Dead Country

There is a fertile range of musical moments that lays the foundation for the powerful, driving rock made by this band of four called Dead Country. Nick Long, singer, guitarist and California native, felt the tug toward music at an early age and gravitating toward the music of Jawbreaker, Fugazi, Nirvana and Rites of Spring, the sound that forms Dead Country’s original, hard-hitting rock holds traces of those influences, but only as a jumping off point. Dead Country came together in late 2008 after Nick returned from Switzerland where he’d been living. “I didn’t think twice about coming back to Los Angeles to start a band. It made complete sense to me,” he says about the pulling together of guitarist Jonny Black, whom he’s known since art class at Santa Barbara High School, and bassist Patrick Solem. Right before leaving to play some shows in 2009 with Sunny Day Real Estate, they brought drummer Jarrod Alexander on board. Now, with the imminent release of the band’s debut EP, recorded at Studio 606 in Los Angeles, which is the Foo Fighters studio, Dead Country can rest assured that the energy pumping from every song will without a doubt move listeners to dive straight into this pool of sound with nary a backward glance. The four tracks: “Euro Thrash,” “The Shade,” “Satori In Luzern,” and “Sea Change,” each, in their own arresting way, move immediately into overdrive, harnessing adrenaline along the way and flying straight into the stratosphere. It’s a great ride, but mind the lyrics as well because along the way a peek into some hearts and minds is guaranteed. With this kind of forward movement ongoing, the question posed in “Satori in Luzern,” might continue to hang in the air: “What does the word home mean these days, anyway?”