Derek Jordan Gregg is one of the desert’s most prominent singer-songwriters. Equipped with a looper pedal, Gregg performs at a number of local restaurants and venues, showcasing his songwriting skills with everything from feel-good pop to heart-wrenching ballads to badass blues. He’s won multiple local awards and is one of the busiest local musicians.
Now, Gregg is returning to the band scene. Before his solo career, Gregg’s high-energy pop-rock outfit the Hive Minds was the talk of the town—and nine years after the end of the Hive Minds, Gregg has formed Avant Garden. Alongside drummer Sean Poe and bassist Gene Beavers, Gregg is moving from solo work into a more collaborative, heavy-rock trio. You can catch Avant Garden on Monday, Oct. 12, at Agua Caliente Cathedral City.
“When I came into town, I did a little solo thing, but I got a lot more attention playing with Sean Poe as the Hive Minds,” Gregg said during a recent phone interview. “That kind of concluded naturally, and we started playing with other projects, so then I just started playing everywhere solo, doing the loop show. That really got my name well-known.”
Gregg’s branding became focused around his full name, at the behest of his late manager.
“I started getting scouted by a manager, Cat Badger,” Gregg said. “… She was my guardian angel. She saved my freaking life, and she passed two years ago, but it was her plan—it was kind of marketing-oriented—to go by my full name instead of a band name. … I had so many different styles of music that I wanted to do at the time, and she just thought it was wiser to put it under the Derek Jordan Gregg umbrella.”
Beavers and Poe played live with Gregg under the ‘Derek Jordan Gregg’ name, but Gregg wanted the trio to have a separate identity.
“I prefer bands,” Gregg said. “… I don’t really like the idea of people just walking around with my name on their shirt, or thinking like, ‘Yeah, you want this Derek shirt?’ I like to be a part of a musical ensemble. It’s not so much about me and my face–it’s about the sound.”
Gregg said Beavers and Poe have added so much nuance and musical excitement to what had been his solo material.
“I’ve been working with Gene for a little while, so he started putting in this edge,” Gregg said. “It’s a little bit John Paul Jones, but it’s really his own thing. That started adding an edge that you can hear as far back as ‘Blue’ on the solo record, which is probably the newest solo song written. (That song) felt like it wanted to be for a band … but the difference between, like, that and an old Hive Minds song like ‘Paradise’ is night and day. You wouldn’t even think the same person was singing.”
Thanks to musical chemistry and trust, the Avant Garden trio have been able to craft new material almost effortlessly.
“It’s just three of us, and we are all holding down our parts,” Gregg said. “Gene and Sean have a communication, and then I respond to that with my guitar, and then I can write lyrics on top of that. It feels like a band when it’s written.”
While the Hive Minds’ songs were brighter and bluesy, Avant Garden is tapping into darker, more-complex sonics.
“I would say the influences from the old stuff were a lot more contemporary, mellow and a little bit too squeaky-clean,” he said. “This is, I don’t want to say gritty, but there’s a lot of darkness to it. There’s a little bit of grunge to it; there are polyrhythms; there are interesting chord voicings. Sean and Gene can do this cool push-pull thing that I just come out of nowhere to work with. We just try to make unique stuff. I’ve been trying to explain the sound, and it’s a little bit difficult, but I would say it’s like Nirvana meets The Police meets Oingo Boingo.”
While Avant Garden has been performing throughout 2026, the band’s first single, “Evelyn,” will be released in October. It’s a menacing alt-rock anthem, about a dangerous spider queen, with haunting melodies and eerie guitar tones. Gregg said the song is a “good starting point for what the band sounds like.”
Full disclosure: The song will be part of the Halloween compilation album I organize, It Came From the Desert, Vol. 4. Gregg said the seasonal album was the “kick in the ass” the group needed to start releasing music, and start having a brand and social media for Avant Garden.
“It’s so funny how sometimes you just have to kick yourself in the ass,” he said. “You don’t have to wait for all the things to fall into place before you start making something tangible. Sometimes, I’m like, ‘I have to wait until all the bricks are in place,’ or, ‘I have to wait to have a music video to release a song.’”
As Gregg begins to balance his professional solo gigs with the new band, he reflected on his commitment to artistic integrity.
“The looper allows me to have a fresh, raw, organic take every single time. People ask me, ‘You can just save that so that you could cue it up instantly, right?’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, and defeat the entire point.’”
derek jordan gregg
“My dad plays covers,” Gregg said. “For me, at first, it was like, ‘I’m not going to play any of the typical songs. I’m going to play a bunch of covers you don’t know and a bunch of my original music.’ It started to feel a little bit selfish … and as I started to grow up, I stopped being so jaded. I’m not a cover band; I do my solo loop show, and as I went through addiction, as I came out the other side, (I was) grateful for every moment. Taking a little bit of time out of my day to pay my bills with gigs is easy-peasy, and I’ve become a great musician doing it.”
Gregg is able to maintain his artistry even when doing covers thanks to his looper show, as songs get crafted out of looping sounds made just by his guitar.
“The looper allows me to have a fresh, raw, organic take every single time,” he said. “People ask me, ‘You can just save that so that you could cue it up instantly, right?’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, and defeat the entire point.’ I’m doing it to not do backing tracks. I want it to be different. I want it to be an expression of the real moment.”
Gregg is excited about the variety of music opportunities ahead of him.
“I want to play my music, and I want to play with my band,” he said. “I want to have a group that does my more acoustic, folky stuff, and I want to be in Avant Garden and tear the roof off. I would rather, pretty much, never do a cover again, and I’m also kind of very cynical about the music industry. … I would rather do it this way and be underground and get by and make dope music that I like and maybe not even play as many gigs as I hope for the rest of my fricking life before I put on a mask and did something that was not true to myself.”
Avant Garden will perform at 8 p.m., Monday, Oct. 12, at Agua Caliente Cathedral City, at 68960 E. Palm Canyon Drive. The event is free, but you must be 21+. For more information, visit www.aguacalientecasinos.com/agua-special/live-local-bands.
