At 11 pm on Wednesday night at the Music Box on Hollywood Blvd., San Diego-natives Delta Spirit took to the stage for their largest headlining show to date in the City of Angels. Having recently sold out the El Rey Theatre, this was a big step up for the band in terms of venue size. From the second the house lights went out and the strobe lights from the stage shined, the band was on fire. Singer Matthew Vasquez and his bandmates were on fire from the start. The set was a fluid mix of songs of their recent LP, History From Below, as well as their earlier releases. The sound in the venue was almost pitch perfect and the crowd was bobbing their heads and singing along to songs like “Streetwalker” and  “St Francis.” The songs sounded just as good live as they did on the albums. Before the show, Bestnewbands.com had the opportunity to talk with Vasquez spending Thanksgiving on the road, their new EP that was to be released in November and what’s in store for the band in 2011.

Daniel Kohn: What is it like spending Thanksgiving on the road? Is the band’s first time doing it and what did you guys do to celebrate the most American of all holidays?

Matthew Vasquez: We spent it in Providence, Rhode Island with Elvis Perkins in Dearland’s bass player. They cooked for us and it was amazing. This is our third one on the road and one time we ended up going to a Bennigan’s the day of, which was pretty terrible and depressing. Eating a cheeseburger on Thanksgiving isn’t very American.

DK: Bennigan’s? Who knew it was even open on Thanksgiving?!

MV: Yeah, people like to drink after they eat turkey.

DK: What’s going on with The Waits Room EP? How did it come to fruition?

MV: We just announced its release [in November] and we are now on another tour. We had decided to do these other versions of the record when went back to the studio to shoot a documentary of the record. While we were there, we had studio time to record and we took advantage of it. It was a total blast.

 

DK: Are the songs in the same vein as the songs from History From Below?

MV: No, actually we tried to step back a bit from the production ideas we had to try to hear the song the way we came up with it. A lot of the songs from that record were written on the road, so they were written in hotel rooms and were very folk based and we took that medium and messed it up as much as possible. We presented the songs [on The Waits Room EP] in the simplest way we could.

 

DK: It’s funny how on the road that things pop up when you least expect it.

MV: Absolutely. When you’re on the road, you get so used to the muscle memory of your day. Like you go to your hotel room and you get some egg product and coffee. And then drive a stupid length of a couple hundred miles to the next show. Then you show up, set up and load in and do an interview or radio thing and play the show, then go back to the hotel, sleep and do the same thing. Sometimes the show becomes muscle memory and it’s sometimes kind of a cool thing because we didn’t even have to think about the songs and you don’t have think about it as much as you do what it is.

 

DK: As the tour winds down, what should we expect to hear from the band in 2011?

MV: We’re gonna take a break, then go straight into the writing process in January/February. Then play Coachella and probably Lollapalooza and ACL [Austin City Limits] are on the bill too and hopefully a few other festivals we’re talking to. We’re gonna be doing that while we’re making the record.

 

As the 17 song concluded, the 1,200-person crowd were roaring their approval. Whether it was the light show or the great music, the one thing that people agreed on was the Delta Spirit are a great band and are only going to get bigger and better in the very near future.