Before Vinnie Guidera and the Dead Birds had an album to debut, they were simply three friends gathered in a backyard with some ice cold beers.

The members of the newly founded indie rock band — featuring Vinnie Guidera as lead singer and guitar player, former SCC student and Journalism major Ian McDonald on drums, and Kevin Hayes on bass — have been working on their firstborn album since 2012.

The debut of “Lows” was celebrated in late November with a release party featuring other local bands at Sacramento’s Starlite lounge.

During the process of making the album, the band did whatever they could to make the recording process flow smoothly — just like their beer.

“We have a routine when we practice,” said Guidera. “Everyone gets there, someone brings a six pack, we all crack open the first beer, and we run through some songs. We take a little break, open up the second beer and shoot the shit the backyard, and then go back in and be productive. If we’ve got a show coming up, we’ll practice that specific set, but that’s the fun part about being in band with three people — it’s easy to split a six pack.”

This ritual resulted in Hayes’ favorite saying: “There’s no pressure; we’re just hanging out drinking beer.”

“We’ve gotten a lot heavier over the last year. [The album] deals with grief, anxiety, depression and losing your footing.”

– Vinnie Guidera

Beer even helped them get their band name.

“We were practicing during the summer, and we got to a point where we were on a beer break, and it just smelled awful in my backyard. Like a dead animal,” Guidera said, “And we were looking around for what smelled so bad, and I saw something across the yard that sort of looked like a dead bird, and so was like, ‘maybe that’s it.’

“So we all walk over to it and are standing directly above it, and it is clearly not a dead bird, it’s a black plastic bag, but Ian confirmed it as a dead bird. He says, ‘Oh, yep, that’s a dead bird.’”

The trio continuously jokes about how it was McDonald’s dumbest moment ever.

“It’s pretty regrettable, so now the name of our band is a fucking inside joke!” McDonald said.

Regardless of the jokes, they stuck to the beer breaks and the name Vinnie Guidera and the Dead Birds. After finding a name that suited them, it was time to work on their sound.

In the earlier years, the trio all played for a heavier post-rock band called Running Riot. Guidera left Running Riot to do some solo work and later asked McDonald and Hayes to join him.

“We’ve gotten to a point where we all embrace our individual musical backgrounds rather than try to fit whatever mold aesthetic we were initially going for,” said Guidera. “Ian’s always been a punk drummer, and we’ve gotten to a point where that’s a kind of integral part of our show. Embracing the individual identities of each part of the whole is important.”

This past year for the band has been all about finding the group’s voice and making an album that they love, and they want their listeners to love it as well.
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“Essentially we’ve all been playing music together for a decade,” McDonald said, “and thinking, ‘Oh, that would be cool,’ for a decade. So there comes a point where you either have to do it or not. So we did it.”

The songs on the new album came from Guidera’s solo musical career and he rearranged the songs for a three-piece band, and the songs deal with processing low moments in life.

“We’ve gotten a lot heavier over the last year,” Guidera said. “[The album] deals with grief, anxiety, depression and losing your footing.”

Though the music and lyrics are heavy, VGDB continue to keep the environment around them as positive as they can.

“Regardless of how depressing and serious the content is, we have fun when we play,” Guidera said. “We don’t go out to a show and get pumped up by saying, ‘All right, let’s go out and sing these sad songs, let’s mope around for the next 45 minutes.’ We have a lot of fun on stage, and we don’t take the context seriously, but we also don’t take ourselves too seriously.”

“It’s catharsis for us in one way or another,” McDonald said. “If we’re feeling down or stressed out because of work or anything else in our lives, it’s sort of like in the same way of painting – it’s a kind of way to escape the exertion for a while and do your own thing.”

“It’s pretty regrettable, so now the name of our band is a fucking inside joke!”

– Ian McDonald

And like all great bands, VGDB played their first handfuls of gigs in bars and coffee shops. Nevertheless, they have nothing but fun stories and great memories from those days.

“Playing in coffee shops there’s a lot of blender noises playing,” Guidera said. “I’m trying to talk, and those fuckin’ blenders are going off, and it’s frustrating to be in a noisy room with people that aren’t paying attention.

“I don’t expect to go to a show and for it to be completely silent, but when you’re playing in a room and someone is sitting directly in front of you just screaming at their friend as if you’re not three feet away on the stage, and I’m like, ‘Yeah, this song is about my dead grandfather. It means a lot to me.’ It’s really frustrating.”

Though the band sometimes feels like background noise, VGDB still has a great time playing. Promoting themselves came easily thanks to Sacramento’s close knit music community.

“Even if we’re forever playing to 20 to 30 people and a blender in a coffee shop, [the shows are] a super fun thing to be a part of,” said Hayes.

Bars, coffee shops and lounges are just the starting points for VGDB. With the release of “Lows,” they plan to go on tour with their new record, which is on Coke-bottle clear, bluish vinyl and comes with a download code. And if you want to sing along, the CD contains an insert of the lyrics.

“One of our goals is to do a lot more out-of-town shows,” Hayes said. “We have Reno coming up hopefully soon, and the Pacific Northwest tour from Seattle to Portland hopefully in the next six months and then eventually getting down to west coast California. Who knows? We’ll see how people like this.”

With a tour in the works and newer arrangements of songs being reworked, the band continues to move forward.

“I think the evolution of the process and the evolution of the band starting from Vinnie’s solo songs to evolving that to a three-piece to evolving that into getting people to come to our shows and just seeing more people take interest in that,” Hayes said, “and then having a vinyl record that we’re like super proud of that we’re gonna sell to as many people as we can — is really exciting.”

Vinnie Guidera and the Dead Birds’ first album, “Lows,” is now available for purchase and download at vgdb.bandcamp.com.