Nathan Raney’s Season of Serenity

There are plenty of musical Nathans in San Diego — nearly four dozen of them show up in the Reader’s Local Music Database, including well-known talents such as Nathan Hubbard, Brown, Lewis, Williams, Jarrell, Welden, James, Mills, Robinson, Samuels, Manning, and Fox. Add to that list Nathan Raney, who has just released his sophomore full-length, Season of Serenity. “It’s another progressive rock album,” he says, “in the same vein as the first, with nine tracks in all.

“Season of Serenity was recorded before Covid, and actually had a release date in March of 2020, which never happened,” says the El Cajon resident, who studied at Grossmont College and has worked retail day jobs at businesses like Costco. “Our last show of 2020 was in January, right before the shutdown, as we were doing an album preview and music video which packed Navajo Live with a couple hundred people. Because this album was recorded for the fans. I announced at my first album release that all profit made from album one was going into album number two, and I did exactly that. The outpouring and packed venues and support, along with CD sales, pushed through to help finance Season of Serenity, and actually into album three.”

“The album itself pays tribute to songs I had written that never saw a recording studio, which I believed deserved to be recorded and released at one point. We began playing some of these songs in our regular set lists during the first year of the first album, and the fans really liked what we were doing. I took this to heart, headed into the studio, and delved into the material. Initially, this was supposed to only be a four-song release, a move forward to album three, but after the amount of fan support, I decided to push forward to a full-length album. Then Covid. Now, things are opening up and the opportunity has come to release this.” 

“Album three was more recording during Covid, and I won’t be releasing any of that for a while, as the band is still learning the material. As far as San Diego-centric material, all songs were written here and are about experiences here and influenced through hard times [here].”

Aside from gigging around town at Navajo Live and elsewhere, Raney was recently seen at his dad Jerry Raney’s side when the elder Raney took home a Lifetime Achievement trophy at the 2021 San Diego Music Awards. Jerry Raney first earned local notice with Thee Dark Ages (who frequently jammed with future famed rock critic Lester Bangs), and Blues Messenger, until forming Jerry Raney & the Shames with Gregg Willis and Jack Pinney, who’d played with the Palace Pages, later known as Iron Butterfly. Raney was also a member of the Beat Farmers (and its latter-day incarnation as the Farmers), as well as Roosters, Powerthud, Glory, and Thee Jesters, among many other groups.

Nathan Raney appeared on the October 14 episode of the Theory Thursday podcast with guitarist Mike Ruggirello, talking about guitars, amps, and theory, as well as jamming a few licks back and forth. He was also heard on a recent episode of Tim Pyles’ local music show on 91X, Loudspeaker, and the title track of Season of Serenity appears on the most recent edition of the local music compilation Staring at the Sun, released last month via local label BlindSpot. He'll perform with his band on November 28 at the Holding Company in OB.