Darker My Love - Biography
Like The Warlocks before them, Darker My Love is a fuzz-loving neo-psychedelic rock band from Los Angeles that critics are quick to label. It seems that the collective patience with loud, distorted psych-rock has worn thin and many have accused the genre of being a safe and mundane refuge for bands. Got a Jesus and Mary Chain-style riff handy? Bury that sucker in a distortion pile consisting of a lengthy, swirling guitar solo and barely audible lyrics about love, and you have a psychedelic rock song. While Darker My Love has not exactly ignored this formula completely, they don’t follow it as blindly as many of their peers. The band’s two founders come from a punk background, which is probably the reason their music has more bite and focus than the attempts made by others. Darker My Love gives neo-psychedelia (or post-shoegaze, or whatever you want to call it) a swift kick in its lazy rear end.
Vocalist and guitarist Tim Presley attended the same high school as drummer Andy Granelli in California’s Bay Area. The duo cut their teeth playing in various punk bands, including The Nerve Agents, an influential hardcore punk group that began in the Bay Area. Granelli, who went by the moniker of Andy Outbreak in his Nerve Agents days, founded the band with Eric Ozenne. The thrashing punk of that band is strikingly different from the shoegazing, neo-paisley style that Granelli and Presley (known as Timmy Stardust in The Nerve Agents) would evolve toward. The Nerve Agents slowly dissolved, thanks in part to Granelli accepting an invitation to play drums for the now-defunct LA band The Distillers. While Darker My Love began as a side project, the songs that Presley and Granelli were coming up with had real potential. In fact, these songs had so much potential that Granelli officially quit The Distillers during the band’s hiatus in order to pursue Darker My Love with Presley full time. Two more members were recruited: bassist and vocalist Rob Barbato, a heavily-bearded transplant from Boston, and guitarist Jared Everett, a native of Pennsylvania. Officially born in 2001, Darker My Love took its name from a track by Long Beach hardcore punk band T.S.O.L.
The first offering from the group was the self-titled EP, Darker My Love, released in 2004 on the tiny LA punk label Tarantulas Records. This little-heard EP has virtually vanished without a trace. A main contributor to its disappearance is the fact that Tarantulas Records went out of business one year after the EP’s release. Before the label went belly up, however, Darker My Love released their first single, Summer is Here, on Tarantulas in January of 2005. From the get-go, Darker My Love seemed determined to add a much-needed dose of punk energy to a psych-rock genre that had idled in near-mediocrity for far too long. The single earned the band comparisons not only to the gauzy sounds of Spacemen 3, but to the raw power of the Stooges. “Summer is Here” is a standout, complete with a searing riff and a claustrophobic mix that finds the vocals buried deeper than those of My Bloody Valentine.
Before helping to make stars of Silversun Pickups by releasing their debut album Carnavas, Dangerbird Records was just one of many tiny record labels in Los Angeles catering to the fledgling music scene in Silver Lake. When Tarantulas folded, Dangerbird signed Darker My Love to its roster in April of 2006. Even before getting signed, the band had completed its debut full-length. Recorded in Eagle Rock, Darker My Love was released via Dangerbird on August 22, 2006. The album received very few write-ups, but the reviews it did receive were generally positive. The band was praised for wearing its My Bloody Valentine and Velvet Underground influences proudly, while never succumbing to mere nostalgia.
Darker My Love were understandably the “it” band in Silverlake, so it was no surprise that the club Spaceland — the hottest venue in Silverlake — elected DML to participate in its Monday Night Residency. Every one of the band’s month-long residency performances was released through Spaceland/Kufala Recordings as Mondays in Spaceland, Vol. 1 Abridged: July 2006 (2006), Mondays in Spaceland, Vol. 1: 1 July 10th 2006 (2006), Mondays in Spaceland, Vol. 1: 2 July 17th 2006 (2006), Mondays in Spaceland, Vol. 1: 3 July 24th 2006 (2006), and Mondays in Spaceland, Vol. 1: 4 July 31st 2006 (2006). After the promotional touring, Presley and Granelli eagerly accepted an opportunity to play with The Fall. Frontman Mark E. Smith handpicked the duo himself to play on The Fall’s 2007 album Reformation Post TLC (Narnack).
Darker My Love reunited after the release of The Fall’s album and added new member Will Canzoneri, a Mississippi native who would make the group’s sound even more dense with his organ and clavinet-playing. The group supported the Jesus and Mary Chain on a few dates before heading to SXSW in March of 2008. Along the way, they recorded their second album. Produced by Dave Cooley (the mastermind behind both Silversun Pickups albums) and mixed by Tony Hoffer (Air, The Kooks), the aptly-titled 2 (Dangerbird) was released on August 5, 2008. Once again, the LP did not yield a significant amount of press, but the write-ups it received were altogether warm. 2 highlighted the group’s ability to hold back the fuzz and craft a radio-friendly pop tune. The first single “Two Ways Out” plays like a more somber rendition of the Supergrass hit “Alright.”
Darker My Love immediately hit the road, opening a string of dates for The Dandy Warhols — a group they have often been compared to — that lasted through September. They completed their promotional tour for 2 in 2009. Alive As You Are was released in 2010.
