A Family Affair

I’m sitting with The Donkeys’ Tim DeNardo in The Longhorn Bar & Grill’s “John Wayne Room.” On the outside, it looks like just another storefront in a suburban Mission Valley strip mall, but step inside and it’s something else entirely. The walls are filled with “The Duke” memorabilia, and it feels like some long-forgotten Mojave roadhouse, while the restaurant itself has more character than most “cool” spots in the city. Appropriately, this mirrors how The Donkeys compare with the rest of San Diego’s indie music scene.

“Nothing against it, but it’s rough when you don’t work in the right bars or don’t know the right people,” DeNardo says.

Later, as DeNardo’s bandmates shuffle in—Jessie Gulati, Anthony Lukens and Sam Sprague—a guy sitting at the adjacent table, suspecting they’re musicians, asks if they frequent The Casbah.

“You ever heard of The Sess?” the diner asks.

“What’s The Sess?” Lukens responds.

“It’s rock ’n’ roll, dude!” he exclaims.

To be fair, The Donkeys are also rock ’n’ roll, but different than the latest wave of local garage bands. Their cosmic, country-tinged pop exudes starry-eyed wonderment. They’re less Gories, more Gram Parsons and much more fitting for a coastal drive than a basement-party soundtrack.

Over a few rounds, we discuss the best Eno/Fripp collaborations, the (mildly embarrassing) merits of the Grateful Dead, Minor Threat versus Fugazi, DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince and classic films like Under Siege. You know, the basics.

“I rented a room from this guy who built animatronic dinosaurs. And [he had] a whole wall of Grateful Dead cassettes—like, every show from every tour from ’86 to ’94,” DeNardo laughs, explaining his Dead fixation.
These are unpretentious Southern Californians, the kind of band that makes you proud to be from the land of Spicoli look-alikes. And although two members surf, it’s a fact that tends to be exaggerated by press outside of their adopted hometown.

“I don’t know if that’s how the rest of the country sees Southern California, but everyone’s fascinated with that,” DeNardo says.  

Regardless of the pigeonholing, what’s important is that The Donkeys are receiving plenty of positive attention. Praise has come from “Last Plane to Jakarta” (a blog by John Darnielle of The Mountain Goats), SPIN and National Public Radio, and Daytrotter.com (a Rock Island, Ill.-based website and studio that releases free, in-studio performances from touring bands) has recorded two sessions with the band. All this was enough for taste-making Indiana label Dead Oceans (home to bands like Dirty Projectors and Bishop Allen) to release The Donkeys’ second album, Living on the Other Side.

The band now seems poised for greater success. Touring behind a thoroughly enjoyable release is one thing, but they now have support from a national label and an “auxiliary musician” in Sprague’s younger brother, Andrew, who fills in the instrumental gaps on tour. Living’s cohesion is a testament to the band’s communal vibe, as each member is a multi-instrumentalist who takes turns on vocals. They interact like family, which makes sense considering most of them went to the same Dana Point high school.

“Everybody plays guitar, and everybody writes songs, but influence-wise, we all listen to different stuff,” Sprague says. “I think we whittled this record down so it sounds the same, but there’s shit we cut out that’s completely different.”

A large portion of their whittling can be attributed to producer Alex deLanda, to whom the band expresses heaps of gratitude.

“He helped out a shitload,” Sprague notes between swigs of Rolling Rock. “And he’s really good at bass. The mix on this record took so long, because Alex really wanted it to be smooth.”

Between deLanda, the younger Sprague and Derek Papa—a local singer and close friend whose recent EP I Will Get to You was also produced by deLanda—it seems like there’s a running for the unofficial title of “fifth Donkey.”

“Beyond the friends that I’ve had for the last 10 or 15 years, Derek fits right in there,” DeNardo says.

“You’ll be seeing more of Derek Papa and/or The Donkeys,” Lukens chuckles.   

Write to toddk@sdcitybeat.com.