36 Photos
New construction on Dune Road. MICHELLE TRAURING
John Loetscher of Dune Local on drums. MICHELLE TRAURING
John Loetscher of Dune Local on drums. MICHELLE TRAURING
John Loetscher of Dune Local on drums. MICHELLE TRAURING
John Loetscher of Dune Local on drums. MICHELLE TRAURING
John Loetscher of Dune Local on drums. MICHELLE TRAURING
John Loetscher of Dune Local on drums. MICHELLE TRAURING
Tristeen Caravella of Dune Local at the mic. MICHELLE TRAURING
Cynthia Daniels, left, recently signed Dune Local to her recording label, MonkMusic Records. MICHELLE TRAURING
Dune Local. COURTESY TRISTEEN CARAVELLA
Dune Local. COURTESY TRISTEEN CARAVELLA
Attorney John Bennett presenting his case to the Zoning Board. JEN NEWMAN
John Loetscher of Dune Local. COURTESY TRISTEEN CARAVELLA
John Loetscher of Dune Local. COURTESY TRISTEEN CARAVELLA
Tristeen Caravella of Dune Local. COURTESY TRISTEEN CARAVELLA
Tristeen Caravella of Dune Local. COURTESY TRISTEEN CARAVELLA
Tristeen Caravella on vocals and Austin Quinn on guitar are one half of Dune Local. COURTESY TRISTEEN CARAVELLA
Tristeen Caravella of Dune Local at the mic. MICHELLE TRAURING
Tristeen Caravella of Dune Local at the mic. MICHELLE TRAURING
It was a warm summer night in 2007. John Loetscher got up from his drum kit and stepped outside his Hampton Bays home with guitarist Austin Quinn for a quick cigarette break.
In between drags, their attention snapped back to the house.
Inside, shy newcomer Tristeen Caravella was trying out some original lyrics to their latest recording. They were gritty, sexy and bluesy.
And she wasn’t just singing the words. She was belting them out.
The childhood friends put out their cigarettes, looked at each other and knew. Either they had written one incredible song or formed one incredible band.
It was both.
They call themselves Dune Local. And, last month, they officially landed.
On October 15, Grammy Award-winning producer Cynthia Daniels, much to her surprise, signed the East End group—which also includes bassist Chris Hamilton—to her independent music label, MonkMusic Records. It is her second band to date, following InCircles, the industry veteran explained last week while sitting inside a soundproof booth in her East Hampton recording studio.
“I was not actually looking for another new band. I wasn’t. But I wanted them,” Ms. Daniels said. “Stylistically, they were so unusual that I, literally, was unclear as to what I was hearing, which is very unusual for me. I said, ‘What is this?’ I am opposed to anyone in the music business forcing me to wedge an artist into a genre, but this was defying a genre. And that, I think, blew my mind first.”
The group has a hard time defining their sound, themselves—“High-energy alternative rock with reggae and hip-hop influences,” Ms. Caravella says—and avoids labeling themselves at all costs. Each musician is self-taught, they said, and their friendship runs deep. For Mr. Quinn and Mr. Loetscher, it dates back their diaper-wearing days.
“There’s actually pictures of me and him nude,” the 26-year-old drummer said over a glass of red wine at his home, now in Westhampton Beach.
“They’re recent,” Mr. Quinn, 25, deadpanned, pouring another glass.
Ms. Caravella, also 26, rolled her eyes. “This is what happens when we get bored,” she said, otherwise unfazed.
The singer-rapper was immediately one of the guys, she said. But four months after their first jam, they broke up. Her two friends moved away—Mr. Loetscher to Ohio and Mr. Quinn to California—and she was left in Hampton Bays alone.
When the young men returned to the East End nearly three years later, within a week of each other, coincidentally, they reunited with their old friend. Except by then she went by the name “T.Kissy.”
“She started rapping when we left,” Mr. Loetscher said.
“I had to do something with myself,” she said. “My entire band left!”
At the end of 2011, they sat down and wrote a few songs, just to see if the chemistry was still alive. It was.
And just like that, the band was back together.
“We’re like a little musical family,” Ms. Caravella said.
“We’re excited to get into a van with no AC and drive the northeast on tour and sleep in shady places and take showers at truck stops,” Mr. Quinn said. “Which I heard are fantastic.”
“I’d rather be stuck in a van with them than anyone else,” she said. “Growing up, I always wanted to do it, live this life. But it didn’t seem like a realistic thing.
While talks of a tour—possibly Europe next year—are on the table, an album needs to drop first, Ms. Daniels explained. This week, the producer released two singles, “Phoenix” and “Lost in the Sauce,” that were written collaboratively on issues close to the band’s vest: rebirth and drug addiction, respectively.
“We like to play real music. And reality,” Mr. Loetscher said. “It’s tough, the world we live in. And, with Tris’s lyrics especially, we like to put it out there. Music is changing and it’s just going to continue to change. We want that human element to still be in there. We want to give you goosebumps. We want to give you that feeling that we had growing up.”
“It makes you feel better,” Ms. Caravella added of writing and performing. “It’s the way we vent.”
“I guess it’s not a hobby for us,” Mr. Loetscher said. “It’s a passion. That’s what it is. It’s a form of release.”
“Close second to sex,” Mr. Quinn mused.
“Oh my goodness,” Ms. Caravella laughed. “Well, I’m just as bad as they are. If not worse.”
Between three days of practice per week—at all hours of the night—to bringing that music and their gyrating hips to stages across Long Island and beyond, the band spends the vast majority of its time together, further compounded by sessions with Ms. Daniels.
Sitting modestly, but ever-present, in her studio is one of her two Grammy Awards, won in 2002 for her work on the cast album of “The Producers.”
“She put one of our Dune Local stickers on it, right in the mouth of the horn,” Ms. Caravella said. “I kinda freaked out.”
“I refuse to touch that thing,” Mr. Quinn said.
“He thinks it’s bad luck,” the vocalist said.
“Until I win one myself, I won’t touch one. Ever,” the guitarist said. “I’m hoping I get to touch one.”
Mr. Loetscher tipped his wine glass to Mr. Quinn, took a sip of wine and smirked. So does he.
For more information on Dune Local, visit reverbnation.com/dunelocal.
on Nov 11, 2013