Blogs > Indie Outing (the secret jambands roots of indie rockers)

Indie Outing: Darker My Love

Indie-Jam Connection: Though singer/guitarist Tim Presley both cites Workingman’s Dead as his first favorite album and rediscovered the Grateful Dead through the band’s influence on a generation of punk-minded psych rockers, Darker My Love’s most direct connection to the jamband scene is through bassist Rob Barbato. The bassist studied at the Berklee College of Music, where he spent most of his tune listening to traditional jazz, avant-garde music, classic jambands and other improvisational music. After moving to California, he hooked up with Presley and helped create Darker My Love’s current brand of psychedelic indie rock.

Notable Jamband Moments: Barbato attended Berklee at the peak of Boston’s jamband/groove scene around the turn of the Millennium. Not only did he attend performances by Phish and the Grateful Dead’s various offshoots but he checked out numerous clubs shows by the scene’s rising stars at the like Medeski Martin & Wood and Percy Hill. While Barbato toyed around in some jamband settings with his friends, it wasn’t until he started playing music with Presley—who has roots in the punk scene, including a stint in noted post punk group The Fall—that he started touring professionally. Darker My Love has shifted its sound closer to the jamband scene in recent months, thanks to Presley’s latest batch of songs, which recall the Dead’s most roots-oriented work.

Lot Talk: “I always felt the mixture of Tim’s punk background and my more jammy background created something special, It is almost as if we have two different methods and ideas of how to do everything. There’s not much of a difference between a crusty punk on Haight Street and a tour wookie,” Rob Barbato, Relix