Chris D. is a true Los Angeles renaissance man. He’s the singer/songwriter of two legendary bands with The Flesh Eaters and Divine Horsemen, a producer with several legendary records bearing his credit, an author, he was a programmer at the American Cinematheque, an actor and in 2002 directed a film titled I Pass For Human. The Flesh Eaters returned with a new album in 2019 and now there is a brilliant, new Divine Horsemen record.
The music is lush with both acoustic and electric guitars and the songs pull influences from all over including country, rock, traditional ethnic folk music (I seem to hear bits of Scottish and Mexican influences as well as a bit of bluegrass) and blues. Chris and Julie Christensen deliver passionate vocals throughout and new bass player Bobby Permanent and X’s DJ Bonebrake on drums provide rhythms that are both solid and inviting. Peter Andrus once again handles the excellent guitar work with some accompaniment by Julie and Bobby.
With the success of The Flesh Eaters new 2019 record and live shows it seemed natural for Divine Horsemen to also reactivate when The Flesh Eaters members had to pursue their main projects like The Blasters, Los Lobos and X (with Bonebrake being the triple threat guy of the bunch and currently the hardest working percussionist in show business). “Originally we were planning on doing some live shows in the Fall of 2018 on the west coast only. DJ was going to be onboard for that as well,’ says Chris. “However right before we were going to start rehearsing in July of that year, I got a call from the ex-girlfriend of our original bass player Robyn Jameson saying that he had been assaulted on the street when he and a friend tried to rescue a woman being attacked. He was in a coma and eventually taken off life support a couple of weeks later. Peter, Julie and I were too grief-stricken and overwhelmed to try and immediately replace him so we canceled those 2018 shows.”
With a lot of attention being focused on the return of the A Minute to Pray, A Second To Die Flesh Eaters line-up, Divine Horsemen was put on hold. “The Flesh Eaters’ I Used To Be Pretty album was coming out in January of 2019 and DJ and I were of course in that line-up and we were going to go on tour off-and-on throughout January-March to support the record. Once done with that tour I told Julie and Peter I wanted to record a new Divine Horsemen record before we tried to do any live shows,” Chris explains. “Peter and I began working on new material and covers in April 2019. We rehearsed on and off throughout that summer. DJ was still up for being the drummer and we went into the studio in early October to record the album.” Chris speaks highly of the X drummer. “He is just great to work with. He’s super responsible and committed to whatever project he takes on. He takes notes in between songs in rehearsal! Definitely takes it seriously and brings so much solid musicianship to the table.” Along with DJ, another person with ties to The Flesh Eaters was onboard for this project. “My co-producer Craig Parker Adams (who had engineered I Used To Be Pretty) and I spent most of November and December mixing then Julie and I mastered it in February 2020.”
Chris’s music has been released on a lot of interesting labels. But the idea of shopping a record during a pandemic when record stores were closed for months and the mail system was going through its own problems must have been a nightmare. The band managed to land in the right place though. “We started shopping it around to labels right when the pandemic hit with lockdowns in March. It was super frustrating, as it was for so many others, because the music scene had devolved into a slow-as-molasses crawl.” The fact that the recordings were fantastic and that they were a legendary Los Angeles band made things a little easier. “We got hooked up with Larry Hardy and his In The Red Recordings label near the end of summer,” says Chris. “He wanted to put it out before he even heard it as he was/is a huge fan of the group. We were originally shooting to get it out in April or May this year, but with the pandemic still a problem and the shortage of vinyl pressing plants, we had to push it to August.”
The songs for the record were put together from different sources. While assembled on the eve of a pandemic, it didn’t figure into the songs. And while some were new, others were brought in from the past. Chris elaborates on the song details. “The songs Mind Fever Soul Fire and Love Cannot Die I had recorded as acoustic versions for a Chris D. solo album that Sympathy for the Record Industry released in 1995, and I had long wanted to re-record them as electric, amplified versions. Mystery Writers, No Evil Star, Barefoot In The Streets and Stony Path were written specifically for this album in early 2019. Some others were songs Julie had brought in. Jefferson Airplane’s Ice Cream Phoenix, Patti Smith’s 25th Floor and Charley Cuva/Robert Downey Sr.’s Can’t You See (You’re A Lame Motherfucker)? were songs I’d long wanted to cover,” he explains. “Those new songs on this album just released were all written in spring of 2019, long before the pandemic. But I’ve written virtually all the material for our next Divine Horsemen album now – which we are starting to rehearse – and we’re hopefully recording in January 2022, and some of those songs reflect the loneliness of lockdown. However, they don’t refer to the pandemic specifically.” When asked if there is a difference in approach as far as writing songs for his two bands Chris explains, “Well, I generally try to write the lyrics to fit with two lead vocalists for Divine Horsemen, as opposed to one lead vocalist in The Flesh Eaters. Also with the Divine Horsemen style, I feel we can really draw on an even bigger reservoir of different musical genres and influences.”
Finally with the new album out, will the band be hitting the road at some point in the uncertain future? “We’ve tentatively got a show scheduled for very late October in Palm Springs. But further shows, and a possible mini-tour next spring, it really depends on how quickly and safely this Covid mess is resolved (if it ever is). Although we’re all vaxxed, none of us want even a light case of the virus.”
