DVG by Kelsey Hart
In our conversation with Bonnie Bloomgarden, leader and singer-songwriter of the mystical L.A. rock band Death Valley Girls, we’re musing about the things we need to do to feel healthy — self care, like getting outside, time with friends, exploring, exercising, and so on. Suddenly, as if struck by a bolt of electricity, she cries, “Some of us need to write a whole album for our future incarnations!”
That album is their latest release, “Islands in the Sky” (2023). The backstory as Bloomgarden tells PureHoney ahead of the band playing Bumblefest is that she, drummer Rikki Styxx, bassist Sarah Linton and guitarist Larry Schemel went up to Rikki’s cabin in the California mountains and let the setting be a channel. “The way the wind moves through the forest, it was a profound experience just hearing that for the first time,” she says. “I was like, this feels right, this feels like home.”
DVG by Kelsey Hart
Asked how where she’s living affects her as an artist, Bloomgarden says, “I change and grow so much everywhere I go. I’m coming back to my true self and also going farther out into what I really wanna be.”
If we look at Death Valley Girls’ music over the last decade, it’s possible to spot some of the growth and change. On “Street Venom” (2014) — not exactly a “trees, and water, and green” vibe, but a look at anguish and mental illness — Bonnie howls about missing (of all things) a sense of freedom in “Sanitarium Blues.” The next track, “Arrow,” is about what it’s like to experience codependency.
On “Glow in the Dark” (2016) the songs are still grounded in the physical plane. “I’m a Man Too” is a darkly comic answer to No Doubt’s “Just A Girl” — classic takes on what it can feel like to be powerless/powerful under the patriarchy. By “Darkness Rains” (2018), the songs are more esoteric, but no less relatable. These are songs of empowerment by any and all means necessary. “Disaster (Is What We’re After)” — with a music video they went to Miami for that features Iggy Pop recreating Andy Warhol’s “Eating a Hamburger” — really flips the convention of modern culture on its head.
With “Under the Spell of Joy” (2020) the narrative has turned truly spiritual, not only because it alludes to oneness, nonlinear time and astral projection, but also because it’s a story of discovering oneself through self-love. And through “Islands in the Sky,” the lessons learned today for future selves are transmuted from wind through the trees into ways to be happy.
“I’ve been on a really long journey to kind of heal,” Bloomgarden says. “And all of the things that I did, each new layer that I find some peace in, I feel obligated to share. I’ve always felt compelled to share, ’cus it kills me to think that anyone else is suffering, if I know a way not to.”
Meditation is one way she knows. “It’s just hard to think that just breathing and noticing thoughts for even 10 minutes a day will affect all the other minutes in the day,” she says. “It’s so crazy — if you play guitar for 10 minutes a day, that really adds up by the end of the month!”
She tells us how much she values rituals and rites, acknowledging that they’ve been uprooted by the dominant global culture. When asked what a perfect day looks like for her, Bloomgarden keeps it simple: “I think it’s just, wake up, walk the dog around a lake or something, and then play a show — open up a show for someone we really respect — and then get home early back to the dog, and then like, have really, really cool dreams.
“The project I’m working on now is making myself wake up when I write a song in my dream, and recording it on voice memo. I decided that I’m gonna record all of the songs from my dreams no matter how ridiculous they are. So I’m gonna have a dream EP hopefully pretty soon.” She offers, “You should do it too. I think everyone should do it!”
Bumblefest is Sept. 1 and 2 in downtown West Palm Beach. bumblefest.com, deathvalleygirls.bandcamp.com ~ Carly Cassano
