D’Santi is ready for round two playing pop’s music

By: Arrissia Owen Turner

Bluesman Albert King stared down the two moppet-headed boys sitting in the front row at the Golden Bear in Huntington Beach. He couldn’t help but rank on them. “I remember him looking at us and saying, ‘Who are these punk kids sitting in the front row?’” says Mike D’Santi, vocalist and guitarist for the band D’Santi.

These “punk kids” were Mike, 12, and his 14-year-old brother, Paul. Their adoration of the blues popped its head out at such an early age, even King, a seasoned blues player, was amused.

“We were starting to let our hair get a little freaky,” Mike says, now in his late 30s. “We didn’t know anything. We were still trying to understand at the time.” It had been less than a year since Mike discovered the drums and quickly abandoned them.

Paul took to the skins, signing up for drum lessons. Mike gravitated toward one of daddy Al’s guitars hanging on the wall. The two were half way to their first band.

Those early days in Ontario were filled with ear benders from their musician father, garage jam sessions and plenty of research through the bins of rock, blues and jazz vinyl.

“There was equipment around the house all the time, bands rehearsing,” Mike says. “That had a big influence on us.” By ages 8 and 9, the brothers had already been spending their lawnmowing money on Saturdays, picking two 45s each to add to their collections, so it wasn’t too much of a surprise.

“I loved Saturdays,” Paul says. “I think we just naturally gravitated toward music. Our dad had a lot of influence on us, but he never forced anything, just made it available.”
From the time he was 3, Mike was suckling Cream’s Wheels on Fire. He and Paul graduated to Stevie Ray Vaughn as teens, mixing things up with trailblazers like Meshell Ndegeocello by their mid-20s.

Mike, a guitar powerhouse in the vein of Derek Trucks and John Mayer, fed off his dad’s stories about the L.A. music scene in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. The elder Al took the boys to shows and raised them on a strict diet of Eric Clapton, Allman Brothers, Doobie Brothers and Jimi Hendrix mixed with blues axe men like King.

Once the boys ingested the basics, they added some funk and jazz-fusion via George Benson and Santana to round out their influences. “We were so young that it didn’t make sense until later,” Mike says. It came in handy.

The D’Santi brothers started inviting friends to play. By 1989, Mike Johnson joined. When they decided to get serious about being a band, they brought on bassist Rick Tillery of Alta Loma.

Since then, the band has gone through a few incarnations with percussionist Johnson coming and going (he shares frontman duties, as well) and female vocalists staying for stints, even a saxophonist. They’ve been everything from a trio to a six-piece, but the band’s nucleus remained constant. Then things slowed.

“There were a couple of points where we all sort of gave up,” Mike says. “There was no spark. We were just trying to hold it together.”

By the late 1990s, early 2000s, the guys were settling down, as were many of their fans who pushed rooms to fire capacity with lines out the door 75 deep waiting for their sweaty spots on the dance floor. At their peak, the band packed Mt. Baldy Lodge and El Gato Gordo, playing solid three-hour sets of originals and covers like “Pink Houses,” “Boogie Woman” and “Bust a Move.” Every weekend was an event.

While they didn’t book many live shows during those years, they never stopped playing. “I think it’s because we’ve been friends since high school,” Mike says. “We love playing together, and we know there is something special between the four of us.”

“We were riding pretty high,” Mike says recalling the band’s heyday. “We didn’t stop to take a break. We pushed too hard and it wasn’t going anywhere. It was a huge eye opener . . . But now we’re going for round two.”

This next round includes a new album, Groove D’Luxe, released on Upland-based Citation Records last year, and gigs at the Texas Rockfest and the Red Guerilla Festival in downtown Austin March 17-21. Then they return to play Hip Kitty Thursday, March 25, and come April 24, it’s reunion time: Mt. Baldy Lodge. Get up off of that thang and get a babysitter.

D’Santi performs at the Hip Kitty, 502 W. First St., Claremont, (909) 447-6700; www.hipkittyjazz.com, www.myspace.com/dsantimusic. Thurs, March 25. 9pm. 21+.