If you frequented the more popular East Coast live-music clubs in the late 1980s, you were likely floored by the Dads at least once. After a disappointing run-in with CBS, the beloved Virginia band broke up in 1985. Bassist Bryan Harvey went on to form House Of Freaks, a duo whose tribal roots rock found a brief home on a major label in the early ’90s. Guitarist Kevin Pittman headed to Los Angeles with another band called the Wit Lincolns, landing a demo deal with Jimmy Iovine at Interscope.
Quickly tiring of the West Coast, Pittman made his way back to Richmond and built his own studio in a century-old bungalow, where he began collaborating with fellow Virginia native Stephen McCarthy, cofounder of SoCal cowpunk pioneers the Long Ryders. In 1993, the pair began tracking the first of what would become almost 24 songs, unwittingly giving birth to their own litmus test for the genre-defying twang that would soon be called Americana.
For reasons the two can’t recall, the tapes never made it out of the bungalow and later disappeared—only to be found in a friend’s attic decades later. Restored and remixed by Pittman, the sessions are now set for self-release as The Sky Chiefs on February 13. First and foremost, it’s a monster guitar record—and the Telecaster looms large. The album’s latest single, “Engines,” was recorded in the bungalow’s parlor with only a gut-string guitar, a lap steel and antique pump organ.
“The wheeze of the organ reeds and the warmth of the gut strings combine to create a sound that could’ve come out of a Wild West carnival scene,” says McCarthy. “We loved the idea of travel above the clouds, but with an older cinematic feel—almost like Jules Verne was directing us in our acoustic-instrumentation soundscape.”
We’re proud to premiere the Sky Chiefs’ “Engines.”
—Hobart Rowland
