Dean Fertita (Hello=Fire, The Waxwings, Brendan Benson)

About a decade ago, I became a fan of Dean Fertita's songwriting when he fronted the Detroit band, The Waxwings. I adored their blend of psychedelic pop, folk rock, and garage rock with their first release, Low To The Ground. The video clip below, Steady as Starlight, is from their last release, Let's Make Our Descent, which was produced by Brendan Benson (he also filled in as a band member when Dominic Romano left the band). Following the end of The Waxwings, Dean toured with Brendan Benson on solo tour dates and later with The Raconteurs. He also kept busy by touring with and becoming a member of Queens of the Stone Age and The Dead Weather. Between all these bands, he found the time to write and record songs for his new solo project called Hello=Fire. It became available in 2009 on Schnitzel Records and was finally released in the U.S. in late 2010. One of my favorite tracks from the Hello=Fire release is "Parallel". On this record, he enlisted contributions from Brendan Benson and fellow members of Queens of the Stone Age. The first video released as Hello=Fire, the gentler sounding "Nature of Our Minds" The brand new Hello=Fire video for "Certain Circles" has Dean a bit tied up at the moment :)