Micah Brown

Before the ubiquitous downpour of modern blues-rock, the stark, humanist lyrics and fiery finger-pickin’ of the blues sired a musical deluge of greasy, almost carnal rock ‘n roll. Dana Point musician, Micah Brown, evokes the plaintive energy of the blues pre-Rolling Stones; Brown has reinvented the uncompromising brood of the sludgy Delta Blues with his own rhythmic, juke-joint fingerstyle, world-worn lyrics, and even, reggae-infused production.

Just like the backwoods blues of almost a century ago, Brown’s penchant for dark rumination and the gritty swagger of his country-blues guitar are almost buoyantly optimistic. Brown’s dulcet tenor has the ability to connect the collective unconscious through all human emotions–whether they come from a place of deep sorrow or profound joy.


California-native, Micah Brown, went from being a teenaged punk rock drummer (with his favorite band being the Bay Area’s No Use For A Name) to being a tremendously talented blues guitarist, simply with his uncanny ability to transmogrify primitive punk rock beats into sophisticated finger-slides.

A die-hard drummer, Brown learned basic twelve-bar blues as a child, but it wasn’t until he moved to Hawaii for school that he began to experiment with the guitar. This allowed him a freedom his bulky drum set never could. Brown elaborated:

“I’ve been making music pretty much since I was little. I got my first drum set when I was like five. I was mainly a drummer growing up. Played in high school. Mainly in punk bands and stuff…I changed to guitar when I moved to Hawaii after high school because I couldn’t bring my drum set. So I sold my drum set and just brought my acoustic along.”

“I had been writing songs before that, but that’s when I first started to write and kind of dig inside me and pull stuff out. Before it was like childish songs, like punk and Blink-182 type stuff, songs about girls. In college and being out there, isolated from all my friends I just turned to the guitar a lot and that’s when it started to become more of a hobby.”

Although Brown has a modern, almost-folksy vocal styling, he balances out the well-pitched cool of his voice with scorching-hot guitar riffs reminiscent of Delta Blues greats Robert Johnson or John Lee Hooker. Due to his drumming background, there is also bit of the percussive punctuation of juke-joint blues guitarist, R.L. Burnside.

Brown enthusiastically talked about his favorite blues artists and how his drumming has influenced his guitar playing:

“I find a lot of inspiration from Delta blues artists like Mississippi Fred McDowell, Lightning Hopkins. Big Bill Broonzy, vocal wise. It’s like old-time jazz vocals with acoustic blues. It fits really well and he’s like a legend. Those guys really inspired me as far as my blues style…But I do a lot of other stuff too, like folk and rock stuff too. I just try to mix a bunch of things together.”

“I kind of play a percussive guitar. I do the bass notes on the top strings and do rhythms on the bottom strings. And then that also makes melodies at the same time…For one thing it solidified my groove. I can hold down a pretty good groove for a long time.”

Another aspect of Brown’s life that has been a major influence on him both musically and personally, is his connection with Lewis Richards and Costa Mesa’s 17th Street Recording, which currently acts as the creative hub for popular acts like The Dirty Heads, Seedless, and at one time, Sublime.

“They’re tight family around here. 17th Street Recording is really like a hub for all the things going on around here.”

“I know Seedless through 17th. Juan from Seedless rents Studio C right here. Matty [Matthew Liufau] sang on some tracks. Shay [Pino] drummed on a track of mine on the new record. We’re all homies. We support each other. It’s just like a brotherhood type thing.”

Producer Lewis Richards, or as everyone calls him, Lew, has also been a huge part of cultivating Brown’s style.

“He’s definitely helped develop my songwriting over the last half of the year and gearing it more towards certain sounds. He developed the Dirty Heads and he produced Seedless. He produced Sublime. He’s done a lot over the last few years.”

“Those are the bands that he helped develop and he also kind of helped develop me, so you know, there’s some overlap there. Even though I’m not a reggae act, just working with Lew has influenced me.”

Admittedly, it is rare for most acoustic acts to get so engrossed in the recording process, but Brown said that he “loves performing acoustic but don’t want to limit myself to that.”

His 7-song EP, Down Like Hail, is a great reflection of this. Some of the songs are gorgeous acoustic sojourns that would be ruined by too much instrumentation; Some like “Finally Free,” featuring Seedless’ Matthew Liufau, are dynamically and sonically multi-dimensional.

When questioned about his diverse mix of production, Brown said that in the future he’ll definitely h - kroq.com