Bluebird

Bluebird blends a weighty yet melodic approach that echoes both Queens of the Stone Age and vintage arena-rock acts such as Free. The lineup features guitarist and vocalist Paul Figueroa, bassist, trumpeter, and vocalist Jim Brown, drummer, percussionist, and vocalist Bryan Lee Brown, vocalist and percussionist Sam James Velde, and guitarist Barry Thomas. As children the Brown brothers first played together, later forming an improvisational rhythm duo that performed throughout Los Angeles during the mid-1990s. Velde and longtime acquaintance Thomas joined the siblings, bringing added organization to their previously unstructured sets. This combination gradually solidified into a complete band whose psychedelic heft and pop tunefulness first appeared on record with a self-titled, six-track EP issued by Revelation in 1997; the following year Lovitt released High Atmosphere. In 2000 former Frodus member Shelby Cinca became the group’s fifth musician and participated in the sessions for its debut full-length, The Two, which surfaced later that year. After Cinca departed, Figueroa took his place, enabling the band to complete its sophomore album, Hot Blood, which Dim Mak issued in late 2002. The year 2003 brought a split EP with Dead Meadow on Buddyhead as well as the Dopamine release Black Presence EP. Bluebird returned to Dim Mak for the 2004 EP Falling Back to Earth.