Delta Spirit perform “Bushwick Blues”

Delta Spirit performs "Bushwick Blues" live, recorded at the IFC Crossroads House in Austin.

Long Beach, California’s Delta Spirit has been on the road for the better part of the last two years, since their debut record, “Ode to Sunshine.” It’s enough to make me wear a hole in my Chucks just thinking about it. At least they’re wrapping the US tour this coming weekend with a show in Santa Barbara, and take a month off before going on to Europe.

Aly Comingore at the Santa Barbara Independent asked bassist Jon Jameson today about how all that touring affected the writing of their latest album, “History from Below”:

I think Matt [Vasquez] had been listening to murder ballads and decided he wanted to write one, but with his own kind of twist on it. In that way, there’s no correlation to touring, except that because of touring we have all this time to sit and really listen to music — and read a lot — because there’s really nothing else you can do when you’re stuck in a van for eight hours a day.

Aside from murder ballads, they also write laments like this song, “Bushwick Blues,” a sad ditty about love lost in Brooklyn.