Ex-Kyuss Frontman John Garcia Shuns Drama In His New Life As A Vet Tech

John Garcia's latest solo album, this time under the John Garcia & The Band Of Gold banner, had a difficult gestation. The singer-songwriter, who's fronted stoner-rock progenitors Kyuss and off-shoot Vista Chino, as well as Unida, Slo Burn and Hermano, has long emanated a laid-back demeanour cooler than the crowd at a Bondi café. But following this record's release, his frustrations were such that he floated the idea of not making many, if any, more albums to instead place greater emphasis on family and his work as a veterinary technician.

However, the LP did eventually facilitate a reunion with Kyuss producer Chris Goss. “The engineer and producer I went in with, I thought it was a shared vision and a shared passion, and it really wound up not to be. So I had to bail out of that situation. And I reached back out to Chris Goss, who's an old friend, and he helped save the record. It put a bad taste in my mouth, and it got a little ugly. But we fixed that.”

Since then, the vocalist has re-evaluated matters somewhat. “[When] I see drama coming, or I see things that are not going the way that I think they should go, and I've been doing this for 30 years, I turn the other direction and my life is much happier. It just so happens this one put a bad taste in my mouth, and I said some things that I probably shouldn't have said, which is, 'This is going to be the last record I'm gonna do, I'm just gonna hang it up.' I just still had that bad taste in my mouth... As long as I'm on this earth, I think I'm still gonna be doing, to an extent, some writing and releasing. We've already started writing the next record, so it's on its way.”

 “[When] I see drama coming... I turn the other direction and my life is much happier."

Garcia will return to Australia with The Band Of Gold in January and he promises plenty of material from the latest record, and a healthy serving of Kyuss tunes. Now self-managed, he's able to pick his spots, only touring when it fits around his main priorities of family and career.

The vocalist says the decision to look after his own affairs and focus on his solo project followed Vista Chino's last show in Perth several years ago. “I had what I needed – I had my record label, tour manager, publicist, and accountant. I didn't need anybody else, because it's such a small scale of things that I do. The team of people that I have, that's really all I need. If it ever gets out of control and I can't handle it and it's just too much on me where I spend too much time away from my family, or it just gets out of control, I will gladly pass it to somebody. But for the small scale, and for where I'm at in my career, it's been much easier for me to not give somebody 25%. I've just cut out the middle man and work with my key people, and I have a pretty good handle on it.”

Garcia stresses that he's still “genuinely passionate” about singing and performing, and enjoys, when able, temporarily stepping away from the “normalcy” of helping run a successful veterinary hospital in Palm Springs. “I can get a little bit of a break from that, and do some music, and my family really allows me to do this... But it has to make sense in every single way. I can't just get up and leave my family.

"I'm there for one reason and one reason only, and that's for me to get up and sing."

“So I'm conscious of that; I'm conscious of my son, my wife and my daughter, and their needs. So it has to be that way, it has to make sense in every single way for me to bail and be gone for ten days. I can't do six-month-long tours, it's just not feasible. I can't be away from the family that long. I want to be there for my family, it's something that is very important to me. I'm still lucky and blessed and leave, if only for ten days, and come down to Australia and do what we do for 90 minutes a night.

“I'm a singer – that's my job. So I let the record company do their thing, I let my publicist do her thing, I let my tour manager do his thing. I'm there for one reason and one reason only, and that's for me to get up and sing. So I concentrate on that stuff. I have a blast, and whether it's successful or not, I'm still gonna be doing it.”