The Damnwells Celebrate 20 Years of Air Stereo at the Lodge Room
The Damnwells — Lodge Room, Los Angeles — September 10, 2026
The Damnwells
Some records come and go. Others end up following you around for years. For a lot of Damnwells fans, Air Stereo is one of those records.
That was easy to see September 10 at the Lodge Room in Los Angeles, where The Damnwells played the first of only two shows scheduled for 2026 to celebrate the album’s 20th anniversary. This didn’t feel like a typical anniversary show. There wasn’t a lot of ceremony around it. The band didn’t come across like they were trying to recreate 2006 or make the night feel more important than it already was.
The Damnwells
Alex Dezen, David Chernis, Ted Hudson and Steven Terry were loose throughout the night. There was a relaxed feel to the whole performance, and that carried over into the crowd. At one point, Dezen started taking questions from the audience between songs, turning part of the show into something closer to a conversation. The Lodge Room is small enough that there really isn’t much distance between the stage and the audience anyway, and on this night that gap felt even smaller. People shouted questions. Dezen answered them. The band joked around. Nothing felt rehearsed.
The Damnwells
For a group that doesn’t play many shows anymore, it made the whole thing feel even more special. A lot of the people there had been waiting a long time for a night like this.
Before the show, Mina Snook told me she first heard The Damnwells when she was about 14 after one of their songs caught her attention in the Ryan Reynolds movie Chaos Theory. She liked the band so much that she remembered thinking they would someday be the band she shared with her future husband. That future husband ended up being Jeremy.
The Damnwells
The two have now been together for nearly 13 years, and The Damnwells have been part of their relationship from the beginning. Mina talked about listening to “Louisville” while driving along the Oregon coast and how hearing those songs now takes her right back to those moments. It wasn’t really about one lyric or one specific meaning. The songs had simply become attached to memories. That seemed to be the story for a lot of people in the room.
The Damnwells
Sam and John Schalberger had their own version of it.
Sam first heard The Damnwells on the radio when he was a teenager and told his dad about them. From there, the band became part of the family playlist. They went back through the older records, kept up with the newer material and followed Dezen’s work along the way.
John came down from Portland for the Lodge Room show. He and his wife had also traveled to New York for an earlier reunion performance, where they heard that a 20th anniversary celebration for Air Stereo might eventually happen. So when this show was announced, they were ready.
The Damnwells
That kind of devotion says a lot about The Damnwells.
They were never one of those bands that became unavoidable on radio or turned into a massive commercial act. But the people who connected with them really connected with them. And Air Stereo has a complicated story behind it.
The Damnwells came together in Brooklyn in the early 2000s and eventually signed with Epic Records. Their first album, Bastards of the Beat, gave the band some momentum, but things became much harder when they started working on the follow-up.
Air Stereo was recorded for Epic, but the relationship between the band and the label fell apart. The album went through delays and changes before The Damnwells were eventually dropped. It was later released in 2006 through Zoë/Rounder.
The Damnwells
That whole period became part of the documentary Golden Days, which followed the band through the frustration of trying to make and release music while dealing with the realities of a major label. Twenty years later, all of that feels pretty far away. What lasted were the songs.
The band opened the Lodge Room set with “Accidental Man,” then moved through “Kung Fu Grip Kiss,” “I’ve Got You” and “You Don’t Have to Like Me to Love Me (Tonight).” From there came “Louisville,” “Sell the Lie,” “Golden Days,” “Graceless,” “Heartbreaklist” and “Shiny Bruise.”
The Damnwells
Most of the night belonged to Air Stereo, which was exactly what the crowd had come to hear. The band also stepped outside the album for a few songs, including “Lost” and “I Will Keep the Bad Things From You.” “Keep a Little Organ” closed the main set before returning for “I Am a Leaver.” (The entire closing of the set and obligatory encore were orchestrated by Alex who provided the audience detailed instructions on how the encore would work)
The whole show ran about 80 minutes but it didn’t feel short. It felt complete, although with the Damnwells catalogue, fans in the room would have been happy if they played all night.
The Damnwells
There are bands that make an anniversary show feel like a production. The Damnwells made this one feel more like everybody had somehow ended up in the same room again after a long time apart.
Sam Schalberger told me part of what he loves about the band is the writing, the sound and the way the individual musicians come together. But he also talked about their history and what he sees as a story of sticking with it through difficult times.
People had traveled for this show. They had followed the band for years introducing the music to parents, spouses and kids. They had attached these songs to road trips, relationships and different parts of their lives.
The Damnwells
That is probably the real story of Air Stereo 20 years later. The record survived everything around it. The label problems are old news. Whatever expectations existed in 2006 don’t really matter anymore.
The songs are still here as are the people who love them.
And for one night in Los Angeles, The Damnwells got to stand in a small room with a lot of those people and play those songs again.
If you’re in the Tri-State area on October 9th, don’t miss out on spending the evening with Air Stero, The Damnwells, and the songs that have been with you thought the last 20 years.