Kevin Stetz

Throughout the year 2004, singer/songwriter Kevin Stetz wrote plenty of songs of both a personal and topical nature. Near the close of the year, he entered Joshua Tree, California's Nomadhouse studio with songwriter/producer Ted Quinn to record what became Kevin Stetz Presents: Songs for Oxygen, his solo studio debut.

After a few years of recording his indie-folk songs on a cheap 4-track, Kevin had decided that these new songs were worthy of a better quality recording and better packaging than his earlier home-made demos. He recruited Quinn, the center point of the local burgeoning Joshua Tree music scene, as producer based on their friendship and mutual love of each others work.

As a departure from his earlier recordings, Songs For Oxygen is built on collaborations to create an album full of many different sounds, without ever leaving the intimate realm of the singer/songwriter. "Everything's Gone Down" and "Just Like Home" both exist in a solemn universe, as the sound of a perfect stranger playing songs in the dark. You can hear breaths being drawn between words and taps of fingers against the acoustic guitar body, but the album also travels deeper into the listener's mind, revealing layer upon layer of sounds.

During the sessions, a range of musicians had dropped in to Nomadhouse to provide a backdrop to Kevin's vivid words. Banjo, mandolin, strumstick, and ukelele put "Poisoned Wells & Burning Flags" out on a front porch in the deep south. Clive Wright's electric guitar work and Monet Blair's plaintive vocal help create the perfect atmosphere for the cornerstone track "Oxygen." The choir on the anti-war anthem "We Will Never be the Same", including Alternative-Americana queen Victoria Williams with Wooden Nickel singers Tal Hurley, Sue Bradley and Quinn, lends comfort to the troubled mind of a young man, too wise for his young years.

Kevin Stetz grew up in the Southern California desert where Gram Parsons found his inspiration and his demise. Stetz' work is informed by that time in Southern California, when other young songwriters, shared his same concerns of love and war.

Support on Songs for Oxygen includes: Arjuna, Bingo (Bingo Band, Golden Delicious), Monet Blair, Sue Bradley (Wooden Nickel), Paul Brainard (Richmond Fontaine), Carol Ann Crawford (Thrift Store All-Stars, Wild Ass Ranchers), Tal Hurley (Thrift Store All-Stars, Wooden Nickel), Ted Quinn (Wooden Nickel, IRockAndRoll and Tree), Victoria Willams (Acclaimed Singer/Songwriter, Thrift Store All-Stars), and Clive Wright