At the time of this late-2009 Lake Fever Session recording, Destry was - and still is, essentially - a baby band, but one built on a lot of years of individual/collective touring experiences. Singer Michelle DaRosa and bassist Shaun Cooper played together for half a dozen years or so in Straylight Run, whose roots grew out of Cooper's then-former/now-current band Taking Back Sunday; Taking Back Sunday toured in its earliest years with Destry guitarist/singer Tyler Odom's former band, Northstar. Odom and drummer Nicole Childrey played together with a band called Cassino, who'd toured with Straylight Run. Point being: Those old connections grew into something new with Destry, and that's particularly true when it comes to the sounds.

Much of the members' early music rooted somewhere in the post-hardcore scene, somewhere generally energetic and adrenalized, but Destry explored and explores a different collection of inclinations - pastoral folk and Americana leanings, an appreciation for the pomp and brightness of Broadway musicals, the warm, scuffed edges of '60s pop. That all showed up on Destry's debut LP, It Goes On, and one of the tours behind that album brought the band to Lake Fever to play a few of its songs. (Cooper is missing here - Dropkick Murphys multi-instrumentalist Jeff DaRosa takes his place on bass.)

Since this recording, Destry has retooled as a duo with DaRosa and Odom, and they're about to wrap up a second album that expands on the Everly Brothers harmonies and sunny, throwback-rock moods they started working up live while they toured behind It Goes On. This Lake Fever Session is a time-capsule capture of their early steps, on the way toward the recorded statement they're about to release.