Die Like Bothans:
Out of the Wreckage, Into the Riff
The summer of 2020 was surreal for everyone. People were locked in their houses, going a little stir crazy, but holding onto some fragile hope for what life might look like on the other side. For four musicians from four bands — each on hiatus for one reason or another, COVID or plain old band drama — that strange, suspended time turned out to be exactly the opening they needed.
It didn't start with a manifesto. It started with a want ad, the kind of thing you'd almost miss: someone in the neighborhood looking to just jam and see what happens. A Facebook acquaintance who'd been circling the idea of working together for years finally made the call. And so Die Like Bothans was born — not from the ashes of something that came before, not from one guy's fever dream, but from a few people willing to reach out and make a connection in the most 2020 way imaginable: face masks, social distancing, and, of course, hand sanitizer.
That unlikely origin story is written into the band's DNA. DLB draws from classic rock, hard rock, grunge, and metal — not as pastiche, but as fluency. The result is music that feels both familiar and fresh, heavy and melodic, built on hook-filled grooves you'll be humming for weeks. Their set list runs the full spectrum: well-known covers, rarely-played cult favorites, and originals that hold their own in any company. These are the songs they've always wanted to play, and it shows.
Their recordings — raw, spacious, unapologetically human — sound like the aftermath of a storm channeled through amps and aching voices. "Happy Face" is a jagged, disarming track that lurches between restraint and rage, with a lyrical unease pulsing underneath like a warning you can't quite place. "Sirens Part 2" layers clean-toned introspection against tectonic shifts that recall the dynamic range of A Perfect Circle or Failure — songs that breathe slow, sharp breaths, making you lean in just before the sky cracks open. "Rest in Peace" delivers soaring vocal lines over instrumentation that never feels overworked. And "Oh Machine" dismantles modern disconnection without slipping into cliché — a protest song disguised as a broken hymn, one foot in the rubble, one eye on the horizon.
Die Like Bothans thrives on contrasts: melody and dissonance, beauty and abrasion, control and collapse. More than just a new act on the scene, they feel like the voice of a generation that never got closure — asking the questions everyone buried, and if the answers never come, making the silence sound spectacular anyway.
The band recently added a new drummer, a road-tested veteran whose career spans blues, funk, rock, country, and punk — from the Midwest to Denver and beyond. With him locked in, the rhythm section hits with a relentless groove that gives the whole enterprise another gear.
DLB is currently in the studio working on their next release. Keep your ears open!
Die Like Bothans is: Rich Guess- Drums • Eric Kitchens- Bass • Cruz- Guitar • Chris Wilkins- Guitar
everybody sings… including the audience.