The Dry Heathens

The Dry Heathens press photoFounded 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