Full-on guitar-driven

“The Kraken is a wonderful, sweaty, worn-out, smelly, old-school surf bar just north of Solana Beach.” Guitarist Joey Harris grew up in Coronado. One of his first bands was called Fingers. They started that band while still in high school. “We were no-goodnicks waiting for something to happen.” He laughs. Later, Harris would find fame as a member of the Beat Farmers.

“You know Wong’s Dragon Room has been there for 50 years? That’s a bar,” Harris says, “attached to a restaurant. No foo-foo drinks. The bands that play there are full-on guitar-driven bands, like The Mentals,” he says of his current band. “In the ’70s Wong’s had some of the very first punk shows. It’s funny, the place is still owned by the same old Chinese couple.”

Harris likes the Whistle Stop in South Park, too.

“Recording? I’m not doing too much of that right now, but when I start back up I’m gonna record one song at a time in different studios and release one single at a time, and I’m gonna start recording with Thomas Yearsley at his new Thunderbird Analog Studio [1715 S Freeman Street] in Oceanside.” We agree that Paladins bassist Yearsley, and his recording studio is about as close to Nashville as you get here on the West Coast. Harris favors a restaurant called Tiramisu Trattoria in La Mesa Village, or Banbu Sushi near Grossmont Center.

These days, Harris describes himself as a homebody. “I fix things, and I garden. I’m so inspired by my 14-year-old son.