The Dry Heathens
Founded in 2006 as an offshoot of The Midnight Gladness Band, The Dry Heathens are an entity becoming more and more rare these days: an authentic punk rock band. Blending the country-rock authenticity of bands like The Drive-By Truckers with the bleeding-heart intensity of The Replacements, the Heathens have become a live mainstay in and around Durham, N.C. First Contact with Ground, the band’s 2008 full-length debut, wraps that signature sound around defiant anthems and battered tales of lost romance.
Check out some recent press for The Dry Heathens and First Contact With Ground:
“The Dry Heathens craft massive songs of raucous energy – air-strike epics that inspire equal parts emotion and movement.” — Jamie Williams, Diversions (The Daily Tar Heel)
“The band hammers at feedback-and-vitriol punk laced with shots of hook and twang, like Drive By Trucker Mike Cooley woodshedding with Social Distortion” — Grayson Currin, Independent Weekly
“As fist-pumpingly anthemic as it is devastatingly sentimental, First Contact With Ground is the sound of what romance becomes after it is crushed by a harsh, uncaring world” (4-ear review, “Shove it in your earhole”, Issue 3) — Jordan Lawrence, Shuffle Magazine
“Durham’s The Dry Heathens features a muscular, distortion-drenched attack less about throttle than contoured roar. The sinewy hooks leave a sizeable sonic footprint.” — Chris Parker, Independent Weekly
The Dry Heathens is:
- Darren Sink — Guitar, Vocals
- Steven Jones — Bass
- Steve Oliva — Guitar




