For his latest solo album, Buck Meek, lead guitarist of Big Thief, went back to Texas – to the border town of Tornillo 560 miles from his hometown of Wimberley – to record Haunted Mountain. The band – Buck (guitar, vocals), Adam Brisbin (guitar), Austin Vaughn (drums), Ken Woodward (bass), Mat Davidson (pedal steel, vocals), and Dylan Meek (keys) – recorded the eleven songs that make up Haunted Mountain over the course of two weeks at Sonic Ranch studio. The album was produced by Davidson and engineered and mixed by Adrian Olsen. The album follows Meek’s 2018 self-titled debut and 2021’s Two Saviors, with records as a part of Big Thief in-between – U.F.O.F. and Two Hands (2019), and Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You (2022).
Haunted Mountain is about love and… something other. Something bigger than love, a soulfulness, or a soul seeking fullness. In the songs, (with five co-written alongside longtime friend and musical hero Jolie Holland (‘Haunted Mountain’, ‘Paradise’, ‘Where You’re Coming From’, ‘Lagrimas’, & ‘Lullabies’) and one (‘The Rainbow’) set to the words of Judee Sill’s final journal entry, written 3 weeks before she passed) love often assumes a natural form, sometimes it becomes artificial, sometimes cosmic. It is a consciousness here, interacting with the lovers, watching them sometimes, becoming them sometimes. Romance is not the only form of love Haunted Mountain explores; The epic ‘Lullabies’ examines the inexhaustible connection between mother and son; a platonic bond appears in ‘Where you’re coming from’; and grief leads to communion with the dead in ‘Lagrimas’.
The songs were written in mountains; by cold springs in the Serra da Estrela of Portugal, on the submerged volcano of Milos in the Cyclades, Valle Onsernone in the Swiss Alps (where the cover photo was taken), and the Santa Monica range where Buck now calls home – all where his new love was born. “Love inhabits your environment, animates the inanimate, charging everything around you with a sense of meaning,” Meek says. Haunted Mountain asks – is love a form of magic?
Dylan Meek
A seventh generation Texan, from a family of glass artists, literature professors,
psychologists, and rocket engineers, Dylan was raised in Wimberley, TX, and
by the age of 6 had taught himself to play blues and boogie woogie piano.
• Growing up in a small town in the Texas hill country called Wimberley.
At 14, the Harlem piano master Jimmy Neeley (1926-2014 – who played with
Charlie Parker, Chuck Berry, Muddy Waters, Etta Jones, Bo Diddley, Lionel
Hampton, Little Richard, Big Joe Turner, Dave Brubeck, Willis Gator Jones,
etc) took him in as a protege, passing along nearly a century of wisdom and
music. “Dylan, the young lion, has that gift. I want him to play loose, never the same
thing twice. I don’t want him to be like a clock, tick tock, tick tock” – Jimmy.
• At 17, he moved to Boston to live with his brother Buck Meek (Big Thief) and
play organ and piano at gospel churches like Grant AME & Good
Shepherd. These experiences provided the first inspiration for him to start
singing. He then moved to NYC to attend the New School for Jazz, and lived
in the city for 7 years, collaborating frequently with legends such as Johnny
O’neal (Dizzy Gillespie, Art Blakey, Nancy Wilson), Jackie Williams
(Stéphane Grappelli, Doc Cheatham, Illinois Jacquet), Reggie Workman
(John Coltrane, Art Blakey, Thelonious Monk), Jr. Mance (Dizzy Gillespie,
Charlie Parker, Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young), Lew Soloff (Tito Puente,
B,S&T), and Fred Stanton and Benny Powell of the original Duke Ellington
Orchestra.
• He recorded his first solo album, And When, with Greg Hutchinson (Betty
Carter, Roy Hargrove, Ray Brown) and Ben Wolfe (Wynton Marsalis, Diana
Krall) in 2012, and played thousands of shows around the five boroughs with
various artists, including his 17-piece funk band Wet Velvet, and Frequently
at Zinc with Victor Jones (Stan Getz, Dizzy Gillespie, Chaka Khan) & Alex
Blake (Sun Ra), with whom he recorded the album Time for Class.
• Dylan’s friend and collaborator Ray Angry (the Roots, Alicia Keys, Nas,
Lauryn Hill, Dr. Dre) helped initiate him into the world of hip hop &
production, and connected him with Om’mas Keith, who he went on to
collaborate with on several projects (including co-writing “Invincible” with
Keith and Aminé for Spiderman – Into the Spider Verse). In 2014 he
moved to Los Angeles, and has since played with Post Malone, Quavo,
Miguel, The Marias, Theo Katzman, Tiffany Haddish opened for Imagine
Dragons on a tour with Grace Vanderwaal, collaborated with Mike Judge
for “Tales from the Tour Bus”, and recorded with Questlove.
• Since Childhood, Dylan has collaborated with his brother Buck Meek,
(guitarist and co-founder of Big Thief), and is featured on Buck’s solo
albums Heart Was Beat, Two Saviors, and Haunted Mountain playing
piano, pump organ, Synthesizers, and Rhodes.“Dylan Meek shreds to the
eleventh degree – Dylan is like James Booker territory, 100%, so good, and it’s
interesting to see how he plays within his brother’s music. There’s no soloing,
except for one song” – Jolie Holland
• Now at 32 years old, with a lifetime’s worth of collaboration with so many
legends, Dylan dedicates his focus primarily on writing and performing
his own original songs, growing a faithful fan base in Los Angeles with
his band, touring his music, self-producing and engineering his first all
original solo record, All I Need (released 2022), and working on his 2nd
self produced album entitled “Love Languages” in hopes to start single
release’s the coming year and full record drop Summer of 2024.
.
Instagram: @DylanMeekMusic
Discography
Dylan Meek: (“And When”, “All I Need”) – Produced, Performed, Wrote
The Marias: Superclean Vol 1. (tracks: “I don’t know you”, “Basta Ya”)- Keys
Dr. Teeth & The Electric Mayhem (Walt Disney Records, The Muppet Show):
(Tracks: “God only knows” The beach boys) – Keys
Buck Meek: (on albums “Two Saviors”, “Buck Meek” “Haunted Mountain)- Keys
Dashboard Confessional: (“Crooked Shadows”)-Keys
Into the Spider Verse Soundtrack: (Aminè “Invincible”)-Played & co-wrote
The Wanted: (Stay Another Day)- Keys
Victor Jones: (Time for Class)- Keys
Elise Legrow: (Playing Chess)-Keys
The High Note (motion picture): Tracie Ellis Ross- (track: “Stop for a minute”)
-Keys