For some bands, one song is all it takes to get great gigs, festival placements and radio play. For very few bands, that one song is their first.
Morongo Robinson released “Waiting” in May 2025, and on the back of that song, the band members have enchanted local rockers, mystified Mojave indie bands and charmed sand-blasted songwriters in the year since. They’ve traversed outdoor desert concerts and performed pop-ups at venues like Mojave Gold and the Red Dog Saloon—and the band is set to make their second appearance at the Joshua Tree Music Festival, after last year’s fest hosted the first-ever Morongo Robinson live show.
Morongo Robinson will perform at the Joshua Tree Music Festival on Sunday, May 17.
During a recent Zoom interview with Tyler Joseph French and Amanda Davis, they talked about how Morongo Robinson was formed.
“Amanda and I got together via Instagram,” French said. “I put a post on my story searching for a female vocalist, because I had some ideas in mind that were slightly out of my register, and I was imagining female vocals on some of these songs. Some of the inspirations were Fiona Apple, St. Vincent, Björk and Alison Mosshart. My wife and I have a 2-year-old son, and our babysitter DMed me and was like, ‘I know the perfect person for this project, and she’s my best friend.’ Amanda came by a week or so later, and we gelled pretty much instantly. She brought some incredible harmonies and melodies, and then we began writing together.”
What are the keys to a perfect musical partnership?
“Willingness to listen to one another, vibes, and willingness to communicate directly,” French said.
Added Davis: “I think similarities play a big part, too. We both take music pretty seriously, and have a level of standard that we want to project or work on. I feel like that makes us really compatible.”
While Davis and French are Morongo Robinson’s primary songwriters, they emphasized that bassist/producer Ian Stahl rounds out this tenacious trio.
“Ian, our bass player, he’s the producer of the track ‘Waiting,’” French said. “He’s one of the owners of Coyote Run Studio, so he’s a sound engineer, and he and I co-produced that track. It’s really the three of us as a nucleus for Morongo Robinson, and then there are rotating, satellite, creative, beautiful human beings surrounding us.”
“Waiting” started off as a way to explore the sonic possibilities of the new music relationship.
“In my head, this was sort of a trial run of our creative partnership,” French said. “Funny enough, ‘Waiting’ was a track that was not really close to me originally, and I was like, ‘Let’s try this, because this isn’t one that’s super-precious.’ The more we got into it, and we started fleshing it out and spent all the time in the studio, I sort of fell in love with it.”
“Waiting” is an interesting sonic concoction, beginning with a jazzy, sax-led intro warmed up by synths and sultry guitar, before evolving into alternative-rock breaks with plenty of spacey, folky moments. French said the band has crafted other songs, and they will join “Waiting” to fill out the rest of their forthcoming EP.
“Our newest batch of songs, (on which) we have gelled and found that partnership, are the ones I think we really want to put forward first,” French said. “Our favorite seven songs are going to round out that EP.”
Since Morongo Robinson has released just one song so far, it’s hard to determine what genre best describes the band. French explained that all songs on the upcoming release have “their own distinct fingerprint.”
“I think that the production style of ‘Waiting’ and its rhythms reflected some things that I’ve been used to creatively in the past,” he said. “We’ve now grown together and started finding our own sound, but even within that sound, I think there are a lot of differences between all the songs. I can’t lump two of them together.”
They’re looking forward to their return to the Joshua Tree Music Festival.
“One thing that I really realized last time is how much fun we do have onstage,” Davis said. “Now that we’ve been together for some time, and we’ve performed together more, I think it’s going to be even more comfortable and more fun, and we have some pretty good players with us who feel really committed. It’s going to be a nice bed that we have made for ourselves.”
Davis said she considers the Joshua Tree Music Festival her “home festival.”
“I grew up here … and I think (the festival) really is and continues to be such a platform for me specifically to learn more about myself and my talents, and be given the opportunity to play music with my friends and perform for the community,” she said. “It’s just a gorgeous place to be.”
The band was a last-minute addition to last year’s lineup after one of the international bands experienced visa issues.
“Barnett English, who runs the fest, had just heard our track ‘Waiting,’ because one of the owners of the studio sent it to him,” French said. “There’s a … stage at JTMF (called Veggie Camp) back amongst all the tents, and it’s sort of the late-night, renegade underground area. One of the producers of the studio sent our music to Barnett to be like, ‘Hey, I’m thinking of having this band play Veggie Camp,’ and then shortly after that international band dropped out, I got a text from Barnett 3 1/2 weeks before the fest, and he’s like, ‘Hey, can you play 75 minutes on Friday?’ At this point, we had accumulated maybe 45 or 50 minutes worth of music, and I was like, ‘Sure.’”
Morongo Robinson are bringing “more of a fully fleshed out sound” to this year’s festival.
“The first time we played the fest, we were still honing in on our identity a little bit,” French said. “There was a little bit of funk stuff, and there was some more folky rock stuff. It was very poly-jamorous, but we’re getting to the point where I think all of our songs sound like Morongo Robinson.”
As Morongo Robinson continues to build their sound and live show, they are adamant about attaching emotion to every step.
“I don’t think we really have a mission statement, besides allowing ourselves to emote, and to feel deeply and express that—and just be vulnerable through the lyrics and the melodies, because we don’t really know any other way,” French said. “I think it’s therapy for both Amanda and I to sing and to write music, so we do it because we have to—and then we do it because we get to.”
Morongo Robinson will perform on Sunday, May 17, at the Joshua Tree Music Festival, which takes place at Joshua Tree Lake RV and Campground, at 2601 Sunfair Road, in Joshua Tree. The festival takes place Thursday through Sunday, May 14-17. Weekend passes start at $316.73, and Sunday tickets are $82.66. For tickets and more information, visit joshuatreemusicfestival.com.
