San Francisco - The Stone Foxes formed in the sleepy foothills of California’s Central Valley where members Aaron Mort, and brothers Spence Koehler (guitarist) and Shannon Koehler (drummer) grew up.  After high school, they went to college at San Francisco State University and alas they formed a cool alt-rock band. The group’s songs are full of classic blues structures and shout-along moments. Bestnewbands.com caught up with bassist Aaron Mort and guitarist Spence Koehler to discuss a wide array of topics shortly before their set at Outside Lands.

Daniel Kohn: What does playing Outside Lands, debatably the biggest festival in city, mean to a bunch of hometown guys like yourselves?

Aaron Mort: This means the world to us. To be a part of the San Francisco music community and to get the validation of playing a festival like this is pretty humbling and very exciting for us. Outside Lands got started around the same time our band got started, so it has always been our goal to get here.

Spence Koehler: Every year we’d come to the festival and be like “We didn’t make it this year, but hopefully next year,” and this time it happened. It’s pretty exciting and we all have the jitters going.

DK: Which one of you lives within walking distance of here?

AM: I do.

DK: What was it like to walk to the Golden Gate Park to play music to thousands of people?

AM: It was pretty cool. I didn’t have to deal with the traffic! I was in my room waiting for everybody since they were coming from other parts of the city to pick me up and I said screw it, I live so close anyway so I walked over. So weird, yet so cool.

SK: It is pretty awesome to stroll over to go this giant festival that we’re playing at this time.

AM: I could hear the bass from the festival from my room and it’s exciting to be a part of it this time.

DK: What’s the set looking like?

AM: It’s the first time we’re going to be debuting a lot of new material in San Francisco. We haven’t played here in many, many months. It’s going to be a set of at least half of which is new material.

DK: Do you have a lot of friends and family coming to watch?

AM: We do. I think all of our parents are here and all our girlfriends for sure.

SK: We’ve run into friends randomly here that came to see us, which was super exciting to see.

Photo of The Stone Foxes by Dianne de Guzman