Longevity in the music scene is difficult to achieve. Weathering the storm of band drama, touring, day jobs, vices, fickle fandom and writer’s block can be a practical superpower.

Desario formed in 2004 out of the ashes of the band Holiday Flyer, which included members John Conley and Michael Yoas. Holiday Flyer started in the early ‘90s. Conley and Yoas met as teenagers. They actually learned to play guitar together.

“We were about 16, 17,” said Yoas in a phone interview with Submerge. “We were both in high school—we didn’t go to high school together—but it was during a period in time when I lived in Sacramento during high school. We met through family members. My dad and John’s uncle were really good friends. We started playing music together almost immediately after we met. We pretty much learned how to play guitar together before we got good at playing guitar.”

To say that the members of Desario (also including Mike Carr on bass and Kirklyn Cox on drums) have been through a lot over the years is obviously an understatement. In addition to the album Desario is due to release, Haunted, they also released Red Returns earlier this year in April, as well as two prior full-length albums. Holiday Flyer had four full-length albums, as well as three EPs.

“When I look back and I see the number of releases and everything, it’s pretty cool,” said Conley. “Time-wise, it doesn’t feel that long, but looking back at some of the stuff, it does seem like it was such a long time ago, almost like a different life in some ways.”

Haunted, due out Oct. 28, 2016, has the band exploring a more intimate side, with the songs having more of a live and stripped-down nature. Much of the album has a hazy, dreamy feel, tracks like opener “Black Dream” and title track “Haunted” feel like slow dancing at your high school dance after hot-boxing your friend’s van. The band cites influences from the Britpop and shoegaze world.

“The Haunted EP and Red Returns both sound a lot different than our previous recordings,” said Conley. “They’re definitely more raw sounding. They’re a little bit more stripped down … We didn’t really do a lot of extra production. They sound like when we play the songs live. It’s kind of what we were going for, we wanted a more live, more gritty, raw feel.”

The band took a different approach to the recording process. In the past, Desario recorded their own albums, with Yoas behind the board handling production and engineering duties. However, this time around they opted out of handling everything on their own and enlisted outside assistance.

“We recorded [Haunted] with Tony Cale, the drummer for Soft Science, currently,” said Yoas. “He had a home studio when he was still living here in Sacramento. Previously we have done everything on our own, but we just wanted to mix it up a little bit, so we recorded it with Tony, and it was a good experience. It was very casual, he made it easy for us.”

There’s one other unique quality about the recording session that produced Haunted. As mentioned earlier, Desario started their career putting out two full-length albums (Mixer and Zero Point Zero); however, the last recording session didn’t work as a single album to the band. So, after stepping back and looking at the material, the band decided to split the songs into separate EPs, Red Returns and Haunted, feeling the two stood on their own, and needed separate releases.

“It seems like we start recording every time we have 10 or 12 songs ready to record,” said Yoas. “Then, as we get into the process, it starts dictating where we think it’s going to go. This one, for whatever reason there was like a natural break with this batch of songs. There was two separate releases amongst these songs.”

However, Yoas explains, he and the band intend to retake the reins going forward.

“For me, being the person that has recorded us and will continue to record us from this point moving forward, it was odd to give up the reins a little bit and go with someone else’s ideas and vision,” he said.

Typically, one would expect following a release (even two in a single year), a band would be planning to set aside a few weeks or so to tour in support of their album, but Desario is not your typical band. Actually, to date Desario has not toured at all, outside of the occasional show out of town. Mostly, they’ve kept close to home. However, they have had discussions of changing this, and would like to in the near future.

“We’re always talking about—at some point, at least—blocking out a couple of weeks at some point, and just trying to put something together,” said Yoas. “Whether it’s with some other band, or just trying to get out on our own. I think it’s something the four of us really need to do, it’s just a matter of making it happen with our schedules.”

And what will the future hold for Desario? Well, they’re ready to head back into the studio, of course.

“We’ve got about an album’s worth of material written that we just need to put the finishing touches on the arrangements,” said Yoas. “We will probably start recording a few of those pretty quickly here. We definitely want to get something recorded and released in 2017.”

“The next recording will be different,” Conley adds. “You can kind of hear a taste of what the next batch is going to sound like. The last song on Haunted, it’s a cover [of a song] by the band A House of Love, and we recorded that just a few months ago. There’s a shoegaze blog in Brazil called The Blog that Celebrates Itself, they’re doing a series of compilation albums, tribute albums to shoegaze, Britpop bands from the ‘90s, and we were asked to contribute a song to that [series]. We were so happy with the results, we decided to put it on the EP as well.”

Having released two EPs this year, and hoping to get another album out next year, one thing you might notice looking at the dates of their releases is the gap between the release of Mixer, in 2012, and Red Returns, this year in April. Well, the band had a change in the lineup, at drums. In regards to exiting drummer Jim Rivas, Yoas explains, “As cliché as it sounds, it was just musical differences.”

Enter new drummer, Kirklyn Cox.

“Kirk at the time he had recently moved to Sacramento, he was working in Arizona,” said Conley. “He was going to architecture school, and he had recently graduated from school, and he moved back here to Sacramento and he was looking for a band to be in … He wanted to play drums again. He hadn’t played while he was going to school. It just worked out.”

“Part of the reason for the delay between releases was just getting the band back on track,” said Yoas. “Getting used to the new lineup, reworking the batch of songs we have with Kirk. It’s different. We’ve changed a lot since he has joined the band. Now that we’ve finished up these two EPs, were changing and evolving again.”

That change, for better or worse, is quite possibly just a record of age and growth. When you’ve been playing together three decades-plus, it’s hard not to evolve together. Desario, especially with members Conley and Yoas’ long-term relationship, is no different than looking at a beautifully seasoned and well-weathered marriage. While there may have been tough times, they have each other, and no matter what changes come, they will still be themselves.

“We keep changing and doing what we think is different types of music,” said Yoas, “but in the end there’s always something in every song that’s always consistent and sounds like Desario, in my opinion.”

“Whatever we do ends up sounding like us,” echos Conley in agreement.

Celebrate the release of Desario’s new EP, Haunted, on Nov. 1, 2016 when the band will play Starlite Lounge (1517 21st St., Sacramento). Also playing will be Clay Rendering and Glaare. This 21-and-over show will carry an $8 cover and will start at 8 p.m. For more on Desario, check the band out at Facebook.com/desarioband.

Forever Goldrush’s Amador Frequency finally gets the release it deserves

A phone call with a record label was all it took to breathe life back into a local band that has been indefinitely on hold for the past nine years.

If you were around Sacramento during the late ‘90s, you might remember a band called Forever Goldrush. The alt-country outfit was making a name for itself on the local scene, starting with the self-released album Unknown Territory in 1997. They released their second album Halo in My Backpack with Cargo Records in 1998. By 2002 they had toured everywhere west of the Mississippi River and were recording songs for their third album, which was completed, but never officially released, and the band started to lose momentum.

For starters, they couldn’t find a label to put out the record. The album received major interest, but nothing came of it. And touring had become overwhelming, setting the band up for burnout.

“Road dogging it was not really gonna do it for us any longer,” drummer Tony Cale said.

Without further ado, the band members went their separate ways. Vocalist Damon Wyckoff moved back to Amador County while the rest joined other local bands like the Regulars, Soft Science and the English Singles. That was until about three or four months ago, when they received a long-awaited phone call. After nine years, Sacramento record label Test Pattern Records called and said they wanted to put out the album.

Submerge met with Cale and bassist Mason DeMusey to talk about the resurrected album, Amador Frequency, which is due for its release on Aug. 2, 2011. It is a compilation pulled from 30-plus songs the band recorded over a span of six to eight months in 2002.

Cale and DeMusey agree that period was marked by musical exploration and experimentation, an explanation they offer for Amador Frequency’s unique sound. The limits of their musical palate were endless; they were soaking up the likes of Barcelona, Sigur Ros, Merzbow, Whiskey Town and ELO. Not to mention the fact their lead guitarist, Josh Lacey, had just left the band, leaving Wyckoff, Cale and DeMusey to do without while producing the majority of the album.

Thus the project quickly became a matter of figuring out how to creatively write songs without a lead guitarist. Turn up the synths and the noise guitars, according to Cale.

Amador Frequency is an entirely different package compared to FG’s prior two albums, Cale said, both of which were very roots-oriented and Americana. The band’s four original members grew up in Amador County, and since the band’s beginnings, “the County” has borne a heavy influence on defining the style of their songs. Lyrically, this album is no different, and songs like “Disconnected” and “Skeleton Keys” still retain considerable twang. But the album is rife with pop appeal, from its opening lighthearted number “Honey I Do” to “Rodeo Boys” and “The Letters.” Pearly synths highlight songs like “Silver Sweethearts,” while “Under the Apple Tree” and “Cup ‘o’ Gold” borderline shoegaze with glittering distortion and wizzing synths.

Nine years later and the band plans to record six more songs that will be different from the rest. Lacey has returned from North Carolina to record and play the album release show in August, the first Sacramento gig the band will have played since its one-time reunion show at Old Ironsides in 2007.

What hasn’t changed is the band’s ability to fly by the seat of its pants. Beyond the Aug. 2 show and recording at Radio Star recording studio this September, there are no set plans.

“Who knows what happens after that,” Cale said. “All this just sort of happened because Test Pattern showed interest in putting out the record, so now we’re just acting like a normal band.”

In what ways is [Amador Frequency] such a mass departure [from the other albums]?
Tony Cale: I don’t know, that whole period was a sort of sonic exploration, really.
Mason DeMusey: We were just pushing ourselves to be creative without [Lacey], and that’s actually pretty much what Amador Frequency ended up being.
TC: We were kind of dealing with a formula that we couldn’t complete, really, because we didn’t have all the components.
MD: Try to stretch our songs without guitar solos.
TC: Or just how much twang can you pull out of a dirge-y noise pop number or something like that? So it was sort of just a free-for-all, easily one of the loosest musical experiences of my life.

From what I’ve read, you’ve gotten comparisons anywhere from Creedence to Lynryd Skynryd, and of course, with the vocals, Eddie Vedder. Do you guys feel like these are very accurate?
MD: The first recording kind of stands on its own as a very alt, very, very country album. And, are those fair comparisons? I would ask a listener. Because I don’t think Skynryd is a very fair comparison to our first record and our territory. We’re not that southern pride.
TC: I like Lynyrd Skynryd.
MD: I do too! Don’t get me wrong, I like Lynyrd Skynyrd, but I don’t think that’s too fair of a comparison. Like I said, the first album actually was a lot more country than what Amador Frequency is now, and that’s part of the transition–where we were, and where we’re going now. But it’s fair enough in the respect that it’s very country. Banjo, mandolin, it’s okie. Pedal steel, you know.

So it looks like it had originally been contemplated for the album to be called Northern California, but then that changed?
TC: For Amador Frequency? Yeah there were definitely different titles going around…
MD: Yeah, I don’t know, I remember Amador Frequency just sticking to that record since the inception.

Would you say that because that was the theme of the album?
MD: Yeah, with a lot of Damon’s songwriting, again, since we grew up there, a lot of his writing is about these experiences growing up in a rural community, and so we kind of wear that on our sleeves all the time.
TC: When I first met these guys, they were flying the Amador flag really hard. I had never hung out with dudes that were so into their own county in my life, like just completely committed. Even though they were all down here working and doing their thing in the big city and shit like that…
MD: [Laughs] Yeah this was the big city!
TC: All they would do is talk about “the County.”
MD: That’s what us kids call it. Amador, we call it “the County.”

People have to be pretty excited right now, right? That a band that’s been gone for a while is just coming back?
MD: I would hope so, I mean, tickets went on sale today. I think that a lot of what’s motivating me, personally, is just the excitement I’m getting from these guys and from everybody else. And it’s been amazing. I mean, I called Josh, and I asked him if he wanted to come out here to do the CD release show just because it was such a great success and fun the last time I had him out here for the reunion show at Old Ironsides. And he basically told me that he’s been waiting for three years for this phone call.
TC: I mean, at the end of the day, it’s just really nice to be playing with these guys again, no matter what. I’m just really stoked that we get the opportunity to cut six more songs at the end of this summer. I mean, Amador Frequency, I hadn’t listened to that record in years, I’d forgotten about it. Just blew it off. I just thought it was one of those experiments. It may still very well be one of those experiments that…
MD: That fails horribly? But now we have the chance to find out.
TC: But if nothing else, I think the next two months is going to probably be some of the best two months Forever Goldrush has ever had.

Forever Goldrush’s Amador Frequency will be available from Test Pattern Records (Testpatternrecords.com) Aug. 2. The band will play a CD release show at Harlow’s in Sacramento on Aug. 12. Showtime is 9 p.m. and tickets ($9) can be purchased through Harlows.com.