Copyright 2009 John David Kent and the Dumb Angels All Rights Reserved Site by theRandomatBestDesignHouse
John David Kent is glad to be home.
Signed to Mercury Records at age sixteen, JDK first hit the road as the drummer for Radish, touring all over the globe, sharing the stage with acts like Metallica and Snoop Doggy Dogg. A few years later, he went grinding through the country with Pony League, his first gig as Frontman/Guitarist. Follow that with recording and/or touring for the likes of Ben Kweller and the Lemonheads, JDK has been riding that lonesome highway for the better part of 15 years.
But people get a little older and their tastes might change a little. John David decided it was time to hop off the tour bus and start a family. Of course, being a family man doesn’t mean you stop being a musician. JDK built a recording studio and helped build a record label. He started managing acts and producing and engineering albums. He scored a film and kept on doing tours and one-offs at major festivals... and he kept on looking inside.
Soon enough, he realized that he still had a lot of good songs bouncing around in his brain. But the tunes up there weren’t the grunge and radio-rock songs he’d spent his career performing. No, they were a lot closer to the country music he grew up hearing on his parents’ stereo. Sometimes, when you look inside, you realize you aren’t who you thought you were.
So he put together the best damn band he could, rounding up Mike Graska and Jamey Gleaves from the band Salute, Alex Mixson from Melba Toast, and Jason Andrew, the youngest in a long line of championship-caliber fiddlers. Together, the Dumb Angels helped John David build those songs living in his brain into barn-burning beauties, not aiming to fit into any niche, just doing what came natural. And the songs took them somewhere west of Hank Williams and east of The Rolling Stones; north of Kris Kristofferson, but south of Wilco. Somewhere in that wild, unruly country where people invent nonsense genre names like Alt-Country, Texas Country, or Southern Rock.
John David Kent just calls it the most honest music he’s ever made. He just says it feels like home... and he sure is glad to be there.