From the academy of deep soul and no ego, Reverend Baron delivers visions of liquor store East LA, the off-the-freeway dry mirage of slow motion graffiti and lonely seagulls. A nylon stringed zen fog with themes of woozy love, layered dimensions of nostalgia and glazed neighborhood tales that roll in with a natural ease.
After notching a permanent status in the skateboarding orbit as Danny Garcia, he transferred his effortless style, dedication and authenticity into music. Practicing a philosophy of demystifying the process and doing it yourself, he has become a proficient multi-instrumentalist, engineer, and producer of his own and other artist’s music. All streams of curiosity converge into the river.
An enigma, Reverend Baron emerges from the proverbial grey overpass with no sense of urgency. He takes a sharp gaze at his surroundings and processes them through a factory of depth and gentle swag to yield a sound that sits as easy as fallen molasses on the bodega shelf. The songs are an unassuming invitation to either walk through the doorway or lean on the wall outside, either way something beautiful and rare.
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Listening To The Good Reverend Baron
Monster Children
Danny Garcia, alias Reverend Baron, ducks my initial attempt at neatly labeling his music. “I don’t know what the word is to explain it,” he tells me from a sunny living room in East LA. “It’s not soul, it’s not folk, it’s not rock, but it sort of has some of those things, it’s mellow, it’s melodic.” He pauses, careful not to fence himself in, “and the singer-songwriter thing is a tag but that one feels funny, so.”
“It takes practice getting in touch with feelings, those amorphous things. I had to learn how to shut down a certain part of myself while playing so other things could come up. I had to learn to trust my instincts. There are no love songs on From Anywhere,” citing his fourth studio album from 2022, “I don’t know what that means, but when I realized that halfway into recording I decided I would keep it that way.”
In Conversation with Danny Garcia
Wasted Talent
A staple of the noughties skateboarding scene, Danny’s skate career continued to flourish in the years that followed. Naturally with age, Danny’s output in the last decade slowed down as he gently segued from professional skateboarder to professional musician via the moniker Reverend Baron. Yet despite the career change, Danny’s continued to showcase his skateboarding skills via brief cameos in the two thousand and tens.
Now in his forties, and fresh off his latest musical release Some Demos, we caught up with the Habitat alumnus to discuss songwriting influences, his love of basketball, producing tracks for Greg Hunt, touring with Cat Power and competing with Janoski for that infamous last part.
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