The Paladins

Name: The Paladins
Start: 2025-05-10T20:00:00-07:00
Location: 2501 Kettner Blvd San Diego CA 92101

Schedule

Sat, 10 May, 2025 at 08:00 pm

UTC-07:00

Location

2501 Kettner Blvd San Diego CA 92101 | San Diego, CA

The Paladins from San Diego California are the preeminent blues/rockabilly band in
America. Founded in 1980 by guitarist Dave Gonzalez and bass player Thomas
Yearsley, they have recorded five singles, nine full Length studio records, and three live
albums. Along the way they built a solid reputation as one of America's hardest working
and best live bands.

The Paladins helped pave the way for the Rockabilly craze of the early 1980s. Their
tagline at the time was "Western & Bop", as they played a combination of rockabilly and
vintage country together with a blues groove. Their first LP, The Paladins, was released
in 1986 and was produced by Kim Wilson of the Fabulous Thunderbirds. They followed
that up with Years Since Yesterday, released on Alligator Records in 1989 and
produced by Los Lobos' Steve Berlin and Mark Linnet. When Let’s Buzz came out in
1990 the band was firmly planted as a headliners in showcase music clubs across the
country and in Europe. The band also established themselves at numerous festivals,
sharing bills with the likes of Stevie Ray Vaughn, The Fabulous Thunderbirds, The
Blasters, and Los Lobos. Let's Buzz, “an invigorating blend of rockabilly, blues, rhythm-
and-blues, and country," was recorded in the Los Angeles studio of 1970s soul star
Leon Haywood, and is their largest selling record to date. Since that time six more
critically acclaimed albums have come out. Most notably, their 1996 live album Million
Mile Club, which fittingly marked the band’s millionth mile traveled on the roads of the
USA

To their many fans worldwide, the Paladins appeared to have come to an end in 2004.
That's when Gonzalez wanted to focus on other musical interests and he formed the
western-soul band the Hacienda Brothers. During this time Dave Gonzalez liked to
refer to the Paladins status as being “on hiatus.” Sadly, the untimely death of Hacienda
Brothers band mate and longtime friend, Chris Gaffney in 2008, ended the Hacienda
Brothers, which had released four albums. Then in 2010 the Paladins Reunited for a
festival in Europe, which led to even more dates there in 2011. Also that year the band
performed their first US date in seven years at the Ink and Iron Festival in Long Beach
California. The next year they appeared at the 2012 Doheny Blues Festival and
every year since, they have been headlining select European and US reunion shows.
Dave Gonzalez has been living in Austin Texas for the past fifteen years where he stays
busy, not only performing, but also recording bands and producing records. Thomas
Yearsley has done the same by running Thunderbird Analog Recording Studio and LUX
Records in California. In between all of that Dave, Tom and drummer Brian Fahey have
also gotten together to release their latest record titled New World, which was their first
album in over 14 years. It’s a diverse collection of smoldering blues and roots rock, with
a little honkytonk thrown in. The Paladins are also reissued their first album originally
released in 1986. This self-titled record became an instant classic and opened the eyes
of the world to this amazing new rockabilly and blues sound that was coming out of
Southern California. And that sound from the Paladins is stronger than ever, with their
non-stop intensity and fine musicianship, which is only gotten better with age.