Hills Like Elephants release new album with help from The Heavy Guilt

By Logan Broyles | SDUN Reporter

Local music fans will get their fill when a doubleheader of San Diego acts rolls through Soda Bar in North Park on March 30. Hills Like Elephants will be celebrating the release of their debut LP with some help from their friends and opening act, The Heavy Guilt.

What started out as a solo project for former Gun Runner front-man Sean Davenport evolved into the four-man Hills Like Elephants, whose style can best be described as a cross between keyboard-centric old school funk and 80s pop with a modern indie singing style.

Davenport maintains the same crooning style that he is known for from Gun Runner, but he has combined it with a heavy dose of funk and blues. To Davenport, it boils down to creating a style that allows him to wear his heartbreak on his sleeve but still makes people get up and dance.

“There’s a lot of energy at our shows,” he said. “If you’re going out and you want to get your dance on in a cool environment as opposed to some crappy club then our shows are for you. We definitely have a lot of audience interaction and make sure it’s fun times all around.”

Born in Bonita and raised in Chula Vista, Davenport has a special appreciation for playing shows in San Diego.

“I grew up here but I didn’t really start playing shows until I left for college so I had never played anywhere on the West Coast,” he said. “Just from a sentimental standpoint I love playing here at all the venues that I had known for the majority of my life but had never been old enough to go to. Just stepping on stage at the Casbah [I would think] to myself ‘I remember when I wasn’t even old enough to get into this place.’”

Davenport is releasing his debut LP, “The Endless Charade,” on March 27. Davenport put the album together with Chris Hoffee of Chaos Records in Escondido as a solo project before he had formed the band. Now the band performs the songs on the album as a group. Writing and producing the album was his first major solo project so there were some jitters at the beginning.

“Once we got through that first day my nerves were at ease after seeing how the process was developing,” Davenport said. “The more comfortable I got with it the easier and easier it was and before I knew it the album was done. I really just wanted to see if it was possible, this was the first time I had gone out on my own like this.”

Since then the group has filled out with Andrew Amerding on lead guitar, former Gun Runner drummer Carlos Ortiz and Danny Gallo strumming on the bass.

Opening for Hills Like Elephants is another local act on the rise, The Heavy Guilt. After the disbanding of the well-known K23 Orchestra a few years ago, former band members Alfred Howard and Josh Rice broke off on their own to form a group that was closer to the new style of music they had been working on together.

“I was the singer in a band called the K23 Orchestra for about seven years, but the music that I gravitate towards has more melody than my voice could convey,” Howard said. “So when that group broke up Josh and I looked for singers and we found Erik [Canzona], who had that perfect soulful voice, and The Heavy Guilt was born.”

Canzona’s raspy voice fits perfectly with the blues-centric guitar riffs the band lays down. Rounding out the sextet are Sean Martin, Jason Littlefield and Jenny Merullo.

Their music is a throwback to simpler times when it was all about the melody. Howard said the group started out going for a morose, ‘folksy bluesy vibe’, but in the two years since they started playing together they’ve developed a chemistry that allows them to be more creative and confident.

“It’s psychedelic rock [and] roll with some blues and some folk in it,” Howard said. “You can put a lot of different names on it but when it comes down to it our music is rock and roll.”

The group released their first album in September 2009 and their second album, “In The Blood,” last July. Personally, they’re close with Hills like Elephants and said they are happy to be there with them when they put out their own album.

“A couple of those guys were in Gun Runner and played with us at our CD release party so we’re happy to return the favor for them,” Howard said. “We’re excited to see how the new album sounds.”