Rocker Jason Zembo and his band Whitewater were about to go onstage at the 2024 Battle of the Bands at The River when they found out desert rock-legend John Garcia would be at the judges’ table.
They had 20 minutes to contain their anxiety before competing in a battle that would change the trajectory of their career. That “holy (crap)” moment fueled Whitewater, which ultimately reached the finals, but walked away with something even better: Garcia’s admiration.
“After the show, he comes up to us,” Zembo said. “He said our music took him to a place that he hasn’t been taken to before. (It was) the hugest compliment we could ever get from a musician. … It made us feel incredible.”
Six months later, Whitewater would get another jolting compliment from Garcia.
“It’s early May or late April; we’re at a band rehearsal,” Zembo said. “While running our songs and working on new music, we get texted on Instagram by John, saying, ‘Hey, I want you guys to open for us.’ We stop what we’re doing. We’re like, holy … like, oh my gosh. We’re telling everybody. We’re like, ‘Yes, yes, of course. Of course, we’d love to open for you.’ Then they asked me for Empty Seat’s contact. I gave it to his booking agent—and it was just as simple as that.”
Garcia is currently on tour—16 one-nighters crossing North America. The final stop, on Saturday, July 19, at Pappy and Harriet’s, will switch out its original opening acts and insert Whitewater and Empty Seat.
“We met with him for the (promo) pictures recently,” Zembo said. “He was telling us how he sees this as more than just the ending of his tour. He sees it as a chance to showcase that the valley’s still putting out kick-ass music, and that rock is still alive and kicking in the desert. He really emphasized that he wants this to be about us just as much as him. … We’re blessed to have him in the scene looking out for everybody.”
On the night the members of Whitewater faced judgment from one of the godfathers of the genre, they’d only recorded a few demo tapes and had not released music. They’re a fairly new group, formed at the end of 2023. Two of the four members (Zembo, vocals and guitar; Daniel Duardo, drums; Emanuel Torres, bass; and Ryan Priest, guitar and vocals) are not yet of drinking age.
Zembo remembers seeing Garcia’s reaction to Whitewater that night.
“I’m singing, so I was looking (at) the audience, and he’s got his phone out. So either he thinks we’re horrible and wants to laugh at it later, or he likes us,” Zembo said.
Pioneer, innovator, founding father—these are all terms that have been used to describe Garcia’s outsized influence on desert rock. The genre is synonymous with Kyuss, Garcia’s seminal band with guitarist Josh Homme (who founded Queens of the Stone Age after the breakup of Kyuss in 1995).
In the ensuing 30 years, Garcia founded other bands (Slow Burn, Unida, Vista Chino) and lent his skills to myriad others. Demand hasn’t waned; a quick scroll through Garcia’s social media reveals multiple pleas to “come to” Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Europe.
Veteran music journalist Bruce Fessier has spent decades chronicling the Coachella Valley music scene. He said Garcia’s role in taking desert rock global cannot be understated.
“He created something original with the band Kyuss—and Kyuss is the band that spread desert rock all around the world,” Fessier said. “That’s the phenomenon. They broke up, what is it, 30 years ago? They’re more popular now than they were 30 years ago.”
To the novice listener, the sound of desert rock may be hard to pin down. Fessier has studied the music. He said it is inextricably linked to the earth and sound’s ability to reverberate against its surroundings. In his research into the music of Native cultures, Fessier said, he sees a connection in music created outside and the generator parties rockers threw against a desert backdrop.
“The thing about the generator parties is that the musicians came from a punk background,” said Fessier. “Black Flag was probably the most important inspiration for the original punk rockers and desert rockers. They were called ‘stoner rockers’ at first, but most of them didn’t like that term. They called themselves desert rockers. Once these punk rockers got outside, playing in the hills, or in plateaus among the hills, they would hear their music bouncing off rocks. They realized that the reverberation was another musical instrument, and they would find themselves fascinated to play off of that instrument.”
Fessier said originality sets desert rock apart from its stoner and thrasher relatives.
“The thing that distinguished it more than anything else—and this is something I’ve had conversations with Mario Lalli (another seminal figure in desert rock history) and others about, (with) my research into Native American music and the Cahuilla—is that you don’t sing somebody else’s song. Desert rock is an individual art form, and the one rule is: You don’t sound like anybody else.”
The duality of geography, with the mountains and plains in such close proximity, is said to have produced a spiritual yet tangibly physical sensation, sometimes called “trance.”
“It’s a visceral experience to people who live here and look at the mountains every day,” Fessier said. “Then they look at the flatlands. … With that dualism in mind, you can play music in any variety, and it’s still going to have the dualism of this desert. It can be thrash metal, or it can be hip hop. It can be country, but generally, desert rock is a punk orientation combined with a jam mentality.”
These weren’t songs with traditional verses, a bridge and chorus, according to Fessier. “It was just a jam, without songs in mind. That is the greatest contribution that these desert rockers have made in pop music—combining punk with jam.”
Matt King, a member of Empty Seat (and the Independent’s music writer), said the vibe known as “trance” is an indelible part of the desert rock experience.
“I love playing music with all of my heart, and sometimes when I’m playing, I just kind of space out, go out on a tangent, and disassociate a little bit,” King said. “Some of the trance or psychedelic-like elements come from having an out-of-body experience when performing and playing—and just letting the music take over. … I think it has something to do with the emptiness and quietness that’s out in the desert, and just filling it with something that’s super-spontaneous. It ends up sounding weird, because it’s a weird place that we live in. There are million dollar golf courses, and then there are impoverished neighborhoods, like, five feet from each other. There’s this beautiful desert where the beauty is made up of dead plants, and such a strange mix of stuff. I feel like it’s only right for the music that’s coming out of the people who live here to be so strange and so trance-like.”
King joined Empty Seat about three years ago, several years after the Los Angeles-based band moved to the Coachella Valley. With powerhouse vocalist Erin Marie, Rickey Villalobos on drums, guitarist Anthony Ferrer and King on bass, Empty Seat caught the attention of Garcia.
“I think he’s really excited about the fact that there are still rock bands out here in the desert,” King said. “In terms of what’s super popular, there are not a lot of live bands or instrumentation, or guitars, (or) true rock vocals. But in the desert, there’s so much of that, and there are so many bands that are still working really hard. I think John has picked up on the fact that we stayed true to our influences with Empty Seat. … The desert really has this power.”
King said the transcendent quality that emerged from generator parties is alive today—although it’s more likely to be found at a nearby venue than out in the desert.
“There’s just something out here that really makes you rethink music and then add this heaviness, but also this spaceiness,” King said. “It’s like a contrast of things, and it’s just beautiful, and we try to wear that on our sleeves. I think (Garcia) heard that coming through.”
King said it’s a true honor to be invited by John Garcia to play at his show.
“The music we create with Empty Seat has a lot to do with the sound and style that John Garcia and the rest of Kyuss made popular back in the day,” King said.
John Garcia will perform with openers Whitewater and Empty Seat at 9:30 p.m., Saturday, July 19, at Pappy and Harriet’s Pioneertown Palace, at 53688 Pioneertown Road, in Pioneertown. Tickets are $42.75. For tickets and more information, visit pappyandharriets.com.
Great article. Whitewater and Empty Seat are great local bands.