The Swingin’ Utters are one of the biggest punk bands to come out of Santa Cruz, and one thing fans have always loved about them is their eclectic approach. So fans may be surprised that lead singer Darius Koski released a folk-country solo record last year. But what they might not realize is that this kind of music was his first love.
“I’ve always written a bunch of country tunes, from day one. I’ve been writing that type of material pretty much ever since I’ve been writing, before my band even,” Koski says. “It’s been a long time coming. I’ve just really procrastinated for so long. I was really happy to get this record out, finally.”
The album, Sisu, was released on Fat Wreck Chords. Koski sent the demos to every label he could think of, but Fat Wreck owner Fat Mike was the only one to respond. In fact, even he didn’t like it at first, until Koski reworked some of the songs.
The result is a great punky country record from an artist with roots in both genres. Now that Koski has finally released his debut solo album after all these years, he wants to keep going.
“At this point I just need to book some studio time and it’ll get me going. I have a lot of ideas and songs all over the place, so it’s really hard to organize them. I really need to purge is how I look at it,” Koski says.
INFO: 8 p.m. Thursday, August 11. Catalyst, 1011 Pacific Ave., Santa Cruz. $20/adv, $25/door. 429-4135
