Now you know: Ditches

“There’s a dude named Emilio, who’s an older barber guy, and he’s kind of the star of the video,” says Tim Donnelly of Encinitas trio Ditches. The music video for “Break-In” depicts a figure going about his day in a black ski mask while Emilio licks his lips repeatedly.

“We became friends with him, and now our practice space is in the back of his barber shop,” Donnelly says. “He’s a fucking legend. He’s right next to VG Donuts. I think I just saw him getting a donut one day and he just looked so sweet and handsome, I had to talk to him. I mean, the dude wears shades all the time. I walked by his spot and saw him serenading some dudes getting their hair cut with ballads on an acoustic guitar. He has a ton of records. We just became friends over music.”

“Break-In” comes from the four-song EP Scraped Off, which Ditches released last month. Following three years of songwriting and rotating lineups, Donnelly teamed up with Garrett Prange and David Mead of Deadphones about a year-and-a-half ago to self-record the band’s first proper release at a house in the desert outside of Joshua Tree.

“I’m from New York originally, and I moved here seven years ago,” says Donnelly, who now paints houses for a living. “I was just writing music by myself and playing house parties or whatever. I was listening to Pavement and Modest Mouse and poppier shit. When those guys joined the band I wanted to make it more inside music, like not really giving a shit if people like it but just getting a reaction. 'Visceral' is an overused word, but I wanted to write shit that was really intense to play and afterwards feel like we really did something. It’s just a way to get through the day and then get really exhausted. There’s something to be said for doing your work because nobody else is gonna do it, and at the end of the day you just feel good about it. That’s how we work.”

Dig Ditches on August 28 at a mini-fest in Moustache Bar in Tijuana and on September 4 at the Balboa in Bankers Hill.