Pleased To Meet Me: Black Market Heart
Black Market Heart is post-punk noise from Los Angeles. Spencer Robinson and Shawn Medina (both formerly of the legendary garage band The Lords of Altamont) are joined by Tina Brugnoletti (Auto Motives, Hot Licks), finding that sweet spot between distortion and melody. Taking cues from the feedback-drenched legacy of The Jesus and Mary Chain and the icy precision of Joy Division, Black Market Heart creates a sound designed for late nights and low lights. With songs that live in the dark corners of a neon city, the band offers dirty, driving bass lines and primal drums, with razor sharp guitar cutting through the noise.
Black Market Heart prepares to release their new album, What Happens in the Dark, on April 14, 2026.
Introduce yourself… (Where are you from, what band do you play in etc..)
SR: Spencer Robinson, Los Angeles, Black Market Heart.
TB: Hi, I’m Tina Brugnoletti, I play bass in Black Market Heart. I live in Los Angeles since moving here in 2000. Originally from Cleveland, Ohio.
Why do you play music?
SR: The easy answer is that I love it, but that isn’t a very good answer. When I was young, I was not good at much. I was terrible at sports. My only hobbies were watching TV and listening to records. I didn’t just love listening to music though. I was obsessed with knowing every fact about all the bands I was into, etc. It just became the most important thing in my life. When I was 13 years old, I finally decided to do something with that obsession, and I bought a used drum kit. A couple years later, I moved to the bass, and eventually picked up a guitar. Now, 500 years later, it’s part of every day for me. It also ended up being the way that I made some of the best friends I have. It’s like an appendage at this point.
TB: I play music to commune with the spirit, get outside myself, experience community, collaboration and get a nice sound bath in the process. I love the energetic exchange of playing live with other musicians and performing for an audience. Playing is pure fun and I want as much of it as possible.
What was a major influence on you as an Artist/Band?
SR: When I moved from Drums to bass, I had no idea what I was doing. I figured I’d start with something that wasn’t super complicated, so I put on the first Ramones record, and started moving my hand up and down the neck. I branched out from there, but that was my first taste of being able to play an actual song on something with strings.
TB: Discovering punk as a youth was revolutionary for me. The accessibility and raw energy entangled with art and attitude. It spoke to my core being and awakened the call to the path.
What’s a favourite book or film?
SR: I don’t know if I could pick an absolute favorite movie because there are so many good ones, but the two that always come to mind when I get asked this question are Spinal Tap and Pulp Fiction.
There are a lot of good music movies, but Spinal Tap is the one that has the best jokes, best characters, and is the most quotable. It’s also incredibly re-watchable.
Tarantino has made a lot of good movies, but Pulp Fiction literally has everything. The storytelling, the cast, the way the chapters are woven together, the kickass soundtrack. It’s unbeatable.
TB: Favorites cycle depending on the timeline but I loved dystopian future until we started living it. Now I love anything that is a good escape.
Do you prefer the recording process or performing live?
SR: Both are really great, and I feel like it’s hard to compare because they both satisfy something entirely different. That being said, I’m really into the idea of recording different kinds of music right now. I love that we incorporated some new stuff on the new Black Market Heart record. This one really allowed me to stretch as a songwriter, and it was SO fun.
TB: I love both but live performance wins for the adrenaline. Recording is exciting in the revelation of the creative process in what the material becomes as it is captured. Live performance is like nothing else as it cannot be harnessed or duplicated.
What would be a dream collaboration?
SR: I’d love to write with some artists that play other types of music. I’d love to do something off-the-wall with Nick Cave or Kim Salmon, or work on a Country record with someone like Kaitlin Butts or Emily Zeck. Just wanna keep it all fresh.
TB: I love collaborations and find that the magic is in the discovery, rather than what you anticipate or plan. You never really know what the creative gods have in store for you. I am loving the current collab with Spencer and Shawn in Black Market Heart. They are fun to play with, have excellent musical sensibilities, and possess a combination of talent and experience that make it a pleasure.
Describe a favourite album.
SR: There are so many great ones, of course. I’m going to use one of the ones that made me want to play the bass in the first place. The first Black Sabbath record. Besides literally inventing a form of music, that record sounds like nothing else. Every Stoner, Doom, Desert etc etc band is influenced by it, but the way that record crushes while also swinging is fucking amazing. The song Black Sabbath on the same album with something as funky as The Wizard…Just wow.
TB: My current hyper fixation is I’m Nice Now by Upchuck. It hits several nostalgia pockets for me while being absolutely new and fresh. Melodic and dreamy while still giving me the catharsis of desire to smash shit. I can’t get enough of it right now and I flip it over and over again on the turntable.
What's your favourite local haunt?
SR: My favorite bar to drink at is the bar in my own home. There are some great places to go on the East Side of LA - The Edendale, The Echo, The Drawing Room, but nothing is as satisfying as drinking whiskey at home with my wife and dog.
TB: I love to drive the streets of Los Angeles and haunt them myself. I have favorite routes around the city that I will cruise for pleasure in one of my old cars. There are endless nooks and crannies to discover in the not so pretty and polished parts of town. I have a special fetish for revisiting the locations of old movie and tv car chases. Our streets are a wealth of cinematic history.
What's your strangest experience while performing live? If I were pursuing anything other than music it would be…
SR: I played bass in The Lords of Altamont for 5 years, and we did a lot of European touring. We played a festival in Spain, and they had cooked pigs for the bands backstage. I’m a veg so I stayed away from all that, but people love their pork in Spain. Anyway, the band before us grabbed pieces of the poor pigs and threw them all over the stage while they played. By the time we got on at the end of the night, we were wading through a soaking wet stage of sweat, beer, and pork bits. The whole thing became electrified and we were all getting shocked and covered in muck. It was wild.
TB: I played a show in San Francisco where I felt like I was levitating. It was surreal, I loved it. If I were pursuing anything other than music it would be… Stunt driving
What are some of your favourite aspects of being a musician in Los Angeles?
SR: LA is great because there are so many different types of bands here. If you want to find your scene, you can find it, but you can also jump around and play with all kinds of bands. If you want to play with a grunge band, you got it. Want to play with a dude doing punk covers on a ukelele, go go go.
TB: I love being a musician in Los Angeles because of the rich history of punk that continues on in LA and surrounding cities and areas. Each era and area with distinctive flavors yet woven together as the sprawl itself is creatively connected. Your heroes can be spotted out in the wild.
If you weren’t playing music in Los Angeles, where would you be?
SR: I grew up in LA, and I’ve always been here, so I don’t know where else I’d be. As for the cities that I’ve been to that I really loved, Zurich was awesome. I loved places in Holland like Eindhoven and Rotterdam. Cedeira in Spain was one of the most relaxing places I’ve ever been to. There are a ton of cool cities out there, and I guess I could be good in any of them. They have TV in Spain, right?
TB: Hopefully in another magical city playing music with other artists and creatives.
Any sage advice for young musicians?
SR: Try new stuff. Play music that you don’t usually play. Write songs on instruments that are not your usual instrument. Stretch it out a bit for the sake of originality. Why the hell not, right?
TB: Enjoy every moment as it happens. Enjoy your band mates and collaborators. Get in the zone and let go.