“San Francisco is one of the first places where we felt like we were starting to make a community outside of the bubble of Santa Barbara,” Adam Rasmussen of Gardens & Villa explained prior to the band’s set at the Outside Lands Music And Arts Festival this past Sunday. “We always leave this town thinking ‘We have lovers in San Francisco.’” The performance was the first time the group (frequent headliners at Bay Area venues including Amnesia bar, Cafe Du Nord, and the Independent), appeared at the festival on the Panhandle stage with a mix of their hits including “Black Hills” and “Bullet Train.”

Rasmussen and lead singer Chris Lynch first met in college, and shared an uncommon hobby: lobster diving. “We teamed up on the lobsters together and thought ‘oh this guy really knows how to work with his hands, he must play keys,’” Lynch explains. The duo swapped lobsters for their guitar and synth and started playing together in a garage. Later, they recruited drummer Levi Hayden (from a motorcycle run-in) and bassist Shane Mckillop (through Myspace messaging), and eventually added keyboardist Dustin Ineman for live shows. The quintet gained a cult following in Santa Barbara, where they released their debut self-titled album with help from producer Richard Swift in 2011. “We drove up to Oregon and slept in tents in his backyard,” Lynch explains. “That was where it all began for us…we went from a garage band working at juice bars and restaurants, to all of the sudden playing hundreds of shows a year.”

After relocating to a warehouse in East Los Angeles—and a couple of breakups later—the band released their second album “Dunes” in February. “The second record is a little more serious,” Lynch says. “We made the record in a really snowy, cold, industrial place. Our first record was really flowery and starry-eyed so we thought we needed something darker.” Now, the L.A.-based group has clearly expanded upon their initial hometown fan base, with a national tour underway, and a “midsummer/Autumn”-inspired album in the works. And for “G&V,” the fans are just as important as the music. “Last time we played at the Independent there was this couple that said ‘we met at your first show here and now we’re married, and we played your song at our wedding,’” Lynch explains. “To be that much a part of someone else’s life was crazy, and it was really a honorary experience.”

By: Megan Meyer

Setlist
“Purple Mesas”
“Domino”
“Bullet Train”
“Black Hills”
“Chrysanthemum”
“Orange Blossom”
“Space Time”
“Colony Glen”
“Star Fire Power”
“Echo Sassy”

 

Pictured: Chris Lynch of Gardens & Villa performs at Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival.
Photo by Mor Weizman

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