20 December 15-21, 2022 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents Southern Hospitality Wayside Motel may be Dallas’ answer to Kings of Leon. by Scott tucker J ust over one year ago, musician Ca- leb Danielle had a vision. The 25-year-old singer-songwriter and Arkansas native had lived a hard life: sleeping in sheds, traveling around the country and busking for a living. Danielle’s journey, sometimes also shared with Brendon, his harmonica-play- ing younger brother, would take him as far north as Detroit and back through Arkansas to Arizona, where he found full-time work as a performing musician. Along the way, he met Dallas-based drummer Arturo Offutt-Garza while en route to San Antonio. In true Jack Kerouac fashion, the two friends hopped trains and played music for small crowds in whatever towns they found themselves. This friend- ship seven years later would lay the founda- tion for Dallas blues band Wayside Motel. “We met around Texas just traveling and hitchhiking,” Offutt-Garza says. “I just re- member Caleb playing all of these songs on the road, and it was amazing because he never wrote any of them down. That just blew my mind.” Eventually, the duo’s trains would travel in different directions, bringing Offutt-Garza to Dallas to study at the Media Tech Institute and Danielle to Flagstaff, Arizona. Although now employed as a working musician, he picked up some bad habits along the road that required him to spend several stints in rehab. “I was tired of breaking my own heart; I had two choices, either go to jail or go to re- hab,” Danielle says. “After I left Flagstaff a year later I wound up hiding out in the woods in Arkansas and spent five or six months out there before I got fed up. I called my friend and producer Hunter [Stafford], and he came and picked me up. Arturo and Hunter were friends, too, so Arturo let me crash with him and his girlfriend in Dallas, and that’s how the band really got started.” Now back in Dallas playing music again with Offutt-Garza, Danielle was joined by his brother Brendon three months later. Af- ter writing more material with his drummer and a few other musicians, Danielle was ready to start recording the music he’d been working on at Stafford Studios. As the recording process progressed and Wayside Motel started playing gigs around Dallas, the group picked up lead guitarist and fellow Media Tech employee Michael Mack. Mack was working at the studio when Offutt- Garza and Danielle approached him about sitting in on a recording session. “Caleb kept coming up to my desk at work and telling me ridiculous jokes, and I thought he was an interesting dude,” Mack says. “After hearing the music they were making, I definitely wanted to bring emo- tion out of the songs. I felt like they were missing another person, and knew I could be that person.” They also found classically trained jazz bassist Brendan Bogus of the bands The Black Water Hose, Full Stops and Natural Vibes to join the lineup. “What I heard before joining, I was never really super impressed with bassists follow- ing the guitar,” Bogus says. “I’m interested in crafting my own melody and rhythm. If you’re good at something and have a passion for it, you should push for that.” On Nov. 18, a four-song EP titled Eleven AM Checkout was released as Wayside Motel’s first offering. Under Stafford’s direction, the band crafted a sound that some have called grunge blues, while others have compared it to the likes of early Kings of Leon. Danielle’s voice has a crooning quality that relays raspy over- tones, channeling both the grit and delicacy of seminal grunge singers. Standout tracks in- clude “Love Again” and “Beg.” Through group collaboration and with the addition of Dani- elle’s brother on harmonica, Wayside Motel is just getting started. For Danielle, the excitement of sharing writing, recording and performing with family and friends is something for which he is grate- ful. Everything else besides playing music to him “is just merely waiting,” he says Blues-grunge band Wayside Motel came together after some tough travel. Jessica Waffles | B-SideS t Music WIN TICKETS TO SEE YOUR FAVORITE DALLAS SPORTS TEAMS GAME DAY GIVEAWAY D
