Dear and the Headlights

Dear and the Headlights
Dear and the Headlights live in 2009
Background information
Origin	Phoenix, Arizona, U.S.
Genres	Indie rock
Years active	2005–2011
Labels	Equal Vision
Associated acts	Gospel Claws, The Through & Through Gospel Review, Samuel L Cool J, Party Gardens
Website	www.dearandtheheadlights.com
Past members	Ian Metzger Robert Cissel P.J. Waxman Patrick Taylor Mark Kulvinskas Joel Marquard Chuckie Duff

Dear and the Headlights was an American indie rock band from Phoenix, Arizona, formed in 2005 They released two widely known demos, recorded by future bassist Chuckie Duff, before their debut album was released. These demos included five songs re-recorded for the album. The most notable change to the songs upon re-recording was the drop from standard guitar tuning to E-flat standard tuning. Two songs heard on their purevolume.com page, recorded acoustic on a local radio show, also later appeared on Small Steps, Heavy Hooves. Small Steps, Heavy Hooves, the band's debut album, was released on February 6, 2007 on Equal Vision Records.

On July 20, 2011 the band posted a goodbye message on their site announcing that they had broken up.

Joel Marquard (guitarist and keyboardist) and Ian Metzger (lead vocals and acoustic) started playing together in roughly 2005. Marquard convinced Metzger that they needed to start a band, but Ian was reluctant due to a somewhat negative experience with the Christian band called Justifide he co-founded in 1999. He finally gave in and Marquard quickly found PJ Waxman, who initially, started out playing drums for the band until they realized what a talented guitar player he was.

PJ is also known for voicing the character of "Plucky", which is Ducky's little sister in the animated film "The Land Before Time", though it didn't make it into the film officially. Despite the film's success, PJ felt his calling was in music. Once PJ took the role of guitarist, DATH were still left without a drummer and bass player. They tried out several people but nothing worked. Joel received a phone call from an old friend and former band mate named Chuckie Duff who played bass and had recently bought some recording equipment that he wanted to try out. So that next day he came over and recorded three songs (Sweet Talk, Daysleeper, Run in the Front.) The songs were successful but Ian was burnt out on trying to find people for the band, and determined to move to California. Duff kept listening to the demo and fell more and more in love. He was determined to not let them give up. He called Marquard and offered to play bass and promised him they'd find a drummer. Ian decided to give it a shot. Duff was right and Marquard found drummer Mark Kulvinskas through an ad on Craigslist.

So Joel, PJ, Duff and Mark practiced the songs with Ian still in California, and got them down. Chuckie booked a show at Borders Bookstores and flew Ian down. He met the drummer, they practiced with Ian and played that night. Several more shows were played like this and Ian decided to move back. The decision was made to make an album famed Arizona record producer, songwriter of The Go Reflex and former keyboardist of The Ataris, Bob Hoag.