Remember When We’re Gone
California to New Orleans to Nashville
Words and photographs by Katie Sikora
The first band I ever left the state of Louisiana — or the city of New Orleans for that matter — with was Coyotes. Headed by a Californian named Duz, their road-trip rock, alt country, Americana, folk, cosmic…thing is a rare breed in our city. I wouldn’t even call it a tour — I was gone with them for 48 hours. It was more like three sweaty twenty-somethings picking up a fourth sweaty twenty-something (who also happened to be drunk) and making the nine hour drive overnight from New Orleans to Austin, Texas. We arrived before the sun came up on the first Monday of SXSW. The boys slept at their friend’s house and I slept on the floor of a different friend’s house a few blocks away for about two hours before she woke me up to go get burritos. I wouldn’t sleep much the following night either. It was very rock and roll, as they say.
At that point in time, I got most of my assignments by asking for them and agreeing to shoot for free. But it was fucking exciting. I saw Coyotes perform for the first time during an EP release for a rock artist named Brian Hyken who has since moved out of New Orleans. The bassist at the time, a (very) loud redhead named Adam, yelled across the green room asking if I was Katie The Photographer. I remember being very humbled that he knew who I was though I later found out that he only knew my name because the promoter had told all the bands on the bill I was shooting that evening. I know a lot of people that despise Duz and even more that despise Adam but I connected with them instantaneously.
Mardi Gras Day was less than three weeks later and was the first time I shot for Coyotes. One of the local dive bars in town, Prytania Bar, managed to put together the most comprehensive Mardi Gras lineup for that year, booking pretty much every local band you could wish to see at that moment without spending your entire paycheck: Soul Rebels, Sexual Thunder!, Flow Tribe, Stoop Kids, Brassaholics, Cakewalk before they rebranded themselves as the sleeker, more mature Miss Mojo, Rebirth Brass Band, Lost Bayou Ramblers, Mississippi Rail Company and then some. Consequently everyone in our very large friend family of musicians, artists, bartenders and territorial natives effectively lived at the bar leading up to the final Tuesday.
The Thursday before, affectionately referred to as Muses Night because that is the day the Muses parade rolls and everyone and their mom fights over hand-decorated high heels being thrown off the floats, was the night that Duz, Adam and I became friends. Duz and I shot Jaeger bombs and Adam tried to kiss me. I have not had Jaeger since that Mardi Gras season and Adam and I have somehow managed to keep our hands to ourselves since then. Four days later on Lundi Gras (Mardi Gras Eve), Coyotes played their set for the Prytania Gras series. I was brain dead by that point. Two weeks of drinking instead of eating, not sleeping, and biking all over the city to get to my gigs had left me unable to hold even the slightest of conversations. But I do remember Adam, who was chain smoking during the show, and Duz having more than enough energy for everyone in the bar.
The band was rounded out with Chris (formerly of Gold and The Rush) behind the drums and Derek on pedal steel. And even in my deadened state, I was hypnotized by the music they were making, even more so than the first time I saw them play. In fact, they accidentally led me to view my job as something more than just shooting photos of performances. I realized the real stories of the musicians I was beginning to befriend were happening in the moments in between: in the green rooms, in front of venues, in the car on the way to gigs, in our shitty apartments. After the end of their set and before the next band hit, Adam and Duz, both covered in face paint, were goofing around in the hallway to the adjacent business that the bar uses as an artist playpen during shows and stopped me to take a candid picture. “When I’m old, that’s the picture I’m going to want,” Adam said to me as he wiped a patch of Duz’s smeared face paint into oblivion with the underside of his t-shirt. And the funny thing is, those are the pictures I am happiest that I have now.
That show was the first in a series of three that Coyotes opened for Lost Bayou Ramblers, another band I was trying to get into the good graces of at that time although they never did end up hiring me. Technically speaking, neither did Coyotes.
But in a few short weeks, my friendships with Duz and Adam had become that of siblings who happen to know very little about one another. I loved them but they drove me insane. The last of the three shows was at The Spanish Moon in Baton Rouge and was featuring Gordon Gano of The Violent Femmes. I was originally scheduled to shoot a different show that night but my press pass fell through a few hours prior so I jumped in the car with Duz, we picked up Adam and his bass, stopped at the gas station on Carrollton for fried chicken and drove for two hours in miserable traffic to get to sound check on time. I agreed to drive us back to New Orleans that night so I spent the second half of the show wandering around the club while Chris and Derek played pool and Adam locked himself in the green room. I have no recollection of what Duz was up to after they finished playing that night. I do, however, have a distinct memory of refusing to start the car until one of them got in the front seat next to me. I didn’t want to feel like their chauffeur. They eventually offered me $20 each to let them sit next to each other in the back seat.
Despite the hijinks that came to be a staple of going to one of their shows, especially ones that were out of town, that set was the first in a series of big moves for them that spring. Touring with Gordon Gano was an experience Duz describes as an accomplishment for the group. But it would also be the last show Adam would play with Coyotes. He flew to Las Vegas the morning after to beginning rehearsal for Brandon Flowers’ solo tour for which he was hired on as a keys tech. That was one of the reasons they wanted to sit next to each other in the car on the way home the night before, because they wouldn’t be able to fight or bitch or get drunk and profess their love for each other for the next five months.
You laugh but that is their friendship. They push each other to the edge and then they go over. And it’s about anything: making dinner, who can drive their car faster, who is better at guitar. Duz swears it’s him and that Adam knows it. It’s the same game with their respective song writing. “We’re competitive about it so he’s going to keep trying to write things better than me and I’m going to keep trying to write songs better than him. But I think there’s a lot of respect in that, our relationship with each other. And I think we both believe in each other. I believe he’s going to succeed in his career with music and I think he thinks the same for me. Brutal honesty, that’s our relationship,” said Duz. That’s what made it so strange to see Coyotes play without him a few weeks later in Austin.
We had driven in for SXSW and Chris’ younger brother Ben, who had played with the band about a year before, was brought in to sub on bass. Matt Vasquez of Delta Spirit, one of Duz’s favorite songwriters, opened the show with an acoustic set, followed by Coyotes. To say that was a pleasant surprise for the boys would be an understatement. British rapper Kate Tempest played after them and was followed by Houndmouth. Gary Clark Jr. was the headliner for that party. Being on that bill was another accomplishment for the group. Getting their first Jazz Fest slot a few months after that was another one. As was their sold out show at The Roxy, the only L.A. show they ever played. There were a lot of big things happening. “Everything just felt fine, everything was going to be ok and it felt great. I was back home finally and it was like a homecoming. It was good but random acts of accomplishment don’t really mean anything if it’s not this constant, organic build of something,” said Duz. So even though all those experiences were individually incredible, there were other events happening behind the scenes to slow their progress.
In addition to finding a permanent replacement for Adam, there was an unfinished “frankenstein” album hanging in the air and they dropped their management due to a professional stalemate. “They wouldn’t book us shows because we wouldn’t release the album. That’s all it was about really. And now we’ve got the best lineup we’ve ever had and we’ve barely played any shows. We’ve played about a dozen shows, it’s a bummer.” The lineup Duz is speaking of is the band in its current form. Derek is still on pedal steel and Chris remains on drums.
On lead guitar is Jake who was one of the founding members when Coyotes first came to be. He came to New Orleans a year before Duz arrived and the two formed the band. Their first show? At Prytania Bar, where I would meet them five years later. Duz had given the booking manager at the bar a fake EP of a buddy’s band and told him that it was called Coyotes and to book them. They sold it out the first night.
“We just started gigging a lot after that. I think all the songs we wrote back then were all pretty good songs and we pushed each other and they’re lost in archives and live recordings. They’re good songs. But then Jake was going to leave to study architecture in Copenhagen and I think he wanted to move to Europe permanently. He was debating that so he opted out of the band. We were upset with each other over that time period. We’re like brothers now. We got shitfaced the other night until like 4 AM playing guitar and I was throwing up off of my balcony. We still show each other songs all the time. There’s no pressure there, it’s really cool. And he’s playing lead guitar for us now. It’s like having one of my best friends around and someone who gets what I want to do and understands that.”
They have also added Morgan, of The Kid Carsons, on bass. She has an affinity for singing country which has helped Coyotes reach a new plateau vocally. But the question begs, if you have a slew of giant showcases under your belt and your best lineup yet, what is the issue?
There just isn’t a market for their music in New Orleans. In this city, jazz is king. If you aren’t playing jazz or funk or indigenous music of some sort, you are a joke. It’s not right, but it is the way of the world in southern Louisiana. Most groups that don’t fit into the “New Orleans music” mold either develop their sound here and move elsewhere later or they break up. Coyotes is doing both.
Duz expressed, “We hit the circuit here as hard as we could as an alt-country Americana band. We really did. I want to expand the network, get on more showcases in a place where it’s really easy to hop on bills because my band is in that genre. We’re not Zydeco, we’re not Cajun. We’re so far removed from that. We’re not that band. I want to go to a place that’s known for country and for singer-songwriters and guitar players. I’m doing that to push this thing to another level that it’s not at yet.
“That’s why I’m going to Nashville.”
Coyotes’ last show in New Orleans was at Gasa Gasa. The show was packed with friends and had a calm, beautifully sad taste in the air as both Duz and Derek were saying their goodbyes. Duz had his car packed and was gone by 9:30 the following morning. Derek would leave the following week for a year long philosophy fellowship in Berlin. I remember trying to put words to it during the set but Jake did it for me a few songs later: “There are a lot of nostalgic memories flying around tonight. This is a bittersweet show because Duz is moving away tomorrow and we’ve been a band for seven years. Thanks for coming out.” The next song they played is called When We’re Gone.
When you’re gone, will you remember all those better days, silly little things that you pushed away, will they remember when you’re gone?
After they left the stage, I asked about Duz how he felt about the set and he said “We really got after it and were like, this is what we sound like, this is us. I think we walked off feeling good. It was kind of rock and roll.
Chris threw his sticks out because he fucked up which he’s not proud about but I was like, “Nobody cares, dude. We’re all friends. We’re just playing to a room of our friends.” ” And it really was just a massive reunion. But for me, it was also the first time I was able to put into words why I am attracted to Coyotes and their music so much. It makes me feel the same way you feel when you have a crush on someone and no one knows yet or the way the air feels in the spring when the snow is melting. I feel that bliss you feel when you can’t stop thinking about someone. Like nothing else matters. Coyotes is similar to true love in that way: it’s constantly changing and growing and working it’s ass off. But it will always be.
“I’m never going to stop doing it,” Duz said. “Coyotes is going to be around for the rest of our lives whether there’s people there or not. Maybe tomorrow, maybe in ten years. It will happen again. It’s not the end.”
Their set was short and sweet. The original plan was to put on The Ultimate Coyotes Show and play a very long set that included some covers and new songs but they eventually decided that was a stupid idea. “[We played] a few good songs and got out of there. I think we did it.” Duz spoke into the audience to close out the show, saying “We are Coyotes. Goodbye.” Not goodnight. Goodbye.
