Deathray Davies

The secret is out

‘Musician John Dufilho is in the studio recording music. It’s a favor he’s doing for a friend. The music he’s recording is for a television advertisement. Explained as “sort of a long story,” he put it simply by saying “it’s no big deal, though.”

He laughs it off modestly. Having any part is in any form of television broadcast is something that most of the rest of us can only dream about. The potential exposure does not seem to faze him.

“Really, it’s not a big deal,” Dufilho repeats.

This is no exercise in futility for him. As a matter of fact, working with others is something that he has been learning to do recently. Actually, it’s something that’s becoming a part of his everyday routine.

As the creative force behind Dallas, Texas’ musical prodigy, The Deathray Davies – best rationalized as “how cool would the Deathray Liotta’s sound?” – he is coming to the conclusion that relinquishing control is not only a necessary evil but is sometimes the best way to forge ahead.

The Deathray Davies began as a solo studio project with the release of 1999’s “Drink with the Grownups and Listen to the Jazz.” From there, they have continued to release roughly an album per year, each with somewhat of a clever title. With each new album, he found himself sharing the studio space more. By the time last year’s “Midnight at the Black Nail Polish Factory” came around, The Davies were a full band.

The addition of members earned the band six nominations for the Dallas Observer Music Awards, including Best Rock/Pop Band, Best Song and Best Album. In a tight-knit scene in Texas that produced bands like At the Drive-In, Egon, and such, Texans love this band. To back that fact up, they have been accepted to play at more South By Southwest (SXSW) festivals than Dufihlo can count.

“About three or four times,” he said. “We’ve gotten in every time we applied.”

Not a bad record for a band that has been around for four or five years.

Now, the word is spreading and they’re no longer the secret of the Lone Star State.

“I’ve been getting some shit from a friend of mine,” he continued. “He lives in Fort Worth and we haven’t played there in over a year, yet we’ve played in places like Chicago like four times in the past year.”

A hazard of touring is that bands often end up playing everywhere but home during a tour.

Another hazard is what happens when you drink and drive – your bike.

“On a recent tour, we brought our bikes because we actually thought we would get some exercise on the road,” he said. “On days when we’d be loading up the trailer, we’d be drunk and decide to have these contests of who can drive their bikes into the wall of the club the hardest; who can wreck the best. That served the purpose of the bikes for that tour.”

It’s easy for Dufihlo to laugh this off. As far as the history of the band goes, this is the only type of wreck the band has encountered.

Upon moving to Dallas, he befriended Centro-matic’s Will Johnson. He was impressed with the fact that Johnson had just released the first Centro-matic album by writing and recording all the parts on his own. So, he took the cue and decided to write on his own, aside from his then-punk rock band, Bedwetter. And The Deathray Davies was born.

“The first two records, it was all me playing on them,” he said. “I started a band without having a band. Fortunately, it’s turned into one from there.”