Hi, we're Garden Patrol, an indie pop band from Long Beach, California. Meeting through mutual friends, we all had the idea to start a band. As years passed and the dust settled, we ended up as a fun, tight unit with an unmatched reverence for all things pop. Currently a five-piece, we expect to release our debut album this summer. We hope you join us & enjoy the music!
JESUS: "I only discovered my passion for writing music around late 2020. Since then I knew that I wanted to be in a band and after bonding with Lucy I knew that we could make something great. I threw myself head first into the complex world of songwriting without any relevant experience but my determination to keep learning and honing my skills has and is still helping me become a greater songwriter."
My main instrument in Garden Patrol. I learned how to play the drums slowly over the years of my childhood on the plastic drumkit for the video game series, Rock Band. In my later teen years I came to be very comfortable behind the drums and so I moved from using a plastic electronic kit to a real acoustic kit for the band. I'm the one behind the drums on almost all songs by Garden Patrol.
I've always wanted to learn how to play guitar since I was a little kid but I never had the dedication to really start learning. Only when I started joining Lucy in the songwriting process did I start to really learn how to play the guitar. As time passed on I honed my guitar playing while also using it as my main tool for writing songs.
LUCY: "I learned violin after an orchestra played Vivaldi's Four Seasonsat my elementary school. Over time, I messed with this electric organ at my grandma's house. As I joined marching band and learned mallet percussion to skimp PE requirements, I listened to music more regularly and began to hone my skills as a pop songwriter and keyboard player. Although I'm obsessed with chords, melodic hooks, and weird instruments, I currently know little about effects, processing, engineering, all that... I love being in Garden Patrol because, while it's lovely to make music on your own, music with friends is magical in an inexplicable way."
Mentally, keyboards help me lay out how music [as I know it] works. Honestly, you can reduce almost every pop song to just piano. I learned piano on some old keyboards laying around. As my dad's friend puts it, I learned through "YouTube university" -- trying to learn songs I liked by looking up other people playing them. At first, Tally Hall's Andrew Horowitz inspired me to learn, but over time I learned more from videos on Laura Nyro and Tatsuro Yamashita. It's now my main instrument, and definitely the one I'm most skilled it. Still, I feel I play it more like a 'songwriter' than a 'rockstar' or 'virtuoso.' But I don't mind it this way :)
Like keyboards, guitars make me feel like I'm really in control of a song from top to bottom. Guitars really bring entirely different chord voicings out of you. I'm not used to playing with a pick, and I just don't quite have the coordination to pull off anything but strumming yet. But you'll catch me playing some rhythm guitar on Garden Patrol stuff here and there.
In high school marching band, I played marimba and vibraphone all four years. I got quite decent, though I've fallen out of practice in recent years. I found the cheapest I could find of each instrument, and now you might notice them on a few Garden Patrol records. Osmar plays these, too, so I'm hoping we can drag the vibraphone live one of these days. I ought to practice more.
It's a bit embarrassing that I'm not that good at my very first instrument anymore. Playing all these instruments, I can attest that the viol family is, without a doubt, the most difficult thing to learn. The orchestra world, too, is brutal. Much respect to any dedicated string players... I need to practice more.
Oh, miscaneous doo-dads, where would I be without you... The omnichord (which I have heard referred to as "the ukulele of synthesizers") will probably be the most recognizable, now that it gets widespread love. More obscure is the marxophone, an early - 20th century zither with two [mercury, gosh darnit] hammers that fire on two strings tuned to the same note in rapid succession. I also used to collect ocarinas when I was younger, though I have so little experience with wind instruments.
sorry if you find out i was trans through this site btw...
Bassist
Guitarist
The main guitarist for Garden Patrol, Seabass is a seasoned musician with a wide range of experiences. He brings the more space-y, non-functional harmonies to our songwriting & also plays guitar & bass in our sister band, Ruby Electric.