Dylan Oldham - Lead Guitar

Recent transplant from NYC who has been playing and teaching music for nearly two decades. Loves all things rock and jazz, but mellow surf music has been an influence on him since he was young and growing up in the heart of surf music country, Southern California  

Christopher Marshall - bass

curt pleiss - drums and recording engineer

The youngest of the group, a Tucson local, and a chemist by trade. Chris first learned to play the electric bass, but he also loves to play guitar and piano and enjoys playing rock, blues, and singer songwriter type music. Now he has taken on the role of being a surf bassist.

Recent transplant from Denver with a wealth of experience in many different genres. He’s previously only dabbled in surf music, but is diving in head first on this project. Curt also has a small recording studio called Ocotillo Audio where he does drum tracking and mixing for remote clients, and where Desert Undertones does all its recording.  

Desert Undertones is an instrumental surf rock band from Tucson, AZ. The band incorporates the classic 60’s vibe of artists like The Ventures and Dick Dale as well as many of the 2nd and 3rd wave bands such as Jon & the Nightriders, Insect Surfers and Los Straitjackets. There is also a western influence hearkening back to spaghetti western film soundtracks. The seeds of the band were planted in 2005 when guitarist Dylan Oldham was at Musicians Institute in Los Angeles. He and guitarist Gustav Wilhelmsson (of Riptide Rats) formed a project playing surf music around LA. After music school, Dylan headed to New York and put surf music on pause. He relocated to Tucson, AZ in 2020, and began assembling a surf band. Things finally came together in early 2023 with bassist Christopher Marshall, who had been part of an early iteration of the band, and drummer Curt Pleiss, who had recently relocated to Tucson from Denver, CO. Curt also brought recording and mixing skills to the table which enabled the band to self-produce their own music. With the lineup solidified, the band quickly put together a collection of surf covers and started playing a few small shows around Tucson. They found an enthusiastic core audience for surf music and began writing new original material. The first EP “Paniolo” was released in December 2023. They released several singles throughout 2024 culminating with a full length album “The Sentinel” in December 2024.