New Orleans has long been a hotbed for musical acts. Something about the city’s bustling music scene has seemed to inspire joy, camaraderie and a desire to explore various sounds and influences for centuries.
Though New Orleans based band The Deslondes are not home as often as when they started about 14years ago, they continue to carry the spirit of their city with them.
The Deslondes will hit the road for a short Texas run stopping to perform at The Continental Club on Tuesday, October 3 along with their fellow hometown musician Esther Rose.
“We are still touring quite a bit,” says singer and guitarist Riley Downing of the band’s status. “We just can’t miss holidays and birthdays anymore and we’ve all got solo projects and other things that we do. A couple of us are still burning the candle at both ends but we’re getting ready to start working on a new record in November.”
Each member is certainly busy with their own projects as Downing released his solo album Start It Over in 2021 just a short while after Sam Doores released his self titled solo album as well. As a band, The Deslondes always come across as being thick as thieves whether on stage or in the studio. Even their name comes from a street members lived on back in the day.
Though some band members have started families or moved away from New Orleans, that hasn’t stopped them from continuing to create together with Downing. Songs are built through file sharing and scheduling time together in between tours.
“We’re sitting pretty good on the amount of songs and that’s not a bad problem to have,” he says. The band recently welcomed their new drummer Howe Pearson who will be joining them on tour and in the studio.
The Deslondes members met in their 20s through the Woody Guthrie Folk Festival in Okemah, Oklahoma. It was through the small community that gathers yearly that Downing was invited to New Orleans to play with Doores.
Once relocating to the Big Easy, the band got to it, tapping the city for inspiration and gigs often playing nightly for weeks on end until the heat of the summertime offered them a great chance to escape for cooler weather and tour.
“I will say that’s where I went to music school in New Orleans,” says Downing, originally from Missouri. He describes his appreciation for the less competitive music scene of New Orleans where musicians often work together to write and promote one another.
“At that time we just wanted to play and everybody down there was really friendly with information on different instruments. If you wanted to learn anything you could find somebody that might show you because our friends might be playing in an old-timey jazz band one night and then they are playing in a country band the next night.”
This assorted pot of influences is directly felt in the bands albums which hold sounds ranging from old field recordings and gospel to R&B and country with the band always sounding like authentic versions of themselves not simply homages to their heroes.
“I always say a lot of people that are traveling around, songwriters from New Orleans we all just sat around the campfire, showed each other our songs and then got up one day and went and did something else. We went and did our own thing.”
Last year the band released their fourth studio album, Ways & Means which saw them exploring the use of instruments new to their dynamic including horns and a full drum kit. “It’s a lot of fun to play with a full kit. I think it definitely helps people dance if they want to,” says Downing.
They accompanied Ways & Means with a beautiful trilogy of videos made by long time creative partner Joshua Shoemaker. The videos capture the story of three different characters at the same late night party. Shoemaker perfectly captured the band’s dreamy vibe that The Deslondes create not only sonically but with their poetic lyrics which often paint a deep yet straight forward and plain spoken picture of life evoking sepia toned images and a hazy vibe.
“I think it’s just bouncing all over,” says Downing of their range of influences. “It’s out of all of us. We all listen to a variety of different music. When we were a little younger, we were pin pointed on one idea. The Americana scene, it’s kind of one sided and we don’t want to be that way. We want to be open to any kind of genre and I think that’s just the spirit of New Orleans in a way.”
The Deslondes will perform with Esther Rose on Tuesday, October 3 at Shoeshine Charley’s Big Top Lounge, 3714 Main, doors at 8 p.m, $17-27.
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2023.
