Well then! It would appear that someone else watched Netflix’s Murder Mountain and found themselves enchanted by its depiction of Humboldt as a lawless hellscape that we all somehow manage to exist in. So odd and exciting is the stylized version of our remote corner of California to this most-recent streaming tourist — a musician, in this instance — that it inspired its own soon-to-be-released album of songs, imaginatively titled Murder Mountain. A lyrical sampling: 

“No one really gives a damn what we do on Murder Mountain
No cops, no Feds to cannibalize this war
Isolated in our national troubles
Like the kills notched on my M1 Garand”

So sings Phoenix-based singer/songwriter Johnny Ironsights on the album’s twangy title track — you can watch the video for the song, filmed mostly in an Airstream trailer in the safety of Bisbee, Arizona, above. In an interview with the publication American Songwriter, Ironsights describes the denizens of the Humboldt in his song as “like hippies, but with AK-47s,” a people who’ve “created their own space that is outside of the law,” which, sure, all sounds like fun songwriting fodder. But then, of course, there is also the violence Ironsights has heard about.

“People believe it’s linked to either the cartels, or somehow a serial killer or something to do with illegal marijuana cultivation, so that’s where that idea came from,” Ironsights says. This constant tension, presumably, leads Humboldtians to seek out simple comforts like those described in the chorus of “Murder Mountain.”  

“I’ll just sit and think about the restless times we had,
extinguish this misplaced rage with an eight ball and a homely girl.”

Or, you know, you could get a latte from Jitter Bean. Murder Mountain, the album, will be released in full on March 5, 2021.

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