Back in 2010, Brant Bjork, the multi-instrumentalist singer/songwriter and ex-drummer of California desert-rock legends Kyuss, had reached the end of his rope with a lot of things in life. He was going through a divorce, he was burnt out from touring his solo work for years nonstop, and he had just gone separate ways from a close friend with whom he ran his record label, Low Desert Punk.
“It was just a really heavy time, you know?” he tells Kerrang! over the phone. “I was like, ‘Man I just need a jacuzzi. I just need to sit in a hot tub and fuckin’ chill, man.’”
So he took his pent-up frustration, walked into a house in Joshua Tree, California with the intention of recording a solo record, tossed out all his ideas, and decided to roll tape while improvising. The result is the musical iteration of a jacuzzi: 10 effortlessly cool instrumental, psychedelic desert-jazz tracks that encapsulate the feeling of the warm SoCal sunshine and Brant’s signature laid-back attitude. He called it Jacoozzi.