader Zen Delta told press that the first album - Drifting To Valhalla - went on sale April 7 and will be available on CDBaby, iTunes, Amazon, Noisehead, Garageband, Allmusic, Trackseller, Phatplanet, MP3.com, Vitaminic.com, CDStreet.com, Ampcast.com, JavaMusic.com, Myspace.com, MusicNet, TuneCore, Pressplay and Listen.com. CDBaby.com, MySpace.com, Snocap, Reverbnation, Napster, Rhapsody, MusicNet, eMusic, Sony Connect and Groupie Tunes.
Band manager Tom Gray says: “This band will sell. We reckon they are the Pink Floyd of the new century - and throw in a touch of Little Feat and Steely Dan and you have a very powerful combination of grooves and rock steady tunes supporting cool lyrics and awesome musicianship - no shredders and no predictable ....jock-rock neither.
“To great response, we ran some of the tunes ‘naked’ on the band’s own www.myspace.com/thebillymountain site and then the band - principally Nicolai Kehlet - took over production and the result is an album of eight very special songs. And I have to say the big labels are now desperate to get their hands on this cool new music. But the band wants this to go to market via the Internet and we support that idea given that we have little alternative,” he grinned.
“But the songs are awesome and I predict this album - this breath of musical fresh air - is going to be a classic!”
Producer Kehlet says the first album - Drifting To Valhalla - was written and recorded in Asia and features the songs and vocals of Zander Ran woven into a funky, laid-back fusion of blues and progressive rock ‘remniscent of days gone by but with a modern production feel,’ he says.
“We had a lot fun producing the album at my own studio here in Bangkok and we work well together with Zander’s great lyrics and tunes and dare I say my ear for a good beat and an FM-radio-friendly vibe. The truth is we write interesting stuff together and by that I mean we love our own music and play it all the time on our iPods, or in the car and at home. And if people want to buy it then that’s great too!
Fans tease us that we are the Floyd or Steely Dan of the 21st century and that’s crazy and scary…we are all Floyd and Steely Dan fans of course, but they are like gods to us…the idea that we are composers on the same planet is almost ridiculous. But we like the compliment that we might sound a bit like Little Feat and our new stuff is definitely going there - if anywhere at all.”
The band is already working on their second album tentatively titled “Head Restrictions” and are working at Kehlet’s Paradise Productions Studio in Bangkok.
Ran describes the new work as “driven by a desire to not let Lowell George be forgotten and everything we are writing right now is kind of a tribute to him and his gift as a groovemeister, singer and slide god.”
“There’s a bit of Hendrix in there too and if we are exposing our origins and ages then so be it. It’s about time! I grew up listening and playing while those guys…Zappa, Captain Beefheart and Alex Harvey and Jimi and Zepp were changing the world and were going back consciously or otherwise to a time when music was new and adventurous and worth queuing to see live. I just hope we can do the times justice.”