photo by Daniel Thompson III
by Michael Todd
Denver Dalley’s itinerary read like a Jules Verne book title: 4,000 miles in one night.
Last week, the Desaparecidos guitarist began his trip back to Omaha via San Francisco, where he’d departed from playing bass on the Har Mar Superstar tour. From California, Dalley flew to his home in New York overnight, packed his bags for Omaha, and made it back to Central time zone by brunch.
Over the next two weeks, the native Nebraskan’s odometer will roll on through 10 shows in nine states, starting tonight at The Waiting Room in Omaha. His vehicle this time? Desaparecidos, the political punk group fronted by Bright Eyes’ Conor Oberst.
“We’re all in our 30s now, but we’re still pissed-off little kids,” Dalley says. “We haven’t matured at all.”
The dream of starting a band that expresses its sometimes pinpointed, sometimes general anger, Dalley says, is to inspire listeners to research the names and the subjects skewered. Born in the early 2000s, Desa's guerrilla warfare of biting lyrics has targeted figures and institutions from Nebraska to Minnesota, from Arizona to the coasts. It's praised fellow fighters such as the hacktivist group Anonymous and Chilean student protest-leader Camila Vallejo.
And despite the years in between its debut album, Read Music/Speak Spanish, and its no-future-plans reunion show in 2010, then more formal reformation in 2012, the band has recently transitioned into “actually being a band really for the first time,” Dalley says.
As he prepared for more mileage, which will continue with Har Mar Superstar in England one day after Desa's tour ends, Dalley remembered long-gone Omaha venues, discussed the reversal from touring to-be-recorded material and why a secret show was the best performance format for Desa's come-back concert last year.
Hear Nebraska: You’ve said that The Waiting Room is the perfect venue in Omaha now. What about it makes it perfect for you?
Denver Dalley: I like the size and the location and the soundsystem. I like (Waiting Room owners) Marc (Leibowitz) and Jim (Johnson). There’s a fine line with venues where they can be almost too big or too small, or too packed and chaotic. The Waiting Room has a perfect amount of area to stand where everyone can see things and spill over if needed.
They just take care of us. There’s a few venues, it’s icing on the cake that they’re so professionally awesome. When you like the people and they take such good care of you, that’s already enough. But when the sound is that good and it’s that accommodating, you just look forward to it. The 9:30 Club in D.C. or First Ave. in Minneapolis are ones that I put up there with The Waiting Room.
HN: What do you think it means for Omaha to have a venue like The Waiting Room now, and how does that compare with when you were growing up in Omaha?
DD: I remember going to The Capitol. It’s long-gone now, torn down, I don’t even know what’s there now. But I remember seeing Slowdown Virginia and Smashmouth — Steve Pedersen’s project Smashmouth, not the “Walking on the Sun” Smash Mouth (laughs). I remember seeing them there.
Obviously, the Cog Factory, too. We played a lot at The Cog and Sokol downstairs. A lot of those shows were with Marc Leibowitz, who owns The Waiting Room now. I think the one I probably went to the most was probably Sokol Underground.
HN: How much of your time do you spend in Omaha these days?
DD: I still have a place there. Desa’s still very much based there. Landon and Matt live there full-time. My primary residence is New York, but I’ve spent more time in Omaha than I have at home. Right now, I’m gonna go home for about 12 hours and then come to Omaha.
On average, I’ve spent maybe one week there every two or three months. It doesn’t seem like a lot, but I’ve been on the road so much that it’s a lot for me.
HN: A long time for just one place. Does Desa practice exclusively in Omaha then?
DD: We mainly just practice in Omaha. We did rent a lake house up in Minnesota and spent some time up there. But that was just a one-off thing. Usually, we’re always practicing in Omaha. That’s definitely our homebase.
HN: Having grown up here, do you and the band feel like you have any sort of ownership or stake in Omaha music? Is it important that you always play a show in Omaha on tours?
DD: I think so. It’s such an interesting band that was a band then wasn’t. We’re transitioning back into actually being a band really for the first time. It was such a brief thing before, so I think everyone’s still saying, “Are they back, or what are they?” I think we’re all Omaha dudes having grown up in that scene, and I certainly still feel a part of it.
HN: I’m curious, moving to the music, what’s the idea behind releasing songs as singles only? Is it that you each have so many other projects that those are the only songs, or is it a conscious, more calculated process?
DD: It’s a combination of things. Like I said, we’ve been transitioning back into it and easing our way into our writing of songs and building up more new songs. Bands back in the day, you could go play your stuff out at shows and get the material ready to record. It was a great way to work on them.
Nowadays, the second you play them live it’s up on YouTube. If it ends up online, I’d rather record it first how we envision it instead of some crummy, iPhone recording. But especially as we’ve been doing these tours, it’s been fun to release them before the tour and it gives not only people in the crowd but it helps us look forward to playing new songs, and being a band again, not just a reunion.
photo by Daniel Muller
HN: For a bit of context then, give me the recent timeline of Desa.
DD: We did that reunion back in 2010 for the Concert for Equality. It went so well and felt so natural that it encouraged us to fully reunite. We don’t have any solid plans. As tours come up, we’re doing them bits and pieces at a time. There’s no pressure or obligations. We’re curious about what happens next, and enjoying the ride.
HN: Then going back to the shows last year, how did Desa come to debut new material at the “secret show.” What about that kind of performance format appealed to you?
DD: I think there’s something fun about word-of-mouth and last-minute. For us, it’s like a practice. It’s one of those fun things where if you catch wind of, you can be a part of it, one step above having people over to your band practice. It’s a fun thing especially nowadays with Twitter and stuff, a bit like finding food trucks.
HN: Sure, that makes sense. Now, ducking back to the music again, as the new songs are tied to contemporary names and groups in the news, have you and the band discussed their permanence? Do you talk about how long these songs will last past this year’s news?
DD: Yeah, we didn’t think the songs off Read Music/Speak Spanish would hold up and still be relevant. These songs are more specific, but they’re still more universal themes. If we’re using the name Bradley Manning now, 10 years from now, I’m sure there will another person in a similar position.
HN: I’m curious if there was a conversation about mentioning specific people in the lyrics versus being more vague. Specificity might make the message more “in the now,” maybe clearer, but not using names in the news might make for something more universal.
DD: Yeah, I think it varies song-by-song. There’s some things where you’re so mad at a specific thing you want to call them out. There’s others that are put so vaguely that it can have countless applications.
Obviously, Sheriff Joe (Arpaio) is a bad guy we definitely want to call out. No matter what happens, he’s always going to be that bad guy and have done those same terrible things. So yeah, it goes back-and-forth. Sometimes, you want to pinpoint and call someone out, and other times, you speak in generalities.
HN: Does writing and performing politically-charged music help ease, or does it fuel the emotions you’re writing into songs?
DD: I think it can do both. The dream is to start a conversation and to get people to research names. Sometimes it’s cathartic and fun to be mad and loud.
HN: How early did you take an interest in the sorts of issues that Desa covers in its songs?
DD: Man, I can remember being about 12 years old and being pretty fired up about some of the stuff these songs are about. That’s where I get kind of vague because I don’t wanna give away what some of these newer ones are about that we haven’t released yet.
But yeah, it’s been 20 or so years now (laughs).
HN: And that coincides with the other members in the band?
DD: Yeah, definitely. We’re all in our 30s now, but we’re still pissed-off little kids. We haven’t matured at all.
Michael Todd is Hear Nebraska’s managing editor. He’s still new to this city, but his “Greater Omaha” is centrally located. Reach Michael at michaeltodd@hearnebraska.org.