Delta Spirit interview and review (3/09)

  Indie rock-band Delta Spirit got up close with the Daily 49er at The Detroit Bar.               Delta Spirit shrieked their passionate lyrics, riffed their guitars, and experimented with percussion to a sold-out mob at The Detroit Bar in Costa Mesa Saturday night. The soulful rock-band played with hopeful desperation that set them above the average indie band.            

Delta Spirit combines elements of The Beatles’ modernism, The Strokes’ fervor and Bob Dylan’s folk soul to create poetic ballads on top of violent percussion and metal strings.             

Jon Jameson, Sean Walker, and Brandon Young rallied vocalist Matthew Vasquez and multi-instrumentalist Kelly Winrich into the San Diego based band in 2005. The five men played their beats on The Detroit stage as a soulful symphony, extracting wild intensity from each note.             

Delta Spirit has a unique philosophy about musicology made clear by the band’s front man Matthew Vasquez. The Daily 49er stole some time after the show with the powerful vocalist to absorb his methods, advice, and subtle humility.             

  “I think sincerity beats sarcasm. There is already too many cool people out there,” Vasquez remarked. “Maybe it’ll be good maybe or maybe they will tell us to fuck off but at least we’re good. Good in the sense that we cared and we were straight with you with what we thought and how we played.”         

Delta Spirit opened with “Strange Vine” from their self-released, self-produced album “Ode to Sunshine” in front of a backdrop of a mossy wooded forest. They played three fiery new songs throughout their set. Delta Spirit maintained a sense of chaos and spontaneity within each carefully crafted melody.           

Vasquez wailed into his microphone, like a man on a desperate edge. The veins in his neck protruded as he fiercely cried, “You make your own stand, you take your own stand” in the song “Children.”             

While sitting with Vasquez in a dimly lit booth he shifted to a subtler version of himself with messy hair and tired eyes. He began to quote Mark Twain but paused, chuckled a bit and said, “It would be vain for me to give you the impression that I’m smarter than I really am.”       Delta Spirit’s ability to blend honest vulnerability and brutal determination has made them a standout amongst the hoards of hipster/ indie bands. They maintained a haunting presence while proclaiming, “I always knew you were insecure, but loneliness is never the cure” in the song “Gimme Some Motivation.”             

Winrich seemed to be able to play any instrument on stage as he beat the piano, wailed on the guitar and hammered a trashcan lid during the song “Trashcan.” Vasquez and Winrich share the lyrical writing of most of the songs.              

“We kind of go at it like an AA program, like one day at a time,” Vasquez admitted. “It’s all grown through, lived through, experienced through. Pay for your successes through your defeats.”             

Delta Spirit sang through darkness in a few songs, as they lowered the lights to increase intensity. “Crippler King” and “Streetwalker” had an angry blues edge with deepened bass and rapid, electric strumming. Young collided with every beat as he hit the drums with a furious underpinning.            

 The culmination of the show came when members from the opening bands Dawes and We Are Barbarians joined Delta Spirit on stage. 11 musicians packed the platform picking up tambourines, bells, drumsticks, and microphones as they roared the song “People, Turn Around.”             

 “Learn how to play with people, don’t just sit in your garage,” Vasquez advised. “Anybody you play with has something to offer you. Whether it’s a good guitar lick, melody idea or singing technique or a drum beat.”             

In a world of Hannah Montanas and The Jonas Brothers it’s refreshing to see a band with such careful dedication to their musical craft.             

Downplaying Delta Spirit’s successes Vasquez said, “It is what it is. You do the best you can to explain how you feel and you hope that people identify with it, and if they do it’s awesome.”     In “People Turn-around” they proclaim that the band is, “Hoping and waiting for something to sing, like the angels of heaven or bones on the street.” At The Detroit Bar Delta Spirit proved their rise to success is because of their unrelenting talent and distinct dedication to melodic evolution.