Meet SANDS: DIY Garage Rock
Meet SANDS, a garage rock band from San Diego, California. SANDS has been a part of the local DIY music community in San Diego for quite some time now. With every show they play and piece of music released, SANDS has proven to wow their listeners repeatedly, leaving them itching for more. In this interview, we will get to know the members of SANDS, hear about how the band started, and talk about what’s in store for the future with them!
Photo taken by @senpvpi_music on IG
MEMBERS' NAMES, WHAT EACH PERSON PLAYS, AND WHEN/WHERE THE BAND ORIGINATED. HOW DID SANDS FORM? TELL ME ABOUT THE START OF THE BAND.
"SANDS was first started in 2019 by Brandon (singer + guitarist) and I (Basil, bassist). The two of us met in high school in San Diego, and have been best friends ever since. We bonded over our shared love for music, spending most of our time singing along to our favorite songs and going to all kinds of shows - anywhere from punk house parties to underground raves. We really gravitated towards garage rock the most - and eventually felt motivated to create something new, and add more of the fun, energetic music we love so much to the world with our own sandy twist. In 2019, we were both living in and going to school in Portland, Oregon - and were mostly motivated to live there to be surrounded by the PNW music scene. Going to tons of basement shows and seeing how expressive artists were up there is what was really motivated us to start our own project. We wrote a a couple songs, and got our feet wet playing our first couple shows up there. Shortly after, COVID started, and we moved back to San Diego to be closer to our families. We spent most of quarantine living on a boat in the San Diego Harbor, and that’s where we worked on our first EP and single “For The Summer” - the only song we kept from our Portland era that’s literally about missing summers in San Diego - so the move made sense. We’re San Diego sun babies at heart, I guess. Since live shows started again, we’ve spent our time playing tons of them. Since then we’ve had a couple friends fill in here and there, and as of this year we’re super happy with our current lineup. I wouldn’t say it was difficult or easy getting this current group together, it just took some time before things fell into place naturally and I can confidently say it feels good. We now have our really good friends Michael and Carley playing with us. We met Michael in 2021 and have been friends with Carley since way back in 2017. Even though Brandon and I are the main songwriters, Carley and Michael still give us really valuable input on everything, are incredibly talented musicians, and are so fun to hang out with and play music together.”
Photo taken by @phin.eas.j on IG
WHAT INSPIRED THE NAME "SANDS"?
"The name SANDS was inspired by one of our favorite songs “Sands” by Nana Grizol, a folk punk band out of Athens, GA. It was our theme song we’d sing the lyrics to at the top of our lungs on long summer road trips. We actually don’t really like sand (that shit gets everywhere), but it definitely reminds us of home, (Sd, baby - encinitas and Carlsbad to be specific) and the song has gotten us through a lot of the highs and lows in our lives. It means a lot to us, and having that be a part of the music we make felt right. Also SANDS just sounds like a surf punk name."
TELL ME A BIT ABOUT YOUR MOST RECENT SINGLE, "NO FÜN." WHAT WAS THE RECORDING PROCESS LIKE?
"‘NO FÜN’ was actually a really fun song to work on. It’s a really cathartic song to play and we wanted to put a lot of that feeling into it when we were recording. We are 100% DIY to the bone, so we tracked everything ourselves in Michael’s bedroom studio. It’s the first song we’ve released that had the whole band playing on it, all of our other songs we’ve released before had Basil and Brandon playing all the instruments. Brandon mixed NO FÜN and Michael mastered it; it was cool to do everything in-house for this one and it allowed us to have a lot of control over the sound and get everything sounding just how we wanted. We shot a little music video to accompany it too, all recorded on Basil’s camcorder. We set up all our gear in the back of an old VW bus and get driven around Encinitas while we played the song in the back. Everything involved in releasing no fun was..tons of fun."
Photo taken by Unknown
WHAT IS THE OVERALL MESSAGE YOU ARE TRYING TO SEND WITH YOUR MUSIC?
"Striving to embrace nothingness & finding the joy in simply existing. The songs also explore self-deprecation, loneliness, and boredom; but despite all of those feelings, trying to have a good time anyways. Basically, our music is a way for us to express all of the demons that stew in our brains and finding ways to cope through those thoughts. A lot of messages within our songs are the advice we want to give to ourselves and wish we would take."
WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE SHOW MEMORY/FAVORITE SHOW YOU HAVE PLAYED?
"Hm, we’ve played so many shows that have all been so fun it’s really hard to choose. A really memorable one was the first show we played back after lockdown. It was in someone’s backyard in Oceanside in June 2021. It was really special to see so many people we hadn’t seen over the last few years, and there was a whole new crowd of people coming out too, a bunch of people who had never been to a show before. It was so cool to see this new SD scene come together. On top of that, I think everyone was just starved for live music and going to shows again. So people went absolutely nuts - during our set people were screaming their hearts out, lighting off fireworks, and jumping off the roof into the pit. And at that point the sun hadn’t even gone down.
More recently, we played a festival called Peachy SD down in San Diego at the venue SOMA. We got to play with some of our favorite bands, like Beach Goons, No Vacation, TV Girl, and our friends Cardboard Boxer. We were so grateful to get to share a bill with all these bands, but most of all we just had a blast doing it. Everyone who came out was super supportive, and we had an amazing time."
Photo taken by @lmexposures on IG
ADVICE FOR OTHERS LOOKING TO START A BAND IN THE LOCAL SAN DIEGO SCENE?
"If you want to do it, DO IT! Don’t let anything hold you back! Do it for the sake of having an outlet to share your creativity, don’t hold yourself back by what others may think of you, or of where the project might go in the future. There’s nothing more special than just creating art because you feel compelled to. Make what’s in your heart and don’t overthink too much further than that. If you’re looking for people to play with, definitely get involved in the local music scene down here. There’s tons of DIY venues and really nice people around. Hang out, support bands, talk to people, and you’re bound to meet some like-minded folks who would be stoked to start a band with you.”
WHAT SHOULD FANS EXPECT FROM SANDS IN THE FUTURE?
"We have a lot coming up in the near future! We’ve got a lot of shows this summer around southern California that we’ll be announcing soon, so keep an eye out! We’re also currently messing with some new sounds and expanding a lot on what we have already, while also working on what will either become our next EP or possibly our first full-length LP. That’s a little ways off, but in the meantime we have some new singles coming out and ~perhaps~ a super secret tour being planned for this fall. We’re playing another fest on June 24th called L Fest that we might be testing out some new songs at, so if you’re around come hang!”
Photo taken by @lmexposures on IG
