“I put in a dollar and got one song,” says Space Nature singer Matt Meyers. It’s summer 2010, and both the Hank Williams and Cramps tracks skip on the jukebox, so “The Wizard” by Black Sabbath plays as Meyers, guitarist Tyler Daughn, bassist Tommy Pockets, talk over a pitcher of beer a table away from a women’s roller-derby team.
“I’m, like, really bad at instruments,” Meyers continues. “I started singing because that’s all I can do. Pump people up and piss people off or whatever it is I do.”
Friends since high school in Bonita, the three lived for a stint as the “token white kids” in Sherman Heights before moving into a two-story former clean-and-sober house in Golden Hill with Coronado natives Taylor Charter and Zack Oakley.
“Everyone works together, lives together, plays music together,” says Pockets, who works at a downtown deli with Meyers.
Charter is the main songwriter of the group, though Meyers contributes his share of improvised reverb-laden lyrics about “bats and blood and shit.”
“I don’t know if we’re necessarily going for anything,” says Meyers of their psychedelic surf-rock sound, citing influence from the Stooges, the Misfits, Peter Tosh, and King Khan and the Shrines. “It’s a bunch of weird shit...but in the end we’re just having fun.”
“We’re just rocking for no reason,” says Daughn.
Space Nature got their start at Tin Can Ale House and went on to play a handful of house shows, Soda Bar, Beauty Bar, Queen Bee’s, and recently 710 Beach Club. The band recorded an album at Stereo Disguise Recording Laboratory with Keith Milgaten (Jamuel Saxon).
Zack Oakley went on to play with Joy and Volcano, among others. His debut solo album Badlands dropped September 2021 via his own Kommune Records label, preceded by singles for “Fever” and “Acid Rain,” as well as a cover of Alice Cooper’s “Long Way to Go.”