If you have been following the path of Kyuss ex-members through the last years, then the name of Steven "Dandy" Brown would be familiar for you. A character both equally full of passion and rational, who has been keeping on firm steps for years in order to put up two wonderful and very different projects: Hermano and Orquesta del Desierto, whose debut albums are essential in every collection of any follower of the called desert bands.

Marco Serrato: Your name has broken strongly upon the stonerrock scene (ok, call it what you want). Could you tell us something about your background and how did you start your relationship with people like John García, Pete Stahl or Mario Lalli?

Steve Dandy Brown: This seems to be the most asked question, in one form or another, that has been posed to me over the last three years. My background is so varied that it would be difficult to go into everything I have done or worked on over the last fifteen years. For most of the 1990's, I owned a recording studio in Cincinnati, Ohio, and it was there that I had the opportunity to perform on all types of music with dozens upon dozens of different musicians. I think that experience offered me the chance to expand my musical views and abilities, and certainly was one of the greatest influences upon the things I write and produce today.
I should begin, though, by saying that most of the music that I have either produced or written since I first picked up an instrument lays in the oblivion of demo tapes and work that was released and basically went nowhere. I've been involved in a lot of projects that had the potential to be great, but things didn't pan out. I've also been in a number of projects that sucked! Well, at the time I probably thought those shitty ones were great, but in hindsight, years down the road, I listen back to those old demos and wonder what in the hell I was doing! Every project, though, has always been done with an eye on the love of playing music. Really, man, I'm nobody. Just another musician that kept at it long enough to finally write a few records that had some critical success.
As far as my relationship with John Garcia, I was first introduced to him while producing the first Supafuzz record. John and Dave Angstrom had known each other for years, and Dave had approached John with doing the backing vocals on a couple of the tunes on that record. I knew what a great guitarist Dave was from hearing him perform a number of times, but I really didn't know that much about John. After hearing his vocals on that production, though, I knew that I wanted to bring those two back together again at some point.
A few years afterward, I spent one of the most hellish summers of my life, both physically and emotionally, writing a collection of tunes that would turn out to be most of the Hermano record. It was at that point that I called John and Dave to see if they wanted to come in and perform on those tunes. The rest of the story is pretty well known by those who follow the so called "stoner rock" scene.
After finishing the tracking and mixing of the Hermano session, and having it become apparent that we were going to have to sit on the record for awhile while the contractual bull-shit was all worked out, I had come to the conclusion that I was finished with life in Cincinnati, and was in desperate need for a change. It was Garcia who lured me out west with stories of the romance and beauty of the desert, and with that image in my head I decided to go there and do the mastering on the Hermano mixes. I had only intended to stay in the Mojave for a few months, and then move on to Mexico where I was going to disappear for a while. As life would have it, though, I ended up staying for about two years and met my wife, Analisa.
It was through John that I was introduced to Mario and a number of other desert musicians. Garcia was right about the romance of the desert, and from the moment I arrived there the influence of the sand and heat and mountains filtered into a new batch of songs that would eventually become the first Orquesta del Desierto release. While working on those songs, I began jamming with all of those musicians I met, and finally settled on the line-up that would appear on that record.
As far as my introduction to Pete Stahl, he wasn't the first person I had conceived of having sing on the Orquesta record. I had actually been working with a guy named Harold Chichester from the band Howlin' Maggie. As it turned out, though, Harold had helped to track a record for the group The Twilight Singers, and their tour conflicted with my session schedule. It was at that point that the guys at Meteorcity suggested five vocalists from various bands on their label. I listened through a batch of material that they all sent to me, but when I came across the first earthlings? release I knew that Pete Stahl was the man. His versatility and range fit better than anyone else. He is truly an amazing singer and lyricist.

What are the plans now for Orquesta Del Desierto?

To tell you the truth, I wasn't sure if there was going to be another Orquesta project. After those two years in the desert, I started to get restless, and began to think about the eastern US again. My wife and I packed up and decided to drive across the states to see if there was someplace else we wanted to live. At that time, the prospects on the release of the Hermano record were pretty bleak, and I had just poured myself into the Orquesta production. I was emotionally drained, and needed to move on again.
Driving across the US, I began to feel another batch of tunes coming on, but it wasn't until we reached Florida and the Atlantic that the real passion for writing jumped back into me. We spent about a year and a half there, five minutes from the beach. It was almost the exact opposite of the desert! Rain three times a week, and wildlife everywhere. Truly, beyond the humidity, Florida is an amazingly beautiful part of the world.
Anyway, I spent that year and a half thinking about and writing for the production of the next Orquesta del Desierto session, and using the majority of my time concentrating upon Hermano.
Not long after reaching Fort Pierce, things moved pretty quickly on getting Only a Suggestion released, and in a matter of weeks we went from knowing the record was finally going to come out to doing a swing through Europe and another on the east coast of the US. It wasn't until those things were finished that I could really begin to concentrate on the next Orquesta record.
Somewhere around October of last year, I began talking to everyone in Orquesta about the possibility of doing another session. It was at that point that everything began to move toward the session dates we have for this April. Unfortunately, I couldn't get everyone back for this follow-up, but the new additions are actually giving this session a different flavour. I also think that this record is going to be much more of a collaborative effort. Country Mark has contributed about half of the material this time around, and the riffs he has come up with are truly beautiful.
It looks like it is going to be a busy year for Orquesta del Desierto. We are trying to piece together a few brief tours on the west coast for this spring and summer, and things are also shaping up for a swing through southern Europe in August.

And for Hermano? Will the new Hermano album be with Eric Belt as permanent member?

Again, to be completely frank with you, Hermano is on the backburner of my thoughts right now. I know that before we finished the east coast tour we had about ¾ of the new record already written, and over the last few months John and I have taken a few nights here and there to work up the last few tunes for it. There were plans to go into the studio in January '03, but scheduling difficulties and family priorities had to take precedent. At this point the schedule for Hermano looks like a few shows in Europe in May . . . one being the festival in Paris. After that, we have a few more planned for Europe in June. The next set of shows will happen in August and September. I think we are doing four weeks through Europe again then. The earliest we could find the time to get back into the studio is October. In other words, there won't be another Hermano release until at least December, but probably closer to the spring of next year.
That seems like a long time, but what everyone has to realize is that Hermano was never conceived to be a band that was constantly on the road, or even something that would crank out five or six records. In a way, that's the beauty of the project . . . we only do it when we feel like it, and have no intension of being a whore to label or financial concerns.
As for the line-up for that record, the goal is to reunite the original members.

What memories or impressions do you keep from the European Hermano tour?

I suppose I have to answer that by first of all stating that when I wrote those songs for the Hermano record I never had any conception that people would become so interested in hearing it. The initial idea was just to fly in some of my favourite performers and have a CDR in my collection that I could pull out and listen to when I felt like it. To be able to come to Europe, and have the honour of performing for thousands of people who were into the sounds, well, it was humbling. The warmth and genuinely interested reception to Hermano in every venue we played will stay with me forever.

As I can read in your website, the next ODD album will apear in Europe by the hand of Alone Records. How did this relationship start, how is it going, and what do you expect from it?

I think my first contact with Alone Records came in the form of me writing to the guys in Viaje A 800, and expressing how impressed I was with their "Diablo Roto De" release. From there we started to exchange a few emails here and there, and also began to talk about a hypothetical release of some of my music somewhere down the road. I had done the first Orquesta release for Meteorcity, of course, but there were some difficulties in promotion and distribution for the record in Europe. It was at that point that the guys at Meteorcity suggested taking on a European label for a co-release of the follow-up, and that was when I contacted Alone about being that label.
As far as how it's going, I have nothing but positive reactions to my relationship with them. The Stone Circle affiliation they are part of seems to have a lot of energetic people wanting to do the best thing for their artists. I'll always want to be a part of thatkind of scene. There are dozens upon dozens of indie labels out there that have nothing else in mind other than ripping off their bands, but with both Meteorcity and Alone, I've found people who have not only a desire to get the records out and support their bands, but also people who want to be up front and honest with the people they deal with. Believe me, that's not something you find very often in the music industry, no matter what level you operate on.

Now, in Orquesta, you have Gene Trautman filling Alfredo Hernández´s shoes. What can you say about that?

I have nothing but the utmost respect for Alfredo Hernandez. Of all the drummers I have ever played with, he stands out as one of the most innovative and original. Unfortunately, Alfredo and I reached a point of philosophical differences in our approach to a number of situations, and it was no longer a musically productive relationship. End of story.
Actually, though, as it turns out Gene Trautmann won't be able to take part in this Orquesta production either. After a few rehearsals, it became very apparent to Gene that the direction of Orquesta wasn't going to fit into his style. The drums on this session are going to be handled by Pete Davidson, a badass drummer out of the Midwest who has spent the last few years working with various big band and jazz ensembles. After Gene didn't work out, I made up my mind to go after one of the most versatile and outstanding drummers I have ever heard, and luckily Pete was able to fit the session into his schedule. Honestly, I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to afford him! The phrase "A dime a dozen" doesn't fit the man. I managed to squeeze him into the budget, though.

What are the differences in the process of composition between Hermano and Orquesta Del Desierto?

I find that the process for both bands becomes more and more similar as time goes by. Of course, both the Hermano and Orquesta records were in large part a product and reflection of great emotional moments in my life. This is the way writing music has always been for me . . . a product of huge emotional surges. But after writing the initial batches of material for those collections, I started to let other people in on the vibe. Once that happened, the connections to the music became multi-layered with the input of the other musicians.
In the case of Hermano, as I said earlier, I took the strength of emotion I found in a certain summer and turned it into the energy behind my creative output. The result was the initial foundations behind most of the tunes on Only a Suggestion. But, even though we had been passing tapes and CDR's across America for seven months before entering the studio, once we were all together the absolute talent which surrounded me began to filter into how we put those songs together. I've never tried to be the type of producer that points his finger and says, "You must play this certain thing to this riff." Talk about retarding the creativity of an artist! I don't think I would invite anyone to play on any of my productions who wasn't able to bring something to the session. I've been in plenty of studio experiences where the producer attempts to turn the artists into his/her chumps. No musician, at least of any kind of professional calibre, wants to feel that way. In my opinion, production is a matter of creating a situation where the harnessing the creative flow becomes possible, not inhibiting it.
The same rings true for Orquesta del Desierto. In regard to the first record, I think I was able to attempt a reflection of what I felt while in the desert during those first few months I spent there. Once I turned the other guys loose on those riffs they, of course, channelled their own piece of energy into the songs. When I began to think about doing another Orquesta session last fall, I realized that those who are coming back from the first record had time to write around the energy of that first session, and that my input as far as writing goes should be minimalized. Country Mark Engel and Mike Riley are great songwriters in their own, and to not mine that and have it appear on the second Orquesta release would be insane! I think the main difficulty with deciding what to put on the new record is that we have all written so many songs over the last year that I can't make up my mind which ten or fifteen to pick!

You play different instruments, you produce, write music... in which role do you feel more comfortable?

A good question because I've never really given much thought to which role I feel most comfortable in. I don't think I can really pick one over the other because when it comes right down to it both sides of the mixing board have equally as great rewards to them.
There is nothing like laying down that "keeper" track, and the sensation of excitement I get when following that path from the beginning of a tune to its end. The same is true for not only studio performances, but live as well. Just being able to get into a groove with a drummer, another guitarist, or just doing a jam with a vocalist, man, it's what music has always been about to me . . . the love of performance.
Then again, there is an entirely different, and just as gratifying feeling to be had from directing a session, getting the most out of the performers, and finally piecing it all together once the tracking is finished. Production isn't something that I can go at half hearted. I don't think any producer out there worth his/her weight can avoid throwing every ounce of being into a project. In my opinion, great producers are megalomaniacs, hell bent on losing themselves in every aspect of the project. This is why I come out of every session absolutely spent, physically and emotionally. It's a good type of exhaustion, though, almost like a feeling of euphoria once the product has been guided through all the stages that lead to the release.

In Orquesta Del Desierto, someone can feel influences from Latin jazz and things like Santana or Tito Puente. What do you think about that kind of music? Do you like jazz?

As a kid just beginning to play music, I was lucky enough to be influenced by a number of musicians who turned me on to people like Billy Holiday, Coltrane, Miles Davis, Pat Metheny, Art Tatum, the Dixie Dregs, and dozens of other jazz and fusion greats, both old and contemporary. I spent a lot of time sitting across from my turntable trying to imitate the musicianship on jazz records, but, of course, I wasn't good enough at the time to play it worth a damn. Eventually, I turned to blues and rock which was much easier to learn . . . especially for a twelve year old kid teaching himself how to play! I was able to pick up sketches from listening and attempting to learn and to feel how to play jazz, and carried those things with me into every kind of music I would eventually session on in the years that followed.
I love jazz music, just as I love all types of music so long as they are performed with some type of integrity. I have to admit, though, that I've never been a huge fan of Santana, especially over the last few years. I do think that much of his earlier work has amazing aspects, but today he simply seems like a caricature of his former self. I hear those songs that people call "Santana" these days, but it's simply a riff here and a riff there that is reminiscent of the guitarist he used to be. And we all know that he isn't writing any of those "hits" these days!

I read somewhere that you started listening to Kyuss before they broke up. How was your first contact with that kind of bands?

No, the truth is, I began listening to Kyuss long after they no longer existed! You have to remember, though, that I'm closing in on 40, so there have been a number of heavy bands that have influenced my writing. I was around, and involved in playing music when Metallica was still good! Of course, there's probably no other heavy rock band that has had a bigger influence upon me than Black Sabbath.
With Kyuss, though, my first acquaintance with their catalogue of music came during that Supafuzz session I produced back in '96. After hearing John's voice on that session, I rushed out to pick up Welcome to Sky Valley, and was absolutely knocked out by the innovations they were bringing to heavy blues.

Do you dig the heaviest side of that genre? bands like High On Fire, Cathedral, Sunn O)))...

I do like many of the bands that have been labelled as so called "Stoner Rock," as that label seems to have been, until lately, attributed only to bands that play heavy music along the same path as Kyuss. It seems to me, though, that there are so many bands in this genre these days that it is hard to keep up with them . . . especially the ones that actually add something to the genre. Let's face it, of every band in the "Stoner Rock" scene, perhaps one or two percent of them actually add something to the direction of hard rock. The rest, well, it would probably be best to continue to listen to Kyuss records because so many bands are mere imitations of them. Unfortunately, it has gotten to the point that when I receive or purchase a hard "stoner" rock cd these days and the initial tones I hear are exactly like Josh Homme's from records like Sky Valley, I am absolutely turned off. The same is true with singers that attempt to emulate John Garcia. Maybe that's why Josh moved away from that tone with the last few Queens releases.

What are your first memories about music? How did you start with it?

For some reason, even though my parents weren't that musically involved, we owned an old Baldwin organ that sat in our living room for years and years. Occasionally, my mom would sit down to play a Protestant or contemporary favourite or two, and somehow I eventually learned a few like "Spanish Eyes" and "We Shall Overcome". I guess I was somewhere around five or six years old. I think that must have led to being involved in all the kid choirs all through grade school, and the beginning of being consumed by music for the rest of my life.
When I was about twelve, I had a neighbour named Jeff who had a beautiful set of Slingerlands. His brother, Greg, had a Telecaster, and the two would jam out on 50's and 60's tunes with their dad. Watching them play one afternoon, Jeff's dad pointed out an old Gibson EBO that was sitting in the corner. The neck was snapped around the tuning keys, and he offered it to me if I wanted to fix it up. I took it home, did a Frankenstein glue and screw job on it, and the rest was sitting in front of my SoundDesign stereo for three to six hours a day jamming to every LP in my mom and dad's collection.

There´s a curious thing about that whole scene: the web site "stonerrock.com", where fans, musicians, journalists can share their opinions and people like Scott Reeder or yourself visit so often. What´s your opinion about that matter?

I think there are quite a few valid opinions that are expressed on Stonerrock.com, and quite a few hilarious posts that make visiting the site fun occasionally. It seems, though, that quiet a few people who post there take their music way too seriously . . . and probably life in general too. To anyone who was going to visit there and read through for the first time, I would have to caution to keep an eye out for the great number of folks who go there only to spread rumour and to attempt to stir up trouble.
They are in abundance.
Stonerrock.com has also been a great tool for spreading the word on dozens upon dozens of bands that wouldn't have received their due exposure anywhere else. Don't forget, though, that the site is an online store as well, and each and every post that goes up on it adds to the site's advertisement value. Those guys certainly aren't going broke doing what they do!
I give them all props, though, because they have been instrumental in making sure this music that we all dig has a way to make it into the hands of those who are waiting for something newer and fresher than what "Corporate World Inc." has ready and available to force feed to them. With that in mind, I think those guys are saviours in a way . . . or at least heroes. I guess I could say that about indie music labels, and folks who support local music as well. Without them, think of the hell we would all live in.

Hermano    Orquesta del Desierto    MeteorCity    Alone Records/The Stone Circle    StonerRock