A trio of badass musicians have become a desert favorite thanks to their signature “greasy tumbleweed” sound.
Los Poncho Tones—the triple threat of Denny Weston Jr. on drums, Jon Ossman on bass and Josh Sonntag on guitar—craft a blistering blues-rock mix, complete with scorching-hot guitar tones, sweaty grooves and expansive jams perfect for our desert landscape. On recordings, the band offers tight, well-produced gems that capture that jammy magic—but live, Los Poncho Tones set sail on a sonic journey through enchanting originals and reworked covers. Beyond their standalone shows, they have recorded with locals and have been a backing band for Rosa Pullman, Jessie Payo, Jesika Von Rabbit, Brad Byrd, Paul Chesne and others.
You can catch Los Poncho Tones on Friday, Aug. 7, at the Red Dog Saloon in Pioneertown, and Thursday, Aug. 27, at the Copper Room in Yucca Valley.
During a recent Zoom interview, the members of Los Poncho Tones explained the band was born.
“We got together from a jam at my house,” Sonntag said. “It was right in 2021, in June, after the hard times, and it was starting to feel a little bit more open, because the vaccine had come out, and people were starting to congregate a little bit. A mutual friend of ours, Matt Ellis—who’s also a great artist in his own right—got us together for a jam at my house, and he brought along Jon and Denny. I had just met Denny recently, and I think Jon and Denny might have known each other from before, from L.A. or something.”
Added Ossman, jokingly: “It was a salsa band in jail. They basically would just bring in congas and timbales and percussion items, and all the other musicians except the percussionists, and then, as inmates, we would rotate through the instruments.”
Sonntag was blown away by the musical capabilities of Ossman and Weston. After the COVID-19 Delta variant hindered their attempts to hit the Pappy and Harriet’s open mic, the trio began meeting once a week to hone in on their sound.
“We started meeting up at Denny’s spot in Twentynine (Palms) and just jamming and getting stuff together,” Sonntag said. “We were meeting there once a week from June to November, and by November, we were starting to get a little bit antsy, and called a buddy who had a spot up there in the Giant Rock Meeting Room, and just booked a gig.”
As for the band name?
“I think we came up with the name in the five minutes it took me to look at a painting that I had on the wall, and I was like, ‘Do you guys like The Poncho Tones as a band name?’” Sonntag said. “And I think it was Jon who said, “Only if it’s in Spanish.’”
Since then, the band name has been subject to mispronunciations.
“People call us Los Poncho Tones, and some people can say it in Spanish, Los Poncho Ton-es,” Sonntag said. “Grammatically, I think it’s wrong, so some people, because it’s an ‘s’ at the end of Los, think that you need an ‘s’ at the end of Poncho, so we get called Los Ponchos Tones a lot as well.”
One thing unmistakable about Los Poncho Tones? Their “greasy tumbleweed” genre label.
“It came up as, not a joke, but as a way of saying something that wasn’t going to be your standard fare,” Sonntag said. “It does kind of describe us in a way, because the ‘greasy tumbleweed,’ the greasy part of it, is the groove. We like greasy grooves.”
“We just pick tunes that we like, but it’s not like a jazz-standard book situation. It’s like, ‘Oh, you know that tune by The Police? What would it sound like if The Meters played it?’”
Josh Sonntag
Added Ossman: “‘Greasy’ has been a term that musicians use for years to describe the way an ensemble grooves together. You know, if it’s greasy, it’s got a certain something you can sink your teeth into. Greasy has always been a way to describe a feel, and it’s just been amongst musicians. It’s inner poetry, but it probably doesn’t translate to the public, the civilians, like it does musicians.”
The “tumbleweed” half of their sound stems from the twangy, dirty grooves of the high desert.
“We are out in the high desert, so it’s a little bit of a dusty top line, if you will,” Sonntag said. “I play a telecaster most of the time, and most of the time, I’m trying to get a little bit of twang in there—the high and lonesome melodies when we play instrumental—and I think the combination of those two words helped us nail down and have a quick response to people when they ask us the question.”
The charming nature of the words “greasy tumbleweed” have helped Los Poncho Tones draw interest.
“We deliver it with a certain confidence where everybody knows exactly what it is,” Ossman said. “I was on jury duty, and the judge and the lawyers were interviewing me, and the judge said, ‘Mr. Ossman, it says on your jury information that you’re a musician; what kind of music do you play?’ I just really put my flag on the ground, and I said, ‘That would be the greasy tumbleweed variety, your honor.’ It just ended there. I think if you just deliver it with conviction, or just matter-of-fact, and just spray some STP in your carburetor, it lands. It draws interest, and it’s poetic.”
Thanks to a never-ending itch to jam, the members of Los Poncho Tones have yet to tire of each other.
“(Jamming) is the essence of what we do,” Sonntag said. “Without that, the band would be super-boring, and we would have already been sick of it. It’s kind of what keeps it fresh, and it keeps it interesting. These cats are master musicians, so it’s always an adventure. ‘What’s going to happen tonight?’ It’s always something fun and always something good.”
Ossman clarified that the band views improvisational jamming as more than just playing freely.
“It’s improvising with genre and styles and time feels,” Ossman said. “Each night, it’ll be a decision to explore. For me, I’ll introduce an element that either challenges or lifts the situation. I think the fellas would agree that the improvisational aspect of it is beyond just playing notes. It’s a whole bunch of free-associative elements, almost like cut and paste, that we’ll bring in as elements and sonics and time feels and tempos.”
Beyond the jams and originals, Los Poncho Tones put a unique spin on cover tunes.
“We just pick tunes that we like, but it’s not like a jazz-standard book situation,” Sonntag said. “It’s like, ‘Oh, you know that tune by The Police? What would it sound like if The Meters played it?’ Then we go on those types of explorations, and that brings us to these new places that breathe new life into these tunes that everybody knows.”
They are also implementing vocals (from all three members) after a mostly instrumental beginning.
“We started off very much instrumental, with Jon singing a couple of tunes here or there, and then we slowly started bringing that energy of singing in a lot more, and then Denny started bringing a little bit of his originals with singing on them, and then we all started getting a little bit more comfortable on the mic—and that’s where we’re at now,” Sonntag said. “I would say that singing is becoming a more and more important and interesting part of the mix these days.”
While you wait to catch a Los Poncho Tones live show, check out their YouTube channel, which includes more than nine hours of live music.
“We record every single show we play, on video and audio,” Sonntag said. “… We figured that would be a good way to show people what we’re about.”
Los Poncho Tones will perform at 7 p.m., Friday, Aug. 7, at the Red Dog Saloon, at 53535 Mane St., in Pioneertown; and 6 p.m., Thursday, Aug. 27 (and the last Thursday of each month) at the Copper Room, at 57360 Aviation Drive, in Yucca Valley. Both shows are free. For more information on the band, visit www.instagram.com/losponchotones.
