Shoegaze? Dream Pop? Indie Rock? Call the Music of From Indian Lakes Whatever You Want

Shoegaze is having a moment.

At least it seems like it. A few years ago, a band that preferred washed-out, distorted guitars and soft-loud vocals would categorically be called indie rock or dream pop by the music press. Now that same type of music is being labeled shoegaze, a trendy catch-all term for pedal-loving alt-rockers taken from a long-established subgenre that originated in the 1990s.

Joey Vannucchi, the main man behind From Indian Lakes, has been around long enough to watch his music jump genres, from indie rock to dream pop to shoegaze. To be fair, all those tags describe very similar musical textures and sounds, so trying to sift every alternative-leaning group out there would be an exercise in insanity.

As it pertains to From Indian Lakes, the truth is that Vannucchi and his rotating lineup of touring musicians have always conjured up a little bit of all three of those sonics since the project started in 2009.

On its new album, Head Void, which was released independently under the Little Shuteye name in May, From Indian Lakes leans into shoegaze the most on the lead single, “The Flow.”

“But I wouldn’t call the new album a shoegaze album,” Vannucchi notes. “You can cherry-pick all the albums for that. Before the last album, people were saying it was like dream-pop songs. Now they’re calling those same songs shoegaze songs.”

He’s noticed the shift in terminology, sure, but he’s not too worried about what subgenre people consider From Indian Lakes, whose name references the location of the first studio Vannucchi began recording music at, in Indian Lakes Estates, California.
“People have always cherry-picked some of our songs to be shoegaze-y over the years, but now shoegaze has transformed into any rock band with the kids on TikTok,” Vannucchi adds. “‘The Flow’ ended up being this actual, straightforward, shoegaze, Deftones-style of song, which is kind of funny.”

If anything, it gives the group a little more street cred with the younger crowd.

“It’s interesting. A few tours ago is when we started noticing a young person would be like, ‘Oh, you’re all wearing Carhartt pants.’ You’re like, ‘We actually work in these.’ Now you’re suddenly self-conscious about something, but we legitimately come from small-mountain-town work,” he says.

“The shoegaze thing is similar. I remember being on tour for the album Absent Sounds (2014), and I would be asked in interviews who my favorite band was, and I'd always say Deftones," Vannucchi continues. "They thought that was so ridiculous because of the indie-rock thing at the time. Now Deftones has sort of moved into this Radiohead and Beatles space, where it’s a given that every young person who likes rock music, they have to like Deftones.”

So it’s safe to say that if you’re into Deftones and shoegaze, you should check out From Indian Lakes at Globe Hall on Friday, June 21. Dirt Buyer and Viewfinder are also on the bill.

Growing up on a forty-acre patch of off-the-grid property in northern California near Yosemite National Park, Vannucchi didn’t have the luxury of electricity. Instead, he found solace in playing the drums and falling asleep to his CD player spinning either the Deftones' White Pony or Incubus's A Crow Left of the Murder. After spending nearly a decade living in New York City, Vannucchi recently moved back to the less-populated part of California of his youth, which helped shape Head Void, he explains.

“I hadn’t had room to be loud for a while — my own space, that is,” Vannucchi says, adding that he finally built a home studio to work out of.

“Everything just came to a head with my engineering skills and producing skills and collection of equipment, opening new sessions and testing things out and those turning into new songs,” he continues. “More than usual, it very quickly turned into more and more songs that were going to be an album that I was pretty excited about. Then I think that just being in the new space and being in the mood to be loud and make loud rock music, it all worked together.”

The ten songs on Head Void showcase Vannucchi and From Indian Lakes doing what they’ve come to do best. “Water” and “Holy” started as the same song, but ended up taking different paths, with “Water” becoming the shorter album opener and “Holy” maintaining its lo-fi indie edge. “The Lines” and “The Wilderness” are two standout tracks that have been fan favorites so far, too.

“Usually, [with] each album, I’m not sure how people are going to take it,” Vannucchi admits. “This was like a few songs in, the first-time feeling of being like, ‘Oh, yeah, this is going to hit,’ which is cool and different.”

Paired with his mellower solo work under the title Joe Vann and his new post in the heavier Hard Chiller alongside Steve Choi of Rx Bandits, Vannucchi just likes to keep “throwing people curveballs” when it comes to his music, especially with From Indian Lakes.

“We’ve been touring full-time since I was a teenager. We started in the house shows and the basements,” he says. “Now the record came out, and you can kind of feel it hit.”

From Indian Lakes, 7 p.m. Friday, June 21, Globe Hall, 4483 Logan Street. Tickets are $20.