A group of musicians from different parts of the world have chosen the desert as a location—and muse—for instrumental psychedelic jams.
Desert Friends, a musical collaboration between guitarists Antrom Alexander and Lucas Penner, emerged out of Joshua Tree a little more than a year ago with a captivating blend of groovy, funky, trance-filled surf-rock tunes, spanning from the summer-morning bop of “Sonora” to the Western-tinged funk of “Mojave Green.”
Desert Friends is set to perform at the Joshua Tree Music Festival on Sunday, Oct. 12. During a recent Zoom interview, Lucas Penner said dog-sitting for a friend led him to meet his musical partner, Antrom Alexander.
“I live in Canada, and I went to high school with this dude who married, fell in love in the States, moved out to Yucca Valley and had a kid,” Penner said. “I had just finished a movie (as an actor) and was really unsure about what I was doing, and he’s like, ‘Come out here; I’d love for you to see Joshua Tree.’ I went out there to dog-sit, because they were going out of town, and I went to this place called the Joshua Tree House, which is a local Airbnb, and I met Antrom and his partner, Al (Aleksandra).”
Right away, Penner felt a distinct musical link to Alexander.
“It was just this synergistic connection,” he said. “We started writing really quickly. Antrom and Al had just moved from the Bay Area two months before; that was June 2023, and I didn’t come back until January of the next year, and that’s when we really started getting to work. We were just going to release a couple of singles, but it turned into a full record, and we released our first song a year after we met in June 2024, and then we released the record on Oct. 31, 2024. After we released the record, people started reaching out about having us play, and we shot a live video at the Boulder Gardens (Sanctuary, in Pioneertown).
Penner and Alexander are joined by Cody Rhodes (drums), John Ryan Hebert (bass) and Kyle Hanson (percussion) in a live setting. Since playing their first show at Más O Menos in Joshua Tree, Desert Friends have been sharing their trippy sounds with live audiences locally and beyond.
“Every time we’ve done something, more opportunities come up—and this is the first time that’s happened for me,” Penner said. “Antrom said a similar thing, where people are reaching out to us more than we can keep up with, which is a great problem to have. We’ve basically done four live appearances now in separate chunks. Boulder Gardens and Más O Menos was the first chunk, and then we played Jacumba Hot Springs Hotel, and Mas again, as well as a pre-Coachella party in Palm Springs. Then we did our first Los Angeles tour in August … and we just played a Rivian car networking/marketing party.”
After their appearance at the Joshua Tree Music Festival, Desert Friends will focus on releasing new music.
“We’re writing a bunch of new stuff, and we’ve got a new record on the way, and we’re also going to release a new tune—a re-release of a tune that came out with the first record, and it’s with a Brazilian singer,” Penner said. “It’ll be our first song with vocals on it, and that’ll be for the album’s anniversary.”
The inspiration taken from other instrumental-psych greats comes across vividly in Desert Friends’ music. Penner added that the desert itself also serves as an inspiration.
“I grew up in a semi-arid desert, but it’s such a different thing being around all those giant boulders, and it just being so stark,” he said. “I think that it started moving something in me, and it definitely has moved something in Antrom, so I think that the geography of the place speaks to us as much as any of our previous musical influences. We both love a lot of Brazilian music, and Antrom has a Middle Eastern background. I also grew up doing a little bit of classical guitar. We pull from a bunch of different places, and (music groups) Khruangbin and Arc De Soleil have been a launching pad for creating a template in which we can put our own stuff. I think something really unique is starting to blossom out of it all.”
This is Penner’s first time being in an instrumental band, he said—and it brings a new set of challenges.
“We didn’t really want to be a jam band, so everything’s really structured and melodic-focused, and obviously, we want to capture a vibe,” he said. “For example, working with the singer (on the upcoming album anniversary track) was really easy, because the structure is just like a pop song. We have verses; we have choruses; we have bridges; and everything’s pretty locked in that way. … Antrom and I want to make really memorable melodies. I’ll come up with some stuff that I think is cool, and Antrom will be like, ‘Yeah, that’s cool, but it’s not sticking in my head.’ Everything that we make needs to be something that sits with people.”
In Desert Friends, reverb-heavy guitar lines dominate the music.
“Antrom and I, through our guitars, are the lead vocalists,” Penner said. “Sometimes I’m supporting his melody, and I’m doing harmonies, or I’m doing a counter-melody, and he’s doing the same thing. We’ll do that within a song where he’ll be playing lead in the verse, and then I’ll switch to lead in the chorus, or vice versa, or I’ll just pop in for the bridge, or he’ll compose something and leave a bit of space for me. It’s a really interesting dance.”
As the band gains streaming success and more requests for more shows, Penner and his fellow Desert Friends are determined to keep things fun and manageable.
“The goal is to see the opportunities that come gigs-wise, and then be selective about which ones we take, because there’s a bit of overhead for every single one, because a few people have to fly,” Penner said. “We’re trying to figure out the best way to stay building foundations that are sustainable, because everyone’s in their 30s; most of the band is in relationships, if not married, and some have kids, so we want to keep the whole thing fun and be able to take care of each other and ourselves. Burnout is so easy for this kind of stuff, and we’ve all experienced that.”
Desert Friends’ brand of anxiety-reducing instrumental jams may serve as a perfect antidote to a tumultuous world.
“We’re trying to keep the thing light and as fun and creative as possible, so that we can carry that forward to our audience, as well as the band itself,” Penner said.
Desert Friends will perform on Sunday, Oct. 12, at the Joshua Tree Music Festival. The festival takes place Thursday, Oct. 9, through Sunday, Oct. 12, at the Joshua Tree Lake RV and Campground, 2601 Sunfair Road, in Joshua Tree. Sunday tickets are $72.05. For tickets and more information, visit joshuatreemusicfestival.com.