Desert Rose Band reunites at the Ellen

The bedazzled jackets and western-style shirts worn by members of the Desert Rose Band in their heyday almost 20 years ago are staying in the closets, but the music hasn't changed.

"I couldn't fit into mine," songwriter, mandolin player and vocalist Chris Hillman said of his jacket.

While the clothes may be relegated to a shelf, the band's classic country rock sound retains its appeal and is the basis for a reunion tour that will end at the Ellen Theatre in Bozeman on Sept. 6.

According to the reunion announcement, "all the original members will be taking the road on this reunion tour, including vocalist/banjoist/guitarist Herb Pedersen, guitarist John Jorgensen, pedal steel guitarist Jay Dee Maness, bassist Bill Bryson and drummer, Steve Duncan."

Ellen Theatre director John Ludin calls Jorgenson a pal, and was thrilled when he offered to bring the reunion tour to Bozeman.

"We're tickled pink," he said.

Hillman, who was a founding member of the Byrds and the Flying Burrito Brothers, is a key figure in the formation of the country rock sound, a term he has come to like over the years. The country rock label was "a label that some journalist slapped on."

"All we did was take different material and sort of put a little more back beat to it," he said.

While Hillman maintains that the emergence of country rock was organic to the writing process and the music itself, others see a different picture.

"He created a sound that didn't exist," Ludin said. "When you think about that it's phenomenal. It's really different, new and wonderful."

The Desert Rose band released five studio albums and two compilations between 1987 and 1993. They won three Academy of Country Music Awards and have received several Country Music Association and Grammy nominations.

Now, the Desert Rose Band performs because they love to, and want to share the experience with their fans.

"It's purely ... a labor of love," Hillman said. "We're not reforming. We're not starting a career up again. We're not out looking for a record deal. This is purely for the love of the music and the camaraderie we share."

For Hillman, the Desert Rose Band was the one band he was in that parted company amicably.

"I had great times in every group I was in... but most of them did just crumble, they would just fall apart in a hail of chaos," he said.

This is a natural progression of the creative process, Hillman explained.

"You have five people in a musical group and everybody's holding a paintbrush, their individual paintbrush and they're all trying to do the Mona Lisa smile together," he said.

The band has added a couple of songs they didn't play in the 90s, but is planning on sticking to the hits that made them popular the first time.

"If we were doing something radically new and different then we would be on a path of career resurgence, but we're not."

While the Wikipedia page says the reunion concert album is in the works, Hillman says he's not sure what other band members are working on, but is open to possibilities.

Still, he calls the band "seasoned" and said they sound better than ever. The Desert Rose Band is still playing their old songs in their original arrangements, but with a sense of "reckless abandon."

"I think we're playing them with a little more freedom," he said. "We're not under any pressure to deliver them to a radio station or a record company."

One song people may expect to hear is, appropriately, "Love Reunited." Hillman has been doing the song consistently in the last 20 years.

"It touches on the power of a good relationship and you shouldn't just toss it into the wind when there's problems," said Hillman, who believes his wife of 31 years should be up for sainthood for putting up with him.

"The one thing I consciously tried to do was inject a positive angle into the tunes," Hillman said. "Here we were a country band and we avoided the pitfalls of ‘I'm in the barroom, I'm drinking and everything's horrible. I'm going to go to prison...'"

At, 65 Hillman said he is semi-retired, but enjoys touring in small weeklong stints, much like other members of the Desert Rose Band.

"We all have something else we do," Hillman said. "Everybody has other projects that they're involved in."

Jorgenson is a working guitarist, for example. Hillman and Peterson perform as a duet and have a live acoustic country album coming out later this month.

Bozeman will be last show in this stage of the reunion tour and the future is wide open.

"I couldn't say, well, are we going to do this in a year or two? I don't know," Hillman said. "Maybe we will, maybe we won't. But we're having a great time."

- Rachel Hergett -