Click Image to Download!

Desure's music occupies the space between genres. It's a sound that's every bit as diverse as his native Los Angeles, a town whose anything-goes spirit and melting pot of musical traditions — including alternative rock, West Coast pop, psychedelia, punk, and indie-folk — left a permanent mark on the songwriter. With Pollen, his full-length debut, he salutes those wide-ranging influences while also moving beyond them, chasing down a style that's adventurous, lushly Californian, and uniquely his own. 

Years before recording Pollen's 11 songs with collaborators like Midland's Cameron Duddy, Texas titan Jonathan Tyler, and outlaw country artist Nikki Lane, Josh Desure grew up in the L.A. suburbs. His parents' oversized vinyl collection filled the house with the sounds of the Rolling Stone, the Beatles, Bob Dylan, and Neil Young. At school, he bonded with his classmates over a shared appreciation for the harder stuff: MC5, the Misfits, and the New York Dolls. Inspired equally by the classic songwriters of his parents' generation and the unchained rockers of the 1970s and '80s, he formed his first band at 14 years old and was soon opening for punk icons like the Weirdos and the Gears. 

"Throughout it all, I always had an acoustic guitar with me," he remembers. "Whether I was in a punk band or a metal band, I was writing songs on the side. That's always been the backbone of my writing and my music."

As the years progressed, so did Desure's aesthetic. One minute, he was onstage as the frontman of the doom metal band Black Prism, bashing out Sabbath-worthy riffs while an industrial fog machine shrouded him in haze. The next, he was crisscrossing the country as the tour manager for Midland, the Grammy-nominated country band whose members had known Desure since childhood. Somewhere along the line, he opened for songwriting legends like Willie Nelson and Dwight Yoakam as a solo act, then released a left-field cover of Carly Simon's "You're So Vain" — complete with a gender-bending music video that featured the bearded, barrel-chested Desure in makeup and women's clothing — to ensure no one would mistake him for a country artist.

Pollen marks Desure's first full-length release, stocked with songs that are every bit as colorful as the pink letters that run across the album's cover. "Petty Pain" and "Say You Won't Go" are heartland pop/rock anthems, driven forward by supersized hooks and highway-speed grooves. "Masochist" is a funky, disco-flavored salute to the hedonistic underbelly of L.A.'s late-night party scene. "On Me," a gorgeous duet with Nikki Lane, unfolds like a 21st century update of a Laurel Canyon ballad, while "Still Blue" is a garage rocker rooted in distorted 1990s crunch. Written by a larger-than-life L.A. native whose influences include Fleetwood Mac's harmonies, Andre 3000's innovation, Serge Gainsbourg's fashion, and Lou Reed's category-defying cool, Pollen is a diverse celebration not only of Desure's songwriting, but also of his ever-evolving, borderless approach to art.

"When you grow up in L.A., nothing ever seems strange," he says. "Everyone's a freak! Walking down Melrose and going into record shops when I was a kid, I'd see people dressed really wildly, expressing themselves to the fullest. It was beautiful and hectic and exciting. I moved to Hollywood when I was 16, and the area still influences me to this day. It's such a strong melting pot of different individuals. It gives me the freedom to make any kind of music I want — even a record where the songs all sound very different."

Pollen is a modern album that takes stock of Desure's past: the childhood memories that still pack a nostalgic punch, the party-hearty indulgence of his early adulthood, the woman he eventually married, and the steps that have brought him to the present. He wrote most of the songs at home on an acoustic guitar, then turned to Midland's Cameron Duddy to help transform them into something more expansive. The two headed to Texas, where they assembled an all-star team of musicians — including fellow singer/songwriter Jonathan Tyler, Texas Gentlemen keyboardist Daniel Creamer, and Midland lead guitarist Luke Cutchen — and booked a week's worth of studio time at the Electric Joint in Austin. Duddy shared production duties with Tyler, and the entire group took an experimental approach to the tracking sessions, using gear like Tyler's 808 drum machine and Creamer's vintage synthesizers to add unique, digital elements to Desure's organic songwriting.

"I told everyone, 'Bring every pedal you own!'" Desure says. "We sat around and twisted knobs for days, looking for the coolest sounds we could find. I'd never used anything electronic like an 808 before. It was fun to play around with different stuff — to be as explorative and adventurous as we could."

Back in Los Angeles, Desure had written many of Pollen's songs during sudden bursts of inspiration. An idea would appear out of nowhere while he was playing acoustic guitar, and he'd chase it down, improvising his way through a stream-of-consciousness melody until it turned into something concrete. Pollen benefited from a similar approach in the recording studio, where songs like "Masochist" were written on the spot. Someone would dial up a hypotonic groove on the drum machine, someone else would ad-lib a bass line, and Desure would begin singing. The results were charged with the collective energy of a band firing on all cylinders, and Desure — who'd never co-written a song before — relished the chance to collaborate. 

Returning fans who've heard Desure's 2019 EP — a self-titled release inspired by the rock & roll of late-1970s icons like Bob Seger — will hear glimmers of that sound here. Even so, the overall picture has shifted, like a garden that's been tilled and replanted for a new season. That's one of the reasons he named the album Pollen, a title that evokes images of bright color, renewal, and rebirth.

"With pollen comes change, growth, and beauty," says Desure, who holds a flower on the album's cover. "It's a thing that's ever-changing. This project is a representation of my own growth, and my ever-changing abilities as an artist. It's the birth of something new."