Best of What's Next: Citay

Photos by Lydia Daniller

Hometown: *San Francisco
Album: Dream Get Together
Band Members: Marc Dantona (bass), Ezra Feinberg (vocals, guitar), Tahlia Harbour (vocals, keyboards, glockenspiel), Warren Huefel (drums), Meryl Press (vocals), Josh Pollock (guitar), Sean Smith (guitar)
For Fans Of: Pink Floyd, NEU!, The Allman Brothers Band

Six years ago, Ezra Feinberg moved from Brooklyn to San Francisco’s Excelsior District, Jerry Garcia’s old neighborhood. Perhaps that explains why, when he began Citay shortly thereafter as a studio project with producer Tim Green (of The Fucking Champs), he began turning out psychedelically ruminative guitar music, often with extended harmonized leads that would’ve made the Grateful Dead frontman proud.

But use the retro references sparingly—Feinberg can hardly stomach them. “I have no interest in making classic-rock redux—like, zero,” the 33-year-old frontman says. “That makes me nauseous. Literally.” Still, he gets nerdishly giddy discussing the evolution of the harmonized lead in rock music, from The Byrds to the Allman Brothers to early Metallica and what he calls its “most comfortable home” in various contemporary-metal subgenres.

With an academic’s awareness of influence, Feinberg notes that the classic-rock throwback elements of Citay’s sound belie a broader set of touchstones, from Journey and Tom Petty to Otis Redding and Stevie Wonder (all of whom pronounce city as “ci-tay,” he notes) to Krautrock acts like NEU! and Popol Vuh. “When I started Citay I found myself coming back to some of those classic-rock touchstones in ways that were really personal and different,” he says, “kinda cherry-picking what I most strongly related to.”

His band released its third album, Dream Get Together, in January. While lyrics were “more of an afterthought” on Citay’s first two albums (2007’s Little Kingdom and 2006’s self-titled debut), Dream contains some “bona-fide choruses” and songwriting in a more traditional pop vein. At just over four minutes, the title track is fairly lean for Citay; it’s the “closest thing to a pop song that I’ve ever written,” the frontman admits. Fans of the band’s earlier work will notice the move toward concision and narrative. “I feel like,” Feinberg says, “I’m opening the door a little wider with each album.”