Ode To Sunshine

Tomorrow! DELTA SPIRIT/Ode to Sunshine hits shelves. (August 26) If you're down for some good ol' rock music with some soul blues with roots, then this music is for you.

History

Delta Spirit formed in 2005 when Jonathan Jameson and Brandon Young, who had played with each other for years, and their new friend Sean Walker decided that they wanted to start a band that they really loved. Jameson, Young and Walker (who had just begun playing guitar) needed a vocalist; Young first spotted Vasquez busking loudly on a bench at two in the morning and the two exchanged information. It was later realized that Jameson had also recently met Vasquez similarly. Kelly Winrich started as the band's producer but they soon realized that they didn't sound half as good without him. He joined the band within the first year and now sings and plays an assortment of instruments and percussive devices. The band got its name from Jonathan's great uncle, "Uncle Red", who was a flight control operator near Birmingham, AL. He also had a certain hobby that eventually turned into a thriving business. He called his newfound company "Delta Spirit Taxidermy Station of North Central Alabama". The band took the idea and shortened it a bit. The band released their debut EP, I Think I've Found It, on Monarchy Music in 2006, after which they toured alongside Cold War Kids, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah and Dr. Dog. Delta Spirit decided to self produce and record their debut full length album, Ode To Sunshine, in a cabin in the San Diego mountains. It is set to be re-released with new artwork (featuring Kelly's uncle Dr. Thomas Payne on the cover) on August 26th, 2008 by Rounder Records.

There's a scene in Murray Lerner's film ("Festival"), about the 1963 Newport Music Festival, where Peter, Paul and Mary are shown obliging a resounding call for an encore with the protest song, "If I Had A Hammer." Peter and Paul face each other from the sides and Mary faces the audience of tens of thousands, shaking her blonde hair and bearing down on a song about making change. She would, they would hammer out danger and a warning all over the land. Delta Spirit have five hammers and they swing them the way Mary bobbled her head back in '63 for her close-ups, the way Mary sang as if her knees were on fire and her mouth was brimming with more ire laced with optimism than she knew what to do with. These Californians have more in common with the dirty haired, dirty fingernailed folk groups of the nascent years than they do any of their contemporaries. They're suited for reminiscent hopefulness and the gracefully youthful fusion of hostility and all-encompassing passion for all things that can set a smile ablaze or turn the hairs on arms and backs of necks into little beds of nails at the flick of a switch. They make lists of things they like, including all of the people they love, their home, pretty girls, desserts, bodies of water, justice and America. They believe there's still hope for it and in all of the rooms contained within the hallways of the band's newest offering, "Ode To Sunshine," they make you understand that, when it's all boiled down, what we all ultimately live for is catharsis and a fulfillment of body meeting land, air and sea harmoniously. They're about bodies meeting bodies, pressing skins to skins. They're about reminding you to listen more than you talk. They're about urging you to put stock in the happiness of others, not just your own. They make it obvious that we have to go somewhere to be somewhere. We have to feel something to really live. They sing of the soul searchers. They sing for the soul searchers. They are the soul searchers.