Telekinetic Yeti’s Alex Baumann talks Dubuque, touring with Weedeater, and their sophomore LP

Telekinetic Yeti. // photo credit Jeremy Vallin

Stoner doom duo Telekinetic Yeti are as powerful as their name suggests, despite being made up only of Alex Baumann on guitar and vocals and Rockwel Heim on drums. Their sophomore album, Primordial, dropped in early July after a five-year wait since the release of their debut, Abominable, in 2017. It was very much worth the half-decade interval, loaded as it is with grooving riffs and high-flying solos from Baumann, and grounded with the pounding rhythms of Heim.

The band stops at the recordBar this Thursday, August 25, and we took the opportunity to reach out to Alex Baumann via email about the band’s new album and time on the road.

The Pitch: Telekinetic Yeti is from Dubuque, Iowa. You have the National Mississippi River Museum & Aquarium, Diamond Jo Casino, and that very fancy old hotel downtown. What’s the music scene like?

Alex Baumann: It’s small, but the people involved are passionate. There’s only ever really been a few venues in Dubuque even willing to have a metal show. The Lift in Dubuque is the venue we grew up going to shows at and where we cut our teeth playing. Saw a lot of cool underground up-and-coming metal bands there in my late teen years and early 20s which influenced me and led to me enjoying heavier and heavier music. The music scene actually used to be bigger in Dubuque I would say when I was a bit younger. Restaurants being installed above the main venues in town put an end to the early shows which I think hurt the music scene overall. Either way the metal shows in Dubuque we’re always the most fun and with the coolest people, it was one of the few places I didn’t feel out of place.

You just got off the road with Weedeater. What’s the difference between opening and headlining for the band?

Well, there are pros and cons to both. As a support band you can relax, party, and socialize after playing without having to worry about getting too fucked up to play your best. Because you already played haha! When you headline, it’s all on you. The performance, your crew, the support bands and their crew. You are now responsible for the whole production. With that kinda weight you have to hold back on the party and spend most of your time preparing with your team to make sure you can put on your best show(s). Both are rewarding in different ways. As far as a feeling of accomplishment goes, it’s hard to beat a great headlining show.

As a stoner / doom / metal band, I’m sure you end up on some odd bills with interesting acts. Are there any which stand out in your mind?

No, most of the shows we’ve done have been pretty straightforward metal shows, we haven’t really done anything very oddball that I can think of.

Primordial is your second album, with Abominable released in 2017. It’s also your first for Tee Pee Records. How has the music or band changed in the last five years?

Musically, the band continues to evolve. I’m always trying to make good songs that come from the heart and hopefully have something fresh about them. We try really hard to have no filler moments on our albums. I feel we succeeded on that on the first album as well as the new album. This album is us branching off and exploring more new sonic territory. I started using guitars with Floyd Rose Tremelo systems for this album which allows me to add extra flavor and expression to my playing and I love it. This album I feel taps into extremes a bit more than the first album, it isn’t afraid to be simpler than the first album at times when it does the right thing to the mind, but it also has even some faster, more complex, and more upbeat moments than the first album. I would say maybe it’s more dynamic. Either way I’m very proud of both albums. Ultimately each album I feel is just a snapshot of the band at a moment in time.

The world, I feel, has also changed between the time Abominable was released in 2017 and when we recorded Primordial in April 2020 when the pandemic and a lot of political tension was obviously going on. The world is changing and fascist ideologies are rearing their ugly heads, we are living in what I believe is late-stage capitalism. I feel the powers that be are creating a future robbed of meaning. I have never believed in this society we have created of working 40-60+ hours a week to survive barely and come home and emotionally masturbate to tv shows and movies every day and then call it a life. Primordial is about thinking of where we came from and where we’re going as an evolving species. Its about letting go of religious dogma. I think this future we are creating is making us sick and humanity needs to rethink its path. These themes are found throughout the album and I hope people can relate or that it will create a spark for people to analyze their lives and find ways to inject more meaning into life.

We also went through a lineup change; I have a different drummer now. Quite frankly, it’s revitalized the band. Rocky and I really click and it’s been making working on new material and recording the second album a breeze. We were able to write and record our second album in a fraction of the time we recorded our first album and I personally think it sounds even better, so I’ve been really happy with that. Rocky is basically a human metronome and can play drums to any riff I could possibly throw at him so it feels like the sky’s the limit now and I couldn’t be more stoked about it.

There’s a video out for “Ancient Nug,” off the new record. You’ve only ever made one other official music video, and that was for “Stoned and Feathered” in 2017, and it’s also a performance video. Is that more a case of budget or just what you all feel comfortable doing?

It’s not a case of budget so much as I just generally prefer performance music videos to videos with acting and story, etc., as 90% of the time I think acting and story in music videos is extremely cheesy. At some point we might dip our toes into something like that but it would have to be done just perfectly for me to like it. One of your local artists, Brodie Rush of Be / Non, is producing our new video and its got some animation components to it and I think it will be a nice change of pace as far as our videos go. We really like what we have seen so far and we hope to release it in the next month or so.

Telekinetic Yeti plays the Record Bar on Thursday, August 25 with White Hills and They Watch Us from the Moon. Details on that show here.