Slipping into Darkness
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Slipping into Darkness

Desert Hot Springs, California, United States | Established. Jan 01, 2013

Desert Hot Springs, California, United States
Established on Jan, 2013
Band Rock Garage Rock

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"The Best of Coachella 2013 Undercard"

These jangly psychedelic rockers from Desert Hot Springs sound like a friendlier Black Angels, but their real claim to fame is newly-minted: Handpicked by the organizers to represent as hometown heroes, they're the first Coachella Valley-area band to play the festival since Gram Rabbit in 2005. - Esquire


"Meet the Southern California Band that Played Coachella Before Recording Their First Album"

hat phrase about the key to success being mostly about “showing up” rings true for Slipping Into Darkness. A few years ago, the band competed for a spot at Tacheva: A Palm Springs Block Party for some local recognition. They lost, but their work impressed one of the judges by the name of Paul Tollett, a.k.a. the founder of the Coachella Valley Music Festival.

The band won a consolation prize greater than they ever hoped for: an early slot on an outdoor stage at the 2013 edition of the desert festival. Thus, Slipping Into Darkness hit the big time before they ever released their debut album…which is finally available!

Schurpedelic is 11 tracks of old-school psych/garage rock à la The Brian Jonestown Massacre and (a less brooding, more fun-loving version of) The Black Angels, complete with scratchy/distorted guitars. It’s a fun debut that hints at greater things to come from, and for, the little band from the Southern Californian desert. - Remezcla


"Locals Only: Meet the Bands of the Coachella Valley"

Slipping Into Darkness have been playing their own brand of bluesy, punky, psychedelic rock 'n' roll for years, representing Desert Hot Springs proudly after being invited to play a slot at this past edition of Coachella Fest. Slipping Into Darkness's current lineup consists of Michael Durazo on guitar and vocals, Nigel Dettelbach on bass guitar, Nigel Carnehan on drums, Adrian Carreño on lead guitar, and Natalie Alyse on vocals. You can follow Slipping into Darkness on their facebook page and listen to their engaging discography on their Facebook band page section.
Slipping Into Darkness have been perfecting their songwriting craft for enough time now to catch the ear of any worthy A&R rep. Like so many other bands in the Valley, Slipping faces many hardships trying to keep a band going and maintaining an active music scene in the community/desert environment. "Being broke all the time sucks, and we all live in different cities," states Durazo. When asked how they feel about the Coachella Music Festival, Durazo replies, "Coachella Fest is really cool and it affects us a lot out here because of all the people coming in, plus it gives us local people something to do." Other bands in the desert Slipping Into Darkness are into and think deserve more exposure: Las Feas, Grease Trap, Planet Lunch, Twerp, Revol Concept, Alf Alpha, Facelift, Irie Junction, Gothic Two Piece. - Artbound


"Slipping into Darkness, a DHS band, keeps it real"

The Desert Hot Springs band Slipping Into Darkness impressed a panel of judges in 2013 with several music videos in the Desert Sun competition for Tachevah: A Palm Springs Block Party.

It didn’t win the popular vote to get it into Tachevah, but one of those judges, Paul Tollett of Goldenvoice, added them to the Coachella bill. The release of an album seemed like the next step to keep the momentum going.

But “Shurpedelic” — a name the band coined for “having a good time” — is just now coming out. A CD release party is Saturday at Schmidy’s Tavern in Palm Desert. But band co-founder Michael Durazo says Slipping Into Darkness hasn’t fallen into an abyss.

TDS: Why are you just now releasing“Shurpedelic”?

DURAZO: Well, we had it ready for a while, but some of the songs accidentally got deleted in one of the studios. So that back-tracked us a whole lot, and our guitar player, Adrian (Carreno), went randomly MIA for three months in Mexico.
A lot of the songs on this album seem part of the garage renaissance of music that originated in the 1960s. Was that music an influence?

Hell, yeah! We all love ’60s garage music and it was a big influence on all of us.

“DHS Blues” seems to come from left field. It reminds me of Janis Joplin singing “Summertime Blues” with Big Brother and the Holding Company. How did the song come about?
To tell you the truth that song was a freestyle jam we did all stoned that I happened to press record on many, many years ago. One day, I played the recording for the guys and we were like, “Let’s learn it exactly how we freestyled it.” We did and then we re-recorded it in a studio.

As DHS natives, tell us your feelings about that city and how the song relates to it.

Desert Hot Springs is a city that keeps it 100 percent real — best place ever! Shout out to our brothers in Thousand Palms, too! Our songs relate to DHS because we are always keeping it real, just like our hometown!

“Tell It Like It Is” and “Ahh Doo” have hooks so big you could hang marlins on them. Did you intentionally try to create something that catchy or did they just come out of jamming?

Those songs just came natural. We don’t play songs to make them hits. We just play what comes out. The main melody from “Tell It Like It Is” came from our guitar player, Adrian, which he made the night before he drove from Mexico to DHS to play with us for the first time. He couldn’t sleep that night and that riff just came about. When we got together, we just finished the song as a band.

“Ahh Doo” came about from just jamming, drinking and whatnot. To be honest those two songs were made the same way we make all of our songs: someone comes up with the riff, we jam it over and over and then I add words to it and we practice it ’til it’s super down. Then we hit the studio and record it.

Are any of your songs on Youtube, iTunes or other social media?

We do have some songs on YouTube. Our album will be out on iTunes, Slippingintodarknessmusic.com, Bandcamp and all of those websites. You can also buy it at Epidemic Skateshop.

Do you plan to tour in support of the album?

We are going to tour to support our album. We hope we will be able to make some money to tour around and stick together to record more albums. - Desert Sun


"Slipping Into Darkness Plans to Take Phoenix by Storm"

One of the coolest shows coming through town this week (and there are plenty) is happening at the Pressroom on Friday. San Francisco's Thee Oh Sees will make their third stop in Phoenix this year, but this time they have two really cool opening acts, Tucson's Lenguas Largas and Desert Hot Springs, California's Slipping Into Darkness. We spent a few minutes chatting with bassist Nigel Dettelbach about the show, his band, and what the future holds in store for his excellent, genre-defying band.

New Times: Tell us about the show with Thee Oh Sees. What should folks expect from Slipping Into Darkness?
Nigel Dettelbach: We are all very excited. Thee Oh Sees are an amazing band and we respect them fully. We expect the show to be insane. We are going to lay it all out for this one. We feed off the crowd, so the gnarlier they get, (they gnarlier) we get!
We are also renting a spot out for the after party so be sure to hit us up after the show for details.

How did the band come to exist? Tell us about the name...

Michael Durazo and I (Nigel Dettelbach) met in 2007 on the way to random party called No-chella Fest in the high desert in California. Fate would have it that we ended up getting into the same shuttle bus on the way to the show and hit it off right away, sharing a bottle of whiskey and talking about our love for Black Sabbath, oldies, and the Dead Boys. We talked about jamming together because we both wanted to start a band. We followed through with our plans and got together a few days later in Desert Hot Springs, California. We first started off recording demos in Michael's Garage on a little multi-track recorder tracking songs, then started playing wild and packed desert shows. We quickly got a rep(utation) for having crazy/ unpredictable shows, but we liked the fact we didn't bring a mundane show for our fans and friends. We like to keep things a little dangerous; that's the way rock 'n' roll should be.

We would pack out bars getting wasted and being underage, but the owners didn't seem to care because we were making them money. As far as the name Slipping Into Darkness goes, it means different things to different people. I think like songs — it's best left open for your own interpretation. - Pheonix New Times


Discography

Shurpedelic 2014

Photos

Bio

Slipping into Darkness is a rock n roll band from a small town in the outskirts of the California desert called Desert Hot Springs. They are currently working on their second full-length album that is being co-produced by Eduardo Arenas from Chicano Batman and Pete Dee of The Adicts. They released their debut album titled Shurpedelic in the summer of 2014. Even before the release of their first album they managed to catch the attention of Goldenvoice and got to perform on the main stage of Coachella 2013. Shorty after they were invited to play Desert Daze festival for the second time and later on got to open up as main support for The Wailers at the Desertica festival in Mexico. Over the years, Slipping into Darkness has gone on tour and have created a buzz with their unique take on 60's and 70's music playing shows all over the southwest of the U.S. and throughout Mexico with great bands such as Chicano Batman, The Growlers, The Adicts, Ty Segall, Black Lips, Thee Oh Sees, Shannon and the Clams and many more notable artists. Their music has been featured in numerous skating videos for companies like Zero/Transworld and had their music in the 2016 indie action film Vigilante Diaries and the documentary Desert Age the same year. The music is essentially their own interpretation of the classic rock music which they have been playing since 2012 and it can be described as a heavy garage sound with a modern twist of psychedelic pop music that ranges from slow melancholic melodies to gritty blues with a pinch of punk. The sounds they have made are gentle just as much as they are aggressive and can make you fall into the nostalgic feeling of what true rock music was without being a recycled copy of something you have heard before.  

Band Members