NEWS & INSPIRATION

~Storm Watch~

San Diego blues rock duo little hurricane will blow you away.

Story:  Jonathan Dale

Images:  Rebecca Wilson

The second thing you notice about little hurricane, the gritty blues-rock duo from San Diego who has hit the radar of music fans and critics alike in the last two years, is that their drummer sure seems to smile a lot. The first thing you notice is that 28-year-old Celeste “CC” Spina may be the most gorgeous woman you’ve ever seen sit down behind a drum kit. But when the kick drum hits and 30-year-old Anthony “Tone” Catalano’s growling guitar and commanding vocals begin to roil, it becomes clear immediately that this is no novelty act. This is the kind of dirty, earnest music that fans have been jonesing for since that “other” duo left the scene.

With a female drummer and wildly talented guitarist, singer, and keyboardist fronting the band that joined forces in 2010, comparisons to Detroit’s White Stripes are inevitable. Not that the band particularly cares. “Every band gets compared to another band at some point. We feel lucky to be classified with such great bands [as The White Stripes and The Kills]; the people it really seems to offend most are our fans, but we aren’t bothered by it,” says Catalano.

But if snarling tracks like “Lies” and “Give ’Em Hell” capture the grit and grime of The White Stripes’ Detroit, little hurricane differentiates itself with jaunty, laid-back tracks like “Haunted Heart” and “Get By” off their just-released album homewrecker, which seem more inspired by warm, wistful days at the beach.

“Just the vibe alone in San Diego, with the ocean, beaches and mountains, inspires creativity,” says Spina about the influence of their hometown on their sound. “The music community was very supportive and welcoming for a new band, which I’m sure can be difficult in some cities.”

That support was readily apparent when the band was named Best New Artist at the 2010 San Diego Music Awards less than a year after Catalano answered Spina’s Craigslist ad looking for like-minded musicians to make music with. But their immediate success belied the band’s humble aspirations. “I was hoping to join forces with someone to start creating music,” says Spina. “I really didn’t realize what it meant to be a full-time musician, I just wanted to see what it was like and see if I could do it.”

Having given up their days jobs—Spina is a former bartender at True North in North Park, and Catalano had previously been a sound engineer at Carlsbad’s Le Mobile studio—it’s clear that little hurricane can do the full-time band thing just fine. With Rolling Stone following them around at this year’s South by Southwest music festival and declaring them a band “set to break out,” 2012 is looking to be big year for little hurricane.

In fact, little hurricane have already traded in their SUV and trailer for an RV—a Vista Cruiser dubbed “The Land Yacht”—that allows them to hit the road now in relative luxury. Another change will see the band picking up the pace a bit after 2010’s “Slow Tour” ran into some unexpected snags with local promoter booking conflicts. “Yes, we didn’t really consider all the aspects [of hanging around the same town for days or weeks] but it was still very productive—we finished our recordings, wrote new songs and made a music video all while on the Slow Tour. As we’ve been touring more, it’s always a goal of ours to soak up local culture, although it’s difficult sometimes.

little hurricane is currently soaking in its own native culture with a series of Southern California gigs, and horizon lines are open for visits around the country. For an outfit surrounded by such a growing buzz, Spina and Catalano still have refreshingly modest ideas about what success would look like. “We would love to tour as much as we can, and we are hoping to release another album by the end of the year,” says Catalano. “Success is still loving what you are doing, and making enough money to get by from it.”

 littlehurricanemusic.com

Little Hurricane