Rebirth of the band

Singer/Songwriter Randy Davis' band lousy little gods were a fixture in the Southern California music scene and opened for the Doobie Brothers, 38 Special and playing just about every venue in the region, but In the late 90's the band scattered across the country with bassist Greg Boyer heading back to Kansas, guitarist Rick Weller moving on to Utah, and drummer Jon Schwartz (on loan from Al Yankovic) returned to his duties with Weird Al and is still rocking with him today. About 3 years ago Randy, Greg and Rick reunited to do some long distance collaboration and after just a few months back at it, Rick tragically passed away. Rick was an amazing human being and complete guitar god, and the loss was devastating. Greg and Randy forged on with Randy writing and recording tracks and Greg adding additional performance tracks as well as producing. As things progressed, Randy decided it was time to put together a live act again, and as fate would have it he met former hard rock drummer Ken Kowalski, and the two put a slightly different twist on Randy's compositions, with Greg settled in Kansas, Randy and Ken began the search for a local bassist and auditioned Alt/Punk Bassist Darren Smith. The three formed the ingredients for an interesting recipe resulting in a new twist on the Americana genre and are playing a hybrid influence of rock, country, bluegrass, and blues that reaches all age groups and tastes. Randy’s lyrics are cathartic and relatable and coupled with his vocal delivery leaves the audience buzzing with a sense of both originality and familiarity.

Ken doesn’t just keep time, he sets and drives the mood and adds a real spark to the music by adding both classical country precision with power rock aggression and his dynamics are top notch.

Darren Smith keeps the low end interesting with influences ranging from James Jamerson and Carol Kaye to Paul Simonon and Mike Watt.

The band believes in the live groove and when you hear them on record it’s what you will hear when you see them play live, studio tricks excessive overdubs, effects and multiple layers are not in their vocabulary. The groove is tight, and for a 3 piece outfit the sound is big. The band has been hard at work crafting their sound for live shows that are the true nature of their essence. The boys are currently playing shows in the SoCal area, so become a follower of the lousy little gods, whose message is simple: “Music is Essential to Humanity”.

Origin of the name

The name “lousy little gods” originated one night back in the 90’s, when Randy, Greg and Rick were in the studio recording tracks. Greg told them about this movie he had seen called White Hunter Black Heart.

The movie is a 1990 American adventure drama film directed by and starring Clint Eastwood and based on the 1953 book of the same name by Peter Viertel. The film is a thinly disguised account of writer Viertel's experiences while working on the classic 1951 film The African Queen, which was shot on location in Africa at a time when location shoots outside of the United States for American films were very rare. The main character, brash director John Wilson, played by Eastwood, is based on real-life director John Huston. Jeff Fahey plays Pete Verrill, a character based on Viertel. George Dzundza's character is based on producer Sam Spiegel. Marisa Berenson's character Kay Gibson and Richard Vanstone's character Phil Duncan, are based on Katharine Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart, respectively.

Movie quote of director Wilson talking to screen writer Verrrill about change the ending of the film:

“You see, we're gods, Pete.

Lousy little gods who control the lives of the people we create.”

Randy heard the line from the movie and said, “now that’s a band name!” and so it stuck.

The name also speaks to how we think we are in control of everything in our lives and our own little worlds; when in reality, so much is out of our control. We tend to believe we create our own destiny, and make "our" plans for what "our" futures hold. With this controlling nature, we usually make a mess of things.

I guess we’re all…just…lousy little gods…

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