DeeOhGee

BIOGRAPHY

There’s something special about a road-grooved power trio just leaning in and letting it rip. On their forthcoming self-titled full-length LP, Matthew Paige (guitar, vocals, harmonica), Zack Murphy (drums, vocals), and Dylan Whitlow (bass, vocals, guitar) offer up a compelling selection of porch stompers that weave together the raw swagger of the British invasion, fuzzed-out woozy psych, and early ’00s alt-rock atmospherics into a sound at once eminently familiar and very much of the moment. Or, as Paige so succinctly puts it, “it's catchy as shit.”

The trio first rose to national prominence as Blackfoot Gypsies, earning their reputation the hard way: constantly touring a live show that split the difference between a roadhouse and a revival tent. Along the way, they shared stages with Tyler Childers, Buddy Guy, and Dwight Yoakam.

When the pandemic halted their momentum, they regrouped under a new name and a renewed sense of purpose. DeeOhGee (a nod to a Waylon Jennings lyric) became a place to explore their myriad influences without apology. Their self-produced 2022 debut New Way of Life was a triumphant reintroduction, channeling the band’s deep roots in American folk poetry and wide-eyed wordplay. The same searching spirit guided their subsequent singles project, a series of collaborations with producers across the country, from Oak Munson in Upstate New York to Greg Lattimer in Nashville.

The songs that would come to make up DeeOhGee were written on the road and workshopped by the band in a cabin in the woods out in Monticello, Kentucky. “We literally stood in a circle for a few days, and just woodshopped them as best as we could” explains Paige. “We live in different towns right now, so we had to get together and just really marinate on the music.”

A new relationship with independent music hub Midtopia led to a new experience in the studio. To track the record, the band headed to the non-profit artist support company’s Somewhere Works studio in Wichita, KS. Coming in road-hot, the band found themselves with a luxurious eight days of unlimited studio time. Previously, DeeOhGee had made records fast and dirty; two- or three-days tops, on the clock and under the gun. “That was the only time I've ever been in the studio where it's just like, don't even mind the hour, it doesn't matter. Whenever you're done, we're done” says Paige.

“They were stoked to have us” says Murphy. “We had songs, but we didn't have all the instrumentation. Some of the guys that run the studio are really good musicians, and they’d have ideas, like ‘I hear the shaker part, can I… can I just go in and do it?’ And I'm like, yeah, get in there. Do it!” Paige continues, “they had such positive vibes. Whatever we needed. ‘Oh, you need a lap steel? We'll go get one for you. Oh, how's this 1960s K awesome, cool lap steel? They were on it!”

The unexpected star of the session is the gentleman affectionately know as “steel drums guy”. The studio had a list of available instruments, and Murphy asked the team, half in jest, about some steel drums. And then…”This dude shows up with a full drum kit of steel drums!” relates Paige. “The studio had never recorded steel drums, so he's giving them advice, and then everyone is holding their hands above the drums, feeling the resonance. Me and him locked eyes, it felt like he was learning the song by just staring into my soul.”

The trio cut the bones of the tracks live, then overdubbed as needed. “We had just come from watching all these producers with their different styles,” explains Murphy, “so we came in with a really cool studio head on our shoulders.” Despite the broad swath of sonic tools at their disposal, the band focused on being very deliberate in their production choices. “You have all this time, but does that mean you need 17 guitar tracks layered on? I'm proud of these songs, I'm proud of each other's songs, and how we served them. This is a song-focused record.”

DeeOhGee is also a very cohesive artistic statement. While each song stands on its own, taken as a whole, the record exudes a particular kind of deeply charming, cathartic humanness. “Because AI is the state of the world,” says Murphy, “real art and music is coming back. We're actually playing the music; there's no click track. It's just real people playing real music in a room. We were just tripping mushrooms at a hippie festival out in the middle of Wisconsin. And then we drove to Kansas, got in the studio, and did it.”

And what a wonderful thing they did. It’s cliché to state it outright, but there is no filler on DeeOhGee. It is one of those rare works that is both a melodic snapshot of a brief span of unfettered creativity and a timeless record, ready to take its rightful place in the canon of western music. Or, as Whitlow so succinctly puts it, “this a killer fucking rock and roll record.”