It's in the Music

Either Provo, Utah, band Desert Noises willfully chooses not to share too much during interviews or the only way lead singer Kyle Henderson and his bandmates actually know how to express themselves is through harmony laden, dusty rock tracks with boyish themes and seasoned chops.

Alright, there could be a third option: the band’s publicist isn’t terribly competent. Repeated email requests for an interview were fumbled, which seems to be par for the course, as previously published articles about and interviews with the quartet have been—for some reason—awfully weak and failed to fully mine what seems like a rich just-beneath-the-surface treasure trove of interesting side stories about the band.

Things like Henderson’s previous work as an analyst for the shady, Provo-based, multi-level marketing company, Nu-Skin Enterprises; a business known in some circles as a pyramid scheme. So far, all we know is that it was a job Henderson finally fled to pursue his band full time.

Or what about the fact that bass guitarist Tyler Osmond is indeed a member of a particular famous musical family bearing the same last name? There’s just got to be a great story in there somewhere.

Add to that the band members’ experiences with local religion and their formation story just might end up being something more appropriate for a Farrelly brothers’ film than a band interview.

As it stands though, Henderson doesn’t offer much in the way of insight other than the music of Desert Noises.

What we do know is this: they listen to a lot of Modest Mouse and Led Zeppelin; they’ve been on tour for a huge chunk of the last three years; and, the name of the band came to Henderson in a dream.

The only comprehensive way to get to know Desert Noises is its music; and that is nothing to scoff at since its perfectly balanced classic and indie rock songs are each one—and I mean each one—capsules of rugged and hopeful emotion with rather surprising expansive sounds.

The influence of Led Zepplin is definitely there, but so are Band of Horses, Fleet Foxes, Blitzen Trapper and Tom Petty.

The band’s latest album, 27 Ways, is its most aggressive yet and is full of jaded rock songs in which Henderson sings about self-taught fallacies on “Out of My Head,” as drums thunder and the track crescendos with Henderson struggling to reach escape velocity from the bonds of his demons. On the album’s third track, “Mice in the Kitchen,” Henderson sings: “Your lips makes horrible sounds, they’re talking words from your mouth,” as he completes an emotionally naked song about a destructive relationship.

So, while an intimate look-see into the band might not be all that possible through an interview, there is plenty of it to go around in its music; in fact, maybe even more than one would bargain for.