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Dude Cervantes | Dreamers | Available 09/15/2023
Dude Cervantes
“Cervantes oozes Rock & roll swagger and few use it better.” - NBC San Diego
Daniel “Dude” Cervantes is a busy man. The multi-hyphenate musician, bandleader, singer-songwriter, record producer and label owner lives and breathes an ever-shifting tapestry of sonic exploration. Lauded by print outlets such as Rolling Stone, Mojo and Relix Magazine, audiences know him as the San Diego, CA based musician whose white-hot electric guitar ignites bands like Mrs. Henry, Chest Fever and Howlin’ Rain. Dreamers, the sequel to his debut All By Myself, is a record simmering with finely crafted tension. Manic, live-wire burners give way to bittersweet acoustic ruminations buoyed by elegant orchestral accompaniment. Built with a subtle precision, Dreamers would serve well to soundtrack Stingaree speakeasy bar brawl (and serenade the poor souls wiping up the blood and broken glass as dawn breaks over the Salton Sea.)
Growing up with a Mexican born father and a mother from Woodland Hills, CA, Cervantes absorbed music from all sides of the border. When his dad was gifted a Stratocaster, Cervantes glued himself to the fretboard, working from dawn to dusk to learn the instrument. Accepted into the Musicians Institute in Hollywood, he studied theory and arranging, graduating with a Bachelor of Music in guitar performance. Courses at Los Angeles City College offered an intellectual counterpoint, where “literature, anthropology, and sociology influenced me as a writer, and Chicano studies gave me depth and appreciation for my culture.”
Live gigs and session work, including sessions with Rami Jaffee of The Wallflowers and Foo Fighters, widened Cervantes’ musical circle and joining Howlin’ Rain opened up opportunities for national and international touring. Upon finishing his studies in LA, he returned to San Diego with an agenda; dedicating his life to his own band. In 2012, that band had completed their first EP. Dubbed Mrs. Henry after a tune by Bob Dylan and The Band, Cervantes decided he needed to start a label to release their music, and Blind Owl was born. Three years later Blind Owl was signing other bands, and Cervantes was a full-on label owner and a producer working to advance an iconoclastic collective of authentic artists.
As a filmmaker, Cervantes has produced all the videos for Mrs. Henry, as well as The Medicine Show, a pandemic-era YouTube series with the band members transformed into sock puppets. A documentary film, Mrs. Henry Presents The Last Waltz, depicting the loving tribute to The Band’s swan song concert, made the international film festival rounds as well as the current ongoing Youtube series with the blessing of the Band Official - The Band Is
Answering the need to release his solo compositions, Dude Cervantes was born. Recorded by Cervantes on a Tascam 388 and later mixed by Jordan Andreen (Karl Denson, The Damned), the debut LP All By Myself is by all standards a lo-fi classic. Forged in a time of despair and uncertainty, the album plays like a man in a confessional. The one-against-the-world ethos and raw self-reflection make a record both altruistic and defiant. This is no pristine hi-fi experience. In fact, it’s quite the opposite: It’s an album that locks us in the very room in which Cervantes recorded it.
Written as Cervantes lives his troubadour life, the songs on Dreamers were born everywhere from a warehouse in Otay to the Olympic National Park to a wandering trail in the verdant Descanso Gardens. Unlike his work with Mrs. Henry, these songs sing Cervantes’ personal narrative, straight from the heart. Speaking to the core of the human condition,
he sings timeless tales of love, life, and loss. Of blues and golden dreams, and of the simple, flawed perfection of family.
Recorded straight to tape, Dreamers represents a leap forward in the songwriting and maturity of Crevantes as a creative artist in his own
right, apart from his work in other bands. This is a record for dreamers, it is an odyssey of artistic exploration, and a testament to the value of taking chances. Or as Dude says, “if you like to sleep naked, this record is for you.”