Hometown: Los Angeles, CA
Genre: Alternative Rock / Grunge / Artrock
Soundalikes: Jeff Buckley, Patrick Watson, Chris Cornell, Alabama Shakes
Label: None, Independent Artist
Los Angeles alt-rock outfit Under The Rug blends eclectic rock and 90’s grunge with the pop appeal and lyricism of lo-fi indie and folk. They are influenced by artists such as Radiohead, Soundgarden, Jeff Buckley, Alabama Shakes, Maps & Atlases, Vulfpeck, The Mountain Goats, and Leonard Cohen.
ALT-ROCK BAND UNDER THE RUG does everything in-house. They work out of a commercial building in Los Angeles, unmarked except for a small home-made sign that reads: “Rugs.” Inside, they operate a full-scale recording studio.
Singer/Guitarist Casey Dayan explains: “Tracking a full rock band these days is tough and expensive, since everyone’s taping egg-crates to their apartment walls. We all had backgrounds in audio and session playing, so we figured we’d handle production ourselves. I think it allows us to make choices a lot of music projects these days can’t.”
Under The Rug is Casey Dayan, lead vocals/guitar; Sean Campbell, vocals/guitar; Jesse Holsapple, bass/vocals; and Brendan McQueeney, drums and percussion.
“Pretty much everything we released this year has been a weird/totally unique narrative,” Brendan McQueeney adds, “Take Sarah’s Daydream, for instance. It’s a pretty succinct story of a woman looking to get out of an abusive relationship. Or Three-Legged Dog, which [almost voyeuristically] follows a guy trying to find a place to spread his mom’s ashes. These are real stories. Casey works really hard on writing these songs.”
Casey adds: “But it’s not, like, a folk project, or an Juno-indie lyrics-or-bust kind of band, either. I take a skeleton to the guys, and then everyone figures in their own expertise. It’s really impressive what this group of nerds can do with the right starting place.”
In this way, their songwriting gives equal attention to lyricism, musicianship, and arrangement. Many of their songs don’t follow the archetypal ABAB rock format, rather they flow with the lyric’s story arc as the song progresses.
Their debut LP, “Pale King” is set for official release in February, 2019.
In 2018, they released three singles—“Three-Legged Dog,” “Sarah’s Daydream in the Kitchen,” “A Serial Killer Comes Home”— recorded at Airbnbs across California. They also released two studio-produced singles, “Song For My Friends,” and “The Neighbor’s Dog.”
###
CASEY DAYAN
VOX/GUITARS
SEAN CAMPBELL
GUITARS/VOX
MATT VERGES
ARTWORK
BRANDON RHOADS
ANIMATION
[UNDER THE RUG—PRESS]
“Under The Rug produce their music independently, making them one of the few viable “true indie” bands of the last five years.” — Two Story Melody
“US outfit take their cues from Alabama Shakes on [their] anthemic blues-rock-inspired thumper[s].
—MysticSons
“[Under The Rug’s] rock ‘n’ roll anchor is augmented by its unusual, halting time signatures; it is groovy, bluesy and unstable all at once.”
— Good Times
“Their lyrics and music are commonly improvised, and songs are prefaced with stories that introduce characters, themes, and plots.”
— RAW
“Nice blend, beautiful stuff.”
— Jim Meskimen