After a four-year respite from playing music, the Jade Shader vocalist Terrin Durfey missed the music he used to play with his Leucadia-based band, Boilermaker.
"I regret that as lost time," said Durfey, who spent the years recovering from skin cancer and working at a San Diego-based film company. The Jade Shader started in 2003, featuring Chris Prescott (of Tanner and No Knife), Gabe Feenberg, and Matt Lynott. Each member of the band had been involved in the San Diego music scene for years.
Durfey said things had changed since the Drive Like Jehu/Heavy Vegetable/Three Mile Pilot days of the mid- to late '90s. He noted "the lack of the community [in the scene]. I don't want to name names, but we played a show with a band, we're all from San Diego and were friends with a few of the guys in the band. On their dressing-room door, they put this big sign that said 'Our band members and crew only.' It was just a weird feeling. They were people that we knew and were friends with. There was no camaraderie."
2008 found Terrin Durfey battling melanoma. He passed away on October 28. He was survived by his wife, pianist Adrienne, and son Dakota, for whom all proceeds will go toward college.
The Jade Shader’s final album Sea Stacks and Sleestacks wasn't released until July 2017, thanks to the Joyful Noise label. Produced by multi-instrumentalist Chris Prescott (Montalban Quintet, Pinback), local musician Rob Crow (Goblin Cock, etc.) offered to curate the release and sings on the record, as does former Shader tour mate Allen Epley (Shiner, Life and Times). Durfey's widow Adrienne plays piano on one track.
“To have this record completed is a bit of closure for fans,” producer Prescott told the Reader. “Terrin was a hero for a lot of people in North County. I meet people all the time. Boilermaker was a big deal for them. When he passed, it affected a lot of this community.”