Today we’d like to introduce you to Brandon Goldstein (aka Darlin’ Brando).
Hi Brandon, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I’m an LA-based dude. I write songs and sing them. You can sing my songs too! I’d be flattered!
I’m also a drummer, a husband, and good pal to many.
My obsession with making and performing music started in 1988 at the Wolftrap Elementary School 6th grade talent show in Vienna, VA. Our trio performed an instrumental version of The Beatles’ “Eight Days a Week” – twice actually because we were such a hit and it was the only song we knew how to play. I flattened out that shuffle with a straight, dumb rock beat because I hadn’t learned to play a shuffle yet. Sorry, Ringo.
Skip forward to LA in the early aughts. My early 20s had me playing drums in heavier rock and punk bands and doing a little session work here and there. In the mid-2000s, I joined the instrumental country-rock band Merle Jagger and got deep into the LA country scene. I also helped form the LA country band Leslie & the Badgers with singer-songwriter Leslie Stevens.
That was a seminal moment for my musical trajectory. Something clicked in my brain and classic country and 70’s country-rock became my go-to genres as a drummer, budding singer-songwriter, and record collector. It also kicked off a nomadic period in my life.
In 2009 I moved to Brooklyn and formed the folk-prog rock band Money & King with my best friend from childhood. I started writing and singing more and pulled a lot of country music inspiration into what was already a very eclectic sound. The band still exists as a recording project and we’ll be releasing our third album “Act Unnaturally” sometime soon.
Then I moved to Bloomington, IN for a stretch (more on that later), where I played with the Americana bands The Payton Brothers and Rikki Jean and the DWBs. After Bloomington came Nashville, where I solidified my commitment to playing country music. Not only did my time in Music City give birth to “Darlin’ Brando,” it led to playing drums with old-school honky-tonker Tommy Ash. We played all over Nashville and were regulars at one of Nashville’s best hidden gems, Honky Tonk Tuesday Nights at the American Legion Post 82 (check out our live recording from there on Spotify). We also played The Green Escape, a country music festival in southern France and opened for Dwight Yoakum, Tanya Tucker and some other heavy hitters.
I produced my album “Also, Too…” in Nashville at the Bomb Shelter with some fantastic players, including A.J. Croce on piano. The style and instrumentation is straight-up honky tonk but the songwriting and singing is more folk. No matter what I do, I can’t shake the Simon & Garfunkel, Beatles, Beach Boys and The Byrds from my system, so they are always in the music, even as the pedal steel weeps and the Tele twangs.
“Also, Too…” was an opportunity to write vocal parts for my wife, Edith Freni, who is a writer by trade but also one hell of a singer. Immediately after we started dating, I knew that, whether she liked it or not (haha), she would be the Emmylou to my Gram. She’s all over the album, which we released last year and was well-received by the press.
And now, the full-circle moment. Edith and I moved back to LA just before Covid hit. Unable to play out during those early pandemic days, I focused on writing new songs and have spent the past summer recording a new EP, which is just about done.
I worked with Malachi DeLorenzo (Langhorne Slim, Izaak Opatz) and Dylan Rodrigue (Izaak Opatz, Valley Queen) to produce an exciting, more think-outside-the-box kind of country album than the last. It hits hard and has a darker tone to it, even on the more humorous and playful tracks. I plan to release the 5-song EP this spring and play live shows to promote it.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
My divorce in 2015 triggered something of a midlife crisis. One of my friends who was going through a really nasty divorce told me I’d gotten off easy, but finding myself 40 and single again hit hard. I was angry (this wasn’t how my life was supposed to go!) and the circumstances exacerbated my anxiety, which has always been with me.
I immediately moved to Nashville in the middle of a particularly dark and frigid winter. I didn’t know anyone and spent a lot of time nursing my wounds at the bar down the block from my place in East Nashville. My proximity to some of the best small music venues in the country ultimately pulled me out of the darkness and lit a fire under my a*s to start playing again.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I always try to bring humor into the deeper, darker, sadder themes of my songs. Artists like Roger Miller, John Prine and Kris Kristofferson do this kind of thing so well and are big influences on my writing.
In contrast to a lot of other artists in the country and Americana world, I have a tendency to be more self-deprecating and write about the embarrassing stuff, rather than just the romance of heartbreak and personal evolution. As an example, “Short Fuse” from my new EP is a manic meditation on the stresses and dangers of trying to make a baby when age is not in your favor. It dips into themes of self-medication, infertility, and depression, but it’s still a rockin’ fun time!
I didn’t come to songwriting with a background in guitar or piano. As a lifelong percussionist, my arrangements (I’m told) sometimes feel counter-intuitive, but that’s what makes them surprising I think. I write from an intuitive place. My musicality is based on thousands of hours listening to everything from prog rock and jazz to African funk to British folk and power pop. I draw on the melodies, harmonies, instruments and beats that constantly play in my head to create music that sounds right to me but often defies genre expectations.
I’m really proud of the album I made in Nashville. I’d always been the drummer who sometimes sang while he played so it was a huge step for me to move to the front of the stage, trust my voice, songwriting skills, and arrangement abilities, and lead a band of serious players in the studio.
Darlin’ Brando will be performing on January 9th at The Redwood Bar in DTLA.
The crisis has affected us all in different ways. How has it affected you and any important lessons or epiphanies you can share with us?
Keep writing, keep practicing!
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected]
- Website: https://brndngldstn.wixsite.com/darlinbrando
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/darlinbrando/?hl=en
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Darlinbrando/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZJVCmEa5Bc
- Other: https://darlinbrando.bandcamp.com/album/also-too
Image Credits
Edith Freni Tommy Ash Alex Justice
