On this beach I wander while I’ve got no sense of time
with my feet in Capitola, cold Corona twist of lime.
No worries on my shoulders while I’m rolling with the tide
Come with me if you want to, Capitola on my mind
—James Durbin, “Capitola on my Mind”
In the Lost Boys, Santa Cruz native James Durbin sings classic rock covers. Durbin Unplugged is a solo acoustic show. In the self-titled band Durbin, he rips out heavy metal originals and the occasional cover of Judas Priest’s “The Ripper” from 1976’s Sad Wings of Destiny album.
Closer to home, James Durbin has a new song out, and a New Year’s Eve event that is not to be missed. This year will be a rebranding of the event and a roaring ’20s theme. “We are really looking forward to that,” Durbin says.
With a multi-octave vocal range and enigmatic and powerful stage presence, singer/ songwriter/ musician Durbin, 35, has plenty of irons in his sonic fire.
“I love finding new ways to make music a career,” he says. “My entire philosophy ever since I knew I wanted to do music for a living, I knew I didn’t want to live on tour. I want to be a working musician, supporting my family and doing what I love.”
This approach has enabled Durbin to carve out a diverse career with not only live concerts but also a lucrative record contract, voiceovers and even a gig with Peloton, the bike software company.
Durbin currently sings in eight bands, “eight different active projects,” he said. Among those bands are Tainted Love in the Bay Area, Mustache Harbor in Sacramento and the Lost Boys in Santa Cruz. “About half are consistently performing,” he said. “That keeps me super busy.”
Joining him in the Lost Boys is a new lineup of musicians: Dylan Rose on guitar, Ian Babcock on bass and Conner Bruce wielding drumsticks.
Singing across the genres from ’80s pop to prog rock to heavy metal, he’s also an international recording artist, signed to a multi-record deal with Italian record label Frontiers Music SRL. He has toured all over the United States and the world, including the Philippines (Araneta Coliseum in Manila), Italy, Canada, Nova Scotia, Mexico, Dominican Republic and a USO show in Kyrgyzstan.
Indeed, Durbin has secured steady work in the music industry ever since he set foot on the stage of American Idol, Season 10, where he was a finalist in the Top 4 with iconic performances including Carole King’s “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow” and Muse’s’ “Uprising.”
Asked about his most memorable performance on Idol, Durbin said it is probably King’s hit tune. “That was a game changer because I was so intent on being the rock guy,” he says. Starting the song a capella, it really stands out, although there have been a couple other contestants who took the same approach.
Durbin says he was fortunate to receive union wages through SAG/AFTRA on American Idol and the American Idol Live! summer tour. All contestants who make it past the auditions are compensated for their televised performances. “It was probably a six-figure year that first year,” he says. That’s earned, not netted, he notes. “It was also more than it is now.”
After wrapping up the American Idols Live! summer tour in 2011, Durbin was a featured guest artist with Santa Cruz’s White Album Ensemble, released several albums on his own, and in 2018 he became the lead singer of Quiet Riot, touring with them for more than two years.
More recently, he recorded a collaboration with international music producer Alan Parsons (the Beatles, Pink Floyd, the Alan Parsons Project).
Some gigs are more unlikely than others. Durbin does voice-over work for Disney and Amazon; most notably he voiced Turbo Man, a toy from the movie Jingle All the Way, for a doll released by Funko two years ago. “It’s Turbo Time!” James says in his best superhero voice, batteries not included.
Another somewhat niche gig, Durbin currently works from home as a Level Designer creating soundtracks for Peloton, the fitness and software company based in New York City. “I’m making workout levels set to music look like a video game using Pro Tools,” he says. As an independent contractor for a production company, Cape Corpus Creative, Durbin uses musical input tools like MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) to design the levels using rhythm and different velocities, he says. Not too shabby for a boy from Live Oak who used to sing karaoke at a bowling alley.
Local Roots
Currently living in Watsonville with wife Heidi and their three children, Durbin grew up entirely in Santa Cruz, attending Live Oak Elementary School and Shoreline Middle School.
He got involved in theater at an early age. “I went to Soquel High specifically for their theater program when my older sisters were involved,” he says. “I was in the Soquel High productions when I was 10 and 12 years old when they needed a little kid. They taught me how to sing in French.”
After Soquel High theater director Maggie Kline retired, Durbin switched schools and began acting locally with All About Theater and Kids on Broadway. Durbin performed as Tony in West Side Story, the beast in Beauty and the Beast and Oscar in Sweet Charity.
“He is one of the most talented vocal singers we’ve had,” says Lindsay Chester, executive and artistic director of All About Theatre. “James just commanded the stage with a presence that one could only really compare to one of the greats, as if he was born to be on the stage.”
Chester described working with Durbin, who was diagnosed with both Tourette syndrome and autism, as a celebration of individuality and talent. “One of the things that really stood out to me is he was an advocate for people with Tourettes.
“He shifted the narrative from James Durbin with Tourette to James Durbin the artist,” she says. “The fact that he did that seamlessly, almost without thought, I think that changed the culture behind the stigma with Tourette.”
Durbin’s talent was not only empowering, but accepting of that narrative. “Some people sing from pain and stuff, challenges, deep and passionate love,” she says. “James knows how to experience life.”
Last spring, Chester started working with the next generation of Durbins in the theater program for his daughter Kinzee’s school, Watsonville Charter School of the Arts. Last spring, Kinzee, 9, played Nigel, the leading pelican in Finding Nemo. “She is her own unique person, very natural on stage,” Chester says. “It is just beautiful to see that handing off to the next generation.”
A Father’s Inspiration
Durbin draws a lot of inspiration from his father. “My first guitar was a hand-me-down from church when I was about 9,” he says. “My dad was a musician. I wanted to do all the things he couldn’t do because of his addictions.”
James’ father, Willy Durbin, was a local bass player until his untimely passing in 1998. “For him once he got off stage he needed to keep that validation from people,” Durbin says. “I don’t need that. I get it when I step through the doors and see my kids and wife.”
Even in death, his father continues to surprise him. Recently, James tracked down a vinyl pressing that his father played on with Steve Marriott from Humble Pie.
“I’ve actually gotten to know him more in death than I feel like I would ever have had the chance to in life,” Durbin says. “I’ve sought him. I’ve gone to great lengths to find albums that he’s played on, get a sense of his passions and his character as an individual.”
After his father passed away, James’ grandmother purchased a memorial bench on Capitola Esplanade, and that is where Durbin has always gone to feel a connection with his dad.
Ode to Capitola
Durbin’s songwriting occasionally invokes the Santa Cruz locale. In 2013, he wrote a song about Santa Cruz when he was in Nashville. A music video followed, produced by local promoter Matthew Swinnerton, all funded privately and locally, Durbin says.
“Capitola on My Mind” made its debut at the Crow’s Nest Beach Party July 11. After his band The Lost Boys played the Capitola Art & Wine Festival on the Capitola Esplanade, Durbin sat down with his ukulele on the beach and penned the opening lyrics. “I just wrote it right there,” he says. “The thing with ukulele is you can simplify the songwriting process. It’s tiny. I’ve got bigger fingers than the frets.”
The introspective “Capitola on My Mind” draws heavily on memories in the village, such as meeting his wife at the Fog Bank, singing karaoke and getting banned from the beach for wearing dinosaur masks and claws to scare tourists. “I got a bout of inspiration and wrote. It’s very personal to me. It’s twice as personal,” he says. “I just put a melody to it.”
Durbin reconnected with Swinnerton to produce a music video for “Capitola on My Mind.” They recorded the demo, and will release that single sometime next year.
Eight Bands and a Record Deal
Even though he left Quiet Riot in 2019, their label decided to keep Durbin under contract. Italy-based Frontiers Music SRL has produced albums over the years for legacy bands including Journey, Scorpions, Dokken and Quiet Riot.
“During the pandemic I was writing an album, and I was forced to write it alone,” Durbin says. “I said, ‘OK let me just write the coolest mix of Dio, Priest, Maiden and put all of my heavy metal influences in a soup.” The first album, Durbin, came out in 2021 and a second album, Screaming Steel, followed in March. “It’s gotten some great traction,” Durbin says. “And Frontiers is an internationally based record label. With their reach, it’s gotten some worldly traction.”
In addition to his heavy metal work in Durbin, he is the frontman/utility man of Clean Break, a Frontiers studio band, which will release “American Warrior,” a metal single and lyric video Oct. 10 from the album We Are the Fire.
Mustache Harbor is a zany mix of “’80s hair and ’90s flair,” Durbin says, a “yacht rock” tribute band. If you’re not familiar with the genre, “yacht rock” is smooth-sailing and soft rock such as the Beach Boys, Steely Dan, Elvin Bishop and Toto. “In that, I don’t appear as myself,” Durbin says. “I appear as Sandy Ravage.” It’s been a longstanding and successful touring band playing large halls, venues and casinos nationwide.
Rounding out his roller coaster of bands is the Disney-mixed-with-hair-metal band, Metal Street Boyz, a mix of “good ideas that could go any direction,” Durbin says.
Another Santa Cruz connection
More recently, Durbin has been recording with Grammy-winning mix engineer Alan Parsons of the Alan Parsons Project. Around 2010, through his work with Dale Ockerman, Durbin collaborated with musician Julian Colbec, who was working on a DVD course with Parsons called the Art & Science of Sound Recording. “They brought me in and had me sing on one of Alan’s songs. It’s basically like a how-to course,” Durbin says.
A decade later and with another creator Armand Ruby, Durbin went into ParSonics, Parson’s recording studio in Goleta. “I think I went in and sang on someone else’s song, and Julian proposed the idea that we do a song,” Durbin says.
They recorded “Give ’em My Love” for Parsons’ new album, From the New World (2022). “I was just there a couple of weeks ago doing another song I wrote,” Durbin says. “I first worked with him when I was 19 or 20 and now I’m working with him at 35.”
Since Parsons, too, is signed with Frontier Music, the label was “really happy about that,” Durbin added. “They get a little bit more return on their investment from both of us.”
Ockerman, 71, has known Durbin since he was a teenager, as James was a student at Ockerman’s Musicscool. Ockerman is a founding member of the White Album Ensemble, a Beatles concept band that still performs.
When Durbin’s homecoming concert took place after leaving American Idol, Ockerman was the guy who arranged a backing band before 30,000 fans, the largest concert ever held in Santa Cruz.
As Ockerman tells it, he first met Durbin after he and his wife, Connie, were watching a Kids on Broadway performance of Beauty and the Beast. “All of a sudden the Beast comes out and he’s just singing his tail off,” Ockerman says. “Connie said, ‘It’s like a new Elvis.” He also heard James singing with a band of kids at an event in Bonny Doon.
James would eventually attend Musicscool on a scholarship. “So I taught him some blues harmonica like the way Mick Jagger would play that rock harp,” Ockerman says. “This was in the back of a music store in Santa Cruz. He sounded like Steve Perry or Bon Jovi. He was just being himself.”
Ockerman was very proud of Durbin’s achievement on American Idol. “He was always very courteous,” he says. “He was surrounded by his sisters and mom. He loves metal, which is unique. When they wanted him to sing Neil Diamond, James would say, ‘I’d really rather do ‘Heavy Metal,’ a song by Sammy Hagar. He always knew what he was doing.”
In his 20s, Ockerman was performing Top 40 songs with different bands. A multi-instrumentalist, he toured with the Doobie Brothers (1988-1996), Chuck Berry and sometimes played with Durbin’s dad. “He was this really excellent bass player,” Ockerman says. “He could just play all the styles. I really had fun playing with him. I thought he was the best bass player in town.” Like they say, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
Durbin is playing solo at Cottage Creek Vineyards in Morgan Hill Oct. 13. Check out Durbin’s new song “Capitola on My Mind” on Youtube and Facebook. And ring in the New Year with James and Heidi Durbin at the Lost Boys New Year’s Eve celebration Dec. 31 at the Back Nine at the Inn at Pasatiempo, 555 Highway 17, Santa Cruz. Tickets go on sale this month.
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