Local music fans may remember Blue Sun, a four-piece rock outfit whose D.I.Y. approach and nonstop work ethic helped them gain a solid fanbase in the Coachella Valley and beyond.
We last covered Blue Sun nearly two years ago. Since then, the band has made some big changes: They’re now a three-piece, with a new name—Lazuli Bones—but they’re still playing the same great tracks (and making awesome music videos, as you can see below). The band has released a few new singles, and is getting ready to release a new album, Garden Girl, on Friday, Sept. 15. A few weeks later, the band will host a pair of album-release shows—on Friday, Sept. 29, at Little Street Music Hall in Indio; and Saturday, Sept. 30, at The Hood Bar and Pizza.
Lead-up singles “Love pt. 2” and “44” have shown Lazuli Bones expanding on their established reggae/punk/alternative rock mix. “Love pt. 2” features fluttery guitar chords and multi-layered vocals on top of a head-shaking reggae-funk groove, while “44” provides a jam-packed, ska-heavy punch.
During a recent FaceTime interview with vocalist/guitarist Madison Ebersole, bassist Erik Ebersole and drummer Eduardo Gallaga, the band discussed Garden Girl.
“We thought to just take our time with this one, and not try to crank something out just to please people,” Madison said. “(We thought), ‘Let’s make a really cathartic experience out of this and really put our creativity and emotion into it, rather than just trying to have a finished product. Let’s take our time with it and make all the tweaks and fixes necessary to satisfy our personal interests and things like that.’ It’s been a really cool and fun process.”
The result was project that Erik said is “a lot more emotional and intimate.”
“Our last songs were more fun and dance-y, but these ones feel like you’ve got to really listen to it,” Erik said. “You really got to just feel it. If we don’t feel like making a recording, we’re not going to do it. We do it; we feel it; and we just have to be in the mood. I think that’s what is going to make the album more special.”
Added Gallaga: “This one isn’t forced. We just took it day by day.”
Lazuli Bones approached Garden Girl with a combination of strategies the band implemented in previous works.
“It was very experimental,” Madison said. “We’re kind of inspired by our EP Haunted Garden, which was completely self-recorded and self-mixed, so we’re like, ‘Let’s get back to that, and just get creative and just experiment a lot.’ Having all that extra time and not having this fire under your ass really allows me to play around and try different things.”
Added Erik: “We’re taking that creative freedom from Haunted Garden, and from (most recent album) Worst Case Scenario, that professionalism we learned, and combining both of them with the emotional writing.”
The band has been performing regularly at both backyard shows and local festivals and events. However, the band felt the need to take a big break from performing and posting on social media to focus on the album.
“You can’t help but wonder what everyone else thinks,” Madison said. “I just watched this Lauryn Hill video the other day where she says something like … you start to feel like you only have a certain window of time or opportunity to crank out content. In that sense, we’re like, ‘Man, we’re kind of losing traction. People are probably bored; people are forgetting about us,’ but that’s really all second to being creative. … We’re less people-pleasing at this time, and more artistic and creative.”
Back in April, the band took the stage at Chella, an annual concert featuring local bands performing along with artists playing Coachella. This year, Lazuli Bones and Koka opened up for Conexión Divina, Bratty and Danny Lux.
“It felt cool playing on a big stage with good speakers and sound, and you have a team of sound engineers mixing everything,” Madison said. “Not only that, but plenty of people came, and family, and they were extremely supportive. They were just giving us so much good energy. It was a Goldenvoice event, and we got paid for it, and that was really cool. It was cool to do that for the hometown, and to see how well-received our music was by people who we have never met before.”
“We want to play big shows and … we want to gain fans; we want the whole rock ’n’ roll thing. We do want to obtain that by being ourselves, and not by bending over backward for society’s pleasure.”
Madison Ebersole
Moving forward, the band hopes to navigate between big stages and the backyard-show scene.
“We would love to play music festivals in general, and … get paid to travel and play places and things like that,” Madison said. “But I only want to gain that level of success by being the most authentic version of ourselves, rather than putting on this professional mask. We do try to have better-quality content for the internet and stuff, and we’re trying to meet society halfway when it comes to content and shit like that, but the goal is still the same. We want to travel; we want to tour. We want to play big shows and … we want to gain fans; we want the whole rock ’n’ roll thing. We do want to obtain that by being ourselves, and not by bending over backward for society’s pleasure.”
Garden Girl may be Lazuli Bones’ most sincere creation yet.
“I feel like musicians end up losing their thought when they try to make a song,” Gallaga said. “They try to give themselves a deadline, then they rush it. We’re taking the time, and honestly, the songs sound great. It’s totally different, and Blue Sun is a different sound from now.”
Added Madison: “I used to be pretty vague and abstract about the things I would speak on. For instance, I’d sing a song about having psychosis and mental issues, and I would mask that by talking about water or a couch or something like that. Now it’s a lot more vulnerable, pretty emotional, and pretty private and intimate. It just got to this point where it really started flowing, so I figured that this must be an alignment or something, if all this music is coming. … The drums and the distortion are not as heavy on this album, but it’s heavy in an emotional sense, so we’re just hoping people take to it.”
Lazuli Bones will host two album-release shows. The first takes place at 7 p.m., Friday, Sept. 29, at Little Street Music Hall, 82707 Miles Ave, in Indio. Many Moods, Los Electicos and Jully will open the evening. Admission is $10. The next takes place at 7 p.m., Saturday, Sept. 30, at The Hood Bar and Pizza, 74360 Highway 111, in Palm Desert. TV Screams, Cafe Canela and Jully will open the evening. Admission is $12. For more information, visit instagram.com/_lazulibones.
