Exactly six years to the night I last saw them live, I ventured up to L.A. to catch the Mystery Light’s last stop on their much-anticipated comeback tour of the West Coast. About sixty seconds into their set, at the transition between Intro and Follow Me Home (listen to the album version, it’s seamless), I was suddenly reminded of why I fell in love with the band that night six years ago; they just might be the best live rock and roll band in the world - then and now.

The group draws from some of the best elements of music’s past - the poetic lyricism of classics like Dylan and Cohen, the hard hitting edge of early garage staples like The Sonics, the punk sensibilities of groups like The Dead Boys - and infuse it with an exciting dose of modern feel and urgency. The end result is something fresh, unique, and different altogether.

I rang chief Mystery Light Mike Brandon up a few days after the show and caught him in perhaps one of the most comfortable environments possible: a few days fresh off the tour, decompressing at his childhood home on California’s Central Coast. We chatted business for the first 30 minutes - the band’s origins, touring, East Coast vs West etc. - and then proceeded to nerd out on our favorite music for about an hour. Check out a few selected bits from our convo below.

But seriously, how have I not heard Bob Lind until now? Thanks, Mike. —Jackson Todd

Just for the record - Who is in the band right now?

It's me, Mike Brandon, on vocals and guitar, L.A. Solano on lead guitar - L.A. is short for Luis Alfonso - Alex Amini on bass, Lily Rogers on keys, and Zach Butler on drums.

What can you tell us about the Salinas origins of the Mystery Lights? How did it all start? I feel like there aren't many bands from that area, at least ones that I can think of off the top of my head.

Yeah, I mean there's a "scene" in Salinas, just like anywhere. There were a lot of local bands, but I don't think any of them ever went on to do anything crazy, like touring and stuff. There was Uzi Suicide, Los Dry Heavers, and the Tartan Clan, who were a huge inspiration to us, and a big reason the Mystery Lights even exist.

I met L.A. at the skatepark - I used to skate a lot - and I would just see him skating around and that’s pretty much how we met, through our shared love for rock and roll and skateboarding.

Anyways, there were bands around, but they just kinda died out. And the Mystery Lights, we just kept doin' it forever. When we were teenagers in Salinas and Monterey, playing Santa Cruz, we would burn our demos on a CD and give them away. We never recorded anything legitimately, we didn't take it very seriously.

Are any of those demos out there floating on the internet somewhere?

No they’re not! Which is crazy, Cause there's a lot of them. We've been discussing potentially putting them out at some point, I think people would like that. Because they're cool! They're super raw, and they sound really crappy in a good way, you know? Some people like that stuff - I mean, I like that kind of stuff. So we're considering putting it out.

But you know, at some point after playing around town for 6 years, the band kinda came to a halt and we all just started doing other things. The scene over here kind of died out, and I got really bored with California. Things started getting boring over here, so I moved to New York.

Around what time was this?

I'd say 2012? And then I noticed that the parties were a lot of fun, and there was a little music scene too. So I called up L.A. and I was like “dude - you should come out here and we should do something here, start a new band, or do something with music.” So he came out, started partying with me, and then the next thing you know, we're jamming at parties, jamming at little bars etc… eventually we just thought, let’s resurrect the Mystery Lights in New York City. So we found a different bass player, and then this guy Nick, who was the drummer on the first album, and just started playing around. The Daptone guys walked in on one of our shows and that was it; they invited us to their studio, started talking about our mutual love and respect for garage music and punk. They were like, “you know, we're a soul label, but it would be cool to have a garage rock subsidiary,” and asked if we wanted to be the first release on it.

That’s rad.

Yeah, that was the first legitimate thing we've ever done in our, you know, decade of knowing each other and playing together. Before then, we used to put up our demos on Myspace. We used to play shows with Shannon and The Clams, Ty Segall when he used to play for Traditional Fools, and Thee Oh Sees. But you know, this back when like 20 people were coming to the shows. It's crazy, because all those bands went on to become pretty damn successful. It's pretty cool.

““I wanted to take the toughness of the sixties’ music, the garage stuff, and instead of singing about girls and heartbreak ... I wanted to make it a little bit more poetic. You know, sing about war or something dark. Sing about the shadow, some Carl Jung shit.””

How would you say playing gigs on the East coast compares to the West? Is there much of a difference in terms of crowd energy?

Yeah, there's a difference for sure. I mean, every city has its own unique feel, you know? One thing I've noticed about the West Coast which I love - L.A. and I were both talking about this last tour - is that there are more people in the crowd that remind us of the kind of people we grew up with.

It feels like home.

Yeah, It's not necessarily the same feeling we get on the East Coast. Out here you'll get more homies that you would skate and brown-bag king cobras with at the skatepark, you know what I'm sayin'? They go crazy. It’s also the way they talk; the West Coast lingo is something that we’re very familiar with that doesn’t exist on the East Coast. Where are you from?

San Clemente, about an hour south of L.A.

Okay, okay, so Salinas is a trip. It’s near Monterey, which is very nice, you know, like there’s a lot of wealthy people out there. It’s like a tourist attraction. Salinas… is not. Salinas is like Steinbeck. And I love it. And kind of miss it.

Last Tuesday at the Resident was one of the best shows I’ve been to in a while. It’s no question you guys are definitely one of the tightest live bands around right now; would you say this is the product of some rigorous practice schedule, or is there some other secret? What would you attribute it to?

Nah, I think the "tightness" just comes from playing together a lot, especially depending on where on the tour you see us. If you see us towards the end of the tour, you're gonna see a tight, well-oiled machine, just because we've been playing every night. Also, the songs we did on this tour were pretty much just the songs from the first and second album, which we've played a trillion times together, with a couple of new covers. And we did that on purpose. We have 23 new songs. Brand new. And they're all gonna be recorded. There's a lot of stuff coming. We played 1 or 2 of the new songs, but the rest we chose not to play. Our thinking was that no one's seen us in a while, if you know about the band, you've listened to those two albums, the only two that are available, and you're probably down to hear those songs.

Yeah.

I don't know about you, but when I go see a band that I haven't seen in a long time - or ever - and I know their music, anytime they're like alright, here's a new song, that's my cue to go get a drink.

I feel like that’s always a challenge. You know how it is; the band wants to play their new stuff, they inevitably get sick of their old material. But the audience is there to hear them play the hits, you know?

For sure, yeah. Not to say that the new songs might not be the new hits, no one knows that yet. I feel like people fall in love more with songs after they've heard them. Sure, you might hear a new song a band plays, and you're like, oh, that was so cool. I can't wait for them to record that. But the truth is, those songs are really gonna hit once they’ve been recorded and people have listened to them. For this tour we thought, let's not burn our new songs out. Let's put them on the back burner. Let's be patient for the next tour in 2023. We'll play the shit outta them then, you know?

Now at this point, when we play our older songs, people are singing along and it's cool. Because we're so bad at putting stuff out, we played these songs for years. I’m really cautious about playing new songs too soon.

It was pretty sick seeing everyone sing along every word to “Follow Me Home” at that Resident Show.

Oh, yeah, that was awesome.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think this was your first West Coast tour in a few years, right?

Last year we played Seattle, but that doesn’t really count. If you're talking about California, then yeah. But we haven't been here in three years, since Covid. We came out here right before going to Australia for GizzFest.

Was that a Monks tune you guys encored with at the Resident show?

Yeah, I Hate You by The Monks. We recently did a Monk's cover set on Halloween. I bought a six string electric banjo just for that one show.

Yeah, I was actually gonna ask you about that. How did that go?

It's funny, we put a lot of time and effort in for that, we played 7 Monks songs. It was so much fun. We played at like, 12:30 AM on Halloween night, so everyone's way past drunk. And then afterwards, since we put in so much work on these stupid Monks songs, we thought we might as well play a couple of them on tour.

What other groups would you say have had a pretty big influence on the Mystery Lights sound?

It's changed a lot. But yeah, Dead Moon for sure. I'd say Billy Childish. Definitely The Monks. The Who and The Kinks for sure. One hundred percent.

Roy Orbison is a big one for me personally too. And Bob Dylan's lyrics! I always liked the way that he wrote his lyrics un-personalized. He never put an opinion on them, which is cool. He would sing a song about politics, but he wouldn't say what he personally believes in. He would just state the facts, rather than be anti-right or anti-left. And he wouldn’t condemn evil, either, he would kind of just let evil be and let you make your decision about it.

Are there any newer bands you guys are into and get psyched to see live?

Yeah, the Fat White Family were great. I played guitar with them for a little while too, but I was a fan first. The Ar-kaics for sure, the Country Teasers. Mark Sultan is amazing. He’s probably one of my bigger inspirations and a friend now, too. Obviously Night Beats - Danny Lee is the man. He was there at the Resident show too, he let me use his amp. There are a bunch of bands out there right now that are really killing it.

I actually wanted to dive deeper into the music you're listening to, if you're cool with that. It'll be pretty rapid fire. I just feel like fans like me are always looking for ways to find out what their favorite bands are listening to, and stuff like this is just a good way for the general public to get turned on to new music.

Heck yeah, I’m down.

Here’s the first prompt: What's one album that inspired you to start playing music?

I mean obviously the Nuggets box set. But then there was also this sixties compilation, I believe it was called Uptight Tonight: The Ultimate Sixties Garage Primer. Yeah. And all the songs on there were hard-hitting, like borderline punk. They were pretty much punk songs, but back in the sixties, when “psychedelic” didn't even have reverb, you know what I'm saying? And then also a huge one was No Thanks, the punk compilation. It had Johnny Thunders and The Jam on it. I know you asked for one, but I was listening to those three.

I noticed that with some of those bands on Nuggets, the lyrics were so bad, they were just always singing about “a girl broke my heart, she left me for another guy,” this and that etc… I wanted to take the toughness of the sixties’ music, the garage stuff and instead of singing about girls and Heartbreak, I wanted to sing about what Dylan would sing about. I wanted to make it a little bit more poetic. You know, sing about war or something dark. Sing about the shadow, some Carl Jung shit [laughs].

What’s one (or more) album that’s a current favorite?

Mikey Young has an ambient album, I don't know how current it is. It's called You Feelin Me. Oh yeah, you know who's really great is Exploded View, which has Annika Henderson in it - her solo records are great too. And then there’s that band Beak, they’re another amazing contemporary band. I know you asked for one album –

The more the merrier.

Yeah. I mean there's more, the only, the biggest problem here is that I'm definitely gonna forget something. Oh! The Ex Bats - Now Where Were We? That album is incredible. Mark Sultan too! Mark Sultan has an album that flew super far under the radar, but for all the good garage nerds, it's called Let Me Out. He's a genius and a good friend, and I never thought I'd be able to say that, but he is. I recorded some stuff with him before in Germany.

Do you think those recordings are ever gonna see the light of day?

I think everything will, yeah. If it doesn't come out while we're alive, that stuff comes out eventually. People find it and they put it out. It makes its way into the internet for sure. Somehow.

What’s your guilty pleasure record?

I have a bunch of guilty pleasure record. Hm, I'm not really that guilty of them, at least I don't really feel too guilty.

Doesn’t necessarily have to be guilty.

I mean, yeah, actually, here's a real guilty pleasure: I've been listening to Kodak Black’s Little Big Pac. I'm a big Baltimore Ravens fan and he’s always hanging out with Lamar Jackson. And then I started listening to that album and I kind of just associate it with the Baltimore Ravens, you know [laughs].

What's an album that you would say is currently ahead of its time?

I like to listen to a lot of classic stuff, soo things that are too, some things that are too whacked out, I'm kind of like, eh. I like the classic three chords, nice chorus - I like pop music, really. Yeah. So, you know, anything that's kind of pushing the envelope, I dig it, but sometimes I just wanna go back to the basics. What would you say? I mean, I'm just curious cause I'm trying to think -

I would say maybe any Beak album, like the stuff they're doing, stuff like that, you know?

Okay. Yeah. Okay. Beak. That is totally it. I mean, yeah. Cause they're pretty ahead of their time. You know who's crazy? There's this guy, his name's Paul Miller, and his band is called Slug Bug. It's the craziest stuff I've ever heard. It’s kinda like Gary Wilson. I think he played with Gary Wilson, actually. He’s a genius. And then our keyboard player Lily - she was in a band called Worthless - she’s always thinking like that too. I mean, even in the Mystery Lights, it's kind of cool having somebody like her, because her and L.A., they like to do crazy sounds and get experimental, and I like the classic ballads, three or four chords etc…

I think you guys do a good job of meeting in the middle between those two ends for sure.

Yeah. They'll put the synth stuff in after I write the Roy Orbison Ballad [laughs]. And in the new album it's a lot of that; just a simple song and then we'll put sounds and little guitar licks and tease parts to make it sound a little bit more crazy, like Soft Machine or something, you know?

Last one: what’s one album from any time period that would say is “perfect?”

The Rationals self-titled record is great, but I wouldn't say it’s perfect - oh God, Van Morrison. Van Morrison's one of my favorites. Um, the Van Morrison Moondance record's pretty great.

Are you a big Astral Weeks fan?

Oh yeah, yeah. I love Van Morrison. I love Van. You know what Record is super good is his first band’s, Them. That stuff is insane. Complete Them. That’s what it’s called.

Yeah, I haven't listened to that. I'll have to check it out.

Oh yeah, you're gonna love it. You're gonna flip out with that stuff. And then obviously one record that I've listened to over and over and again recently is Black Monk Time. It's pretty perfect. Jim Ford has an album called Harlan County that I've been listening to. Yeah. And also, I've been listening to this Bob Lind record where every single song on there is perfect - Best of Bob Lind. But, you know, there's a million, I'm a huge music fan. Even jazz records.

What’s a jazz favorite of yours?

I'm a big fan of Pharaoh Sanders - rest in peace.

We just did a piece recently on Karma and his collaboration with Floating Points.

Oh yeah, Floating Points is another one that's - oh man, that stuff's so amazing. I’m a huge fan of that psychedelic jazz stuff. It's just so cool, you know? My stepdad had a huge Miles Davis framed picture on the wall of him shushing the crowd, which is like, classic Miles Davis.

I think I can get into anything as long as it feels genuine. You know what record came out that was so good recently - and you're gonna laugh at the person who put it out - but Danzig put out a record during quarantine called Sings Elvis. It's super minimal. It's just him singing ten Elvis songs with his Danzig voice.

Nick Cave comes to mind.

It doesn't sound like metal Danzig. He has his voice cracks and everything, the classic Misfits style.

Last thing question: what's on the radar for the Mystery Lights?

Okay. Um, we have a new album, which I mentioned. We haven’t picked out what songs we’re gonna record, but there's 23 of 'em. And there's probably even more than that, but we're really gonna start being a little picky. We're set to record in February. We're really basing this record on how much fun we can possibly have at a show with these songs.

Can’t wait to hear it. Alright, that about does it. Thanks again for taking the time to do this.

Yeah, talk soon. Alright, brother. Take care.

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[First photo by Joel Henderson]