Santa Barbara music aficionados, take note: There’s a new band in town, and it could very well be your next favorite group. Meet State Flower, a supergroup of sorts whose new EP is already generating buzz among local listeners. Like our own California poppy, its sound is bright, vibrant, winsome, and a bit wistful, with sweet rock songs of feelings fluttering like flowers in the breeze.
As supergroups go, though, State Flower is not any kind of ego powerhouse; instead, it’s a project of behind-the-sceners, studio musicians, and laborers of love. Formed by producer/vocalist/guitarist Zach Madden and Dean Dinning (of Toad the Wet Sprocket and Lapdog fame), the group also features contributions from Austin Beede (The Coral Sea, Alastair Greene Band), Todd Capps (Bad Astronaut), Lois Mahalia (Joe Walsh) and mixing-mastering work from Angus Cooke (Jack Johnson, Dishwalla, Jeff Bridges) and Bruce Winter (Wasted Tape, the Deadwood score). The late, great Erik Herzog lent his legacy as well, contributing drums to a few of the songs on the EP in what would be among his last performances; his spirit lingers in their accomplishment. The group of musicians mostly all met while working on Cory Sipper’s album Make Your Magic at Madden’s Good Land Sound in Goleta, and magic was indeed made at those sessions.
The resulting State Flower EP is five lovely songs of heartfelt harmonies. There’s something familiar in its alt/indie-rock sound, and certainly something SoCal, with guitars cascading like waves and Madden’s vocals soaring to the sky. Tunes like “Colina” and “Is It Only Love” are infectious, earworms of welcome relief. “She Is Sound” has that uncanny “Have I heard this before?” quality of an endlessly hummable great song. “We wanted it to be honest, and that was Dean’s big thing: It has to be honest; it has to be real,” Madden said. “There’s happiness; there’s joy; and the loss of Erik — there’s blood on the tracks, man. He was on for the first two songs before he died, and that was really heavy for us all.” The band dedicated the EP to Herzog’s wife, Amy, and his son, Lucas.