Getting to Know Genres: Desert Rock
A daunting and visceral genre with roots in early 1990’s hard rock
The year is 1991, you’re in Palm Springs for spring break with your friends and hammered out of your mind. As you stumble towards the crowd you hear a loud daunting electric guitar. This sounds like heavy metal, but the riffs last a bit longer. It could just be hard rock, but vocals scream with more existential dread. It was not clear at first but its suddenly obvious. You are listening, in your inebriated state, the first sounds of a new subgenre, desert rock.
Desert rock is a subgenre of hard rock that started in the early 1990’s in the greater Palm Springs area. It is known for its sludgy grooves, atmospheric sound, and incorporated elements of blues and psychedelia. The band members are known to collaborate. In the 90’s Joshe Homme invited several artists to a local studio to record 10 songs in what would be latter known as the “desert sessions”. Members of desert rock bands are also known to be in several different bands simultaneously and collaborations between bands are commonplace.
