San Diego indie rockers trip out to the desert, come back with gold

It’s nothing new for an up-and-coming band to look back on their musical predecessors for inspiration; some of indie rock’s most recent and brightest stars have staked their burgeoning careers and built some impressive reputations on stylizing themselves on their elders. The Arcade Fire had Springsteen, Franz Ferdinand had Orange Juice, Interpol had Joy Division, and now out of southern California comes Delta Spirit, a band that showcases a sound that has certainly been done before, but in this newest incarnation sounds fresher than it has in years.

Founded by bassist Jon Jameson and drummer Brandon Young of the now-defunct Noise Ratchet, a much more abrasive, punk-influenced group, the lineup was completed when friend and novice guitarist Sean Walker joined up and future vocalist Matthew Vasquez was discovered, according to Jameson, “singing and playing guitar by the train tracks.” Multi-instrumentalist Kelly Winrich started as the band’s producer but later joined up within their first year; the official band bio states his duties as “plays piano, hits a drum, sings, hits a trashcan, plays guitar and a high strung guitar.” A diverse group, but one, bassist Jameson says, that has one goal: “to be found in the lineage of honest and true music that has found its way through every current of music history.”

A bold claim, to be sure, and one that isn’t exactly the easiest thing to accomplish for a band that has yet garner any major label attention. Their sound is a little difficult than most current bands to pin down, although Delta Spirit themselves officially label themselves as “Other/Thrash/Visual” with tongues firmly in cheek on their MySpace, the band draws from a number of widespread influences.

“We were born in the ‘80s, grew up in the ‘90s and have parents from the ‘60s, [and] we are proud of the bands that are making great music now,” Jameson says. “Maybe it’s like the Waterboys [a Celtic folk-rock band] covering Harry Nilsson.”

A few listens to the band’s lead single, “Trashcan,” shows a clear affinity for the Waterboys as well as similarities to perennial ‘80s folk-punks the Violent Femmes, with singer Vasquez’s ragged, whiskey-soaked vocals painting a soulful picture of American life while a barroom piano playing a jangly tune and the powerful thump of the drums conjures up an image of Delta Spirit getting down and dirty in a seedy dive somewhere in the Southwest.

Ode To Sunshine, the band’s debut album that Spin declared “impresses mightily,” is a diverse collection of sounds that alternately rock with indie rock fervor and connect with the heartfelt intimacy of ‘60s folk. Recorded in a cabin in the deserts of eastern California, Jameson says it reminds him of everything from “sun, saunas, and dogs” to “Old Crow and Coke and Eli Thompson.”

“I think that before when we were looking at the album it felt kinda heavy to us and serious,” Jameson explains. “About the big things in life . . . but I think we realized that the true feeling of the album also included what we were feeling while making it and recording it and that those bits of summer and excitement and wonder break through every once in a while . . . the light and the dark.”

For a band just starting out in a music industry that looks anything but certain nowadays, it takes quite an impressive sound to leave a mark, but Delta Spirit and Ode To Sunshine seem to have all the right ingredients for success. And from a group as talented as they clearly are from an area that eats young, promising musicians for breakfast, they also seem to have just the right attitude.

“There is a feeling of possibility in our age,” Jameson says. “We feel that same possibility with our band. We don’t want to forget about the most important thing for us, which is simply making good music, but that does include being aware of what’s going on in the world as well as what’s going on in our own heads and souls. We just want to be honest about ourselves.”