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Blue Heron formed in the summer of 2018 when guitarist Mike “Chav” Chavez and singer Jadd Shickler – who had been in a previous band together – decided to give it another shot. Today they’re joined by a rhythm section shaped by bassist “Big Steve” Schmidlapp and drummer Ricardo Sanchez. Blue Heron are refreshingly self-aware of their sound, and Shikler describes his music better than many artists we interview. He also describes the “stoner rock” and “desert rock” genres in more detail than most musicians who play music that fits into those broad rock ’n’ roll sub-categories. Don’t get it twisted, Blue Heron is more than just another doomy, groove-based Burque hard rock outfit. Somehow they manage to avoid unintentionally “borrowing” chord progressions from other groups who have defined the stoner rock category by developing original riffs and unique compositions, but they don’t forget to give props to the veterans who have influenced them in one way or another. Shikler wanted to answer our questions in a slightly different order and style than we usually present them so he could maintain a smooth stream of consciousness throughout the article. We’re happy to oblige him, of course. You wouldn’t want to skip over any tracks on a Melvins album, would you? In addition to speaking in detail about Blue Heron’s music, he gives us a brief history of the band’s genesis and promises heavy things to come from one of the town’s most established and respected heavy rock ensembles.
Will you describe your sound for us?
Whether or not people love the genre name, we fit into the fairly broad stoner rock scene, which includes a bunch of different styles of underground heavy rock. It’s heavier than classic rock or grunge, sometimes closer to metal – but with more groove, more low end – and favors massive riffs over shredding.
Our songs rock pretty hard. Sometimes they’re more atmospheric, sometimes harder-hitting, often mid-tempo and rolling, sometimes more driving and energized. We really think the genre tag “desert rock” applies to us, both because we’re from a desert state and because of what we share musically with some of the bands who originally defined this style under that name.
What bands or genres inspire your music?
Kyuss are kind of the godfathers of the stoner/desert rock thing, along with – depending on your point of view – Monster Magnet, The Melvins, Fu Manchu and Clutch. We never set out to try to write stuff that sounds like any of those bands – or any other band really – but all of their stuff is in our veins from being immersed in it for so much of our lives, especially myself and Chav. Ricardo, too. But we’ve also got lots of roots in classic metal, ’80s metal, grunge, post-metal and ’70s rock. It’s all in there, and the thing we constantly have to remember is to listen when we’re writing something, and make sure we aren’t accidentally grabbing a chunk of some song we’ve been listening to for 32 years for whatever we’re working on.
[Chav and I] asked our friend Big Steve for ideas about drummers and he recommended Ricardo Sanchez, who it turned out kind of knew who we were and had been trying to put together his own stoner rock band for a few years without success. So the three of us got things started along with a young guy on bass, writing and figuring out our sound. It went that way for about a year, till finally, around the end of summer of 2019, we were concluding that the kid on bass wasn’t really fitting with the rest of us musically. With our first show only a few weeks away, we made the call to part ways with him and went back to our buddy Big Steve, who we’d only ever known as a fantastic guitarist, and asked if he wanted to try jamming with us on bass. He dusted off his bass chops – since he’d started out as a bass player 20 years earlier before switching to guitar – and buckled down to learn our handful of songs in time for that first show. It went great and felt right – both musically and because he was a friend who’d been the catalyst for Chav and I to get together with Ricardo – and it’s been the four of us for six years since then. During that time, we’ve released a 7-inch, two full-length albums, four compilations and a shared split LP with Austin’s High Desert Queen. Next month we’re releasing a new record that’s a handful of studio covers, one new original song and four live-in-the-studio songs recorded at KUNM Studios earlier this year. We’ve been on a pretty good streak of writing and releasing stuff since the four of us locked things in together.
What are your lyrics about?
I write a lot about mortality, the passage of time, unrealized potential, the failings of humanity, etc. You could say it’s bleak, I guess, but I’m rarely setting out to write with a specific theme in mind. I just start with a phrase or string of words and kind of work through the melody and lyrics at the same time, and lines will start falling out of my head without any conscious decision, and I have to try to decipher what my brain is trying to say. Almost inevitably, it’s about how I as an individual or the entirety of humankind have messed up or wasted our lives [laughs]. It’s cathartic though, because I dwell on that stuff constantly, so getting to scream and roar about it kind of helps get the demons out.
What are your favorite venues to play and why?
I think our favorite places to play are ones that are new to us, where it’s not familiar and there’s an energy around it being unexpected. We love The Launchpad and Sister Bar, but it’s cool to walk into a room you’ve never been in, and a couple hours later you’re sweating and filling it up with volume.
What is the best show you have ever played and why?
We had a fantastic show earlier this summer at the Launchpad, it just felt like we had a great mix of songs where the people there weren’t drifting off or losing focus. We were engaged and keeping everyone with us, plus we could all hear each other pretty well, something that isn’t always the case [laughs]. We also had a really special show last summer at Ripplefest Texas in 2024. It was in the mid-afternoon on this massive outdoor stage, the sound was perfectly dialed-in, the weather was perfect, and the whole set just flew by – which is always a sign of a great performance, where you don’t remember any problems, the whole thing just flashes by in a blur, and then it’s over and we’re drenched.
We’ve got a pretty killer slot this coming Wednesday, Sep. 24 opening for Castle Rat on their U.S. tour at Sister Bar. It’s a sold-out show, and that’s really no surprise because that band is a rocketship right now. Their new album is everywhere, and they were on the cover of Decibel last month, so we get to deliver what we do to all the folks turning out to see them. That’s always the best kind of show to open. We’re also on our way to Europe in less than a month, we’ve got spots at two heavy rock festivals in Belgium and Munich, and we put together a string of shows in between them at a bunch of small clubs across Germany and the Netherlands. We’re playing with some amazing European bands like Gnome and a couple times with our pals in High Desert Queen, who’ll be on tour over there at the same time. Those festivals are targeted right at our scene, so we’ll be in front of the exact music fans we want to be getting in front of. Plus, it’s Europe! We can’t wait. We’re self-releasing our new one Emulations in the meantime, so we’ve got a lot going on and are just really grateful at how things came together for us this year. And we’re stoked people seem to keep digging what we do!
Listen Up:
You can jam and purchase Blue Heron’s music on Spotify and Bandcamp. If you want to know what they’re up to these days and stay in the loop as far as touring goes, follow them on Facebook and Instagram.
Blue Heron has a new video dropping on Wednesday, Sep. 24, but to hold you over, check out the video for the song “Dinosaur” here:
Watch the official video for the title track from their 2024 release Everything Fades here.
Check out Blue Heron tearing up The Launchpad during a live performance in November 2019 here.