Jeremy Kay & Elemenopeas

The band’s journey began in the beer-soaked streets of Isla Vista, a feral college town north of Santa Barbara that helped fuel the region’s outsized cultural impact. Surfing, skateboarding, questionable behavior and music collided in the shadows and occasionally turned into something worthwhile. 

The worthwhile something, in this case, was a band named No One You Know, fronted by lead singer/songwriter Jeremy Kay. On the bass, Oakland-born, jazz-raised Dave Barber brought melodic gravitas and restraint. Never flashy, always intentional. Then the heartbeat: A.J. Palluck, a drummer who didn’t just fill space but shaped it. 

The songs were loose, curious and, from the outset, carried more weight than the frat houses and local dives could hold. The band would later become The Gathering, while continuing to fill rooms and draw industry attention. But, as is often the case in the music business, it didn’t last and they parted ways. 

Kay then focused on his solo career with a unique sound that floated in the blur between rock and soul, folk and pop. Familiar enough to trust, different enough to stay interesting. Raised between backcountry quiet and beach-town motion, Kay wrote songs that feel lived-in rather than performed. Laid-back grooves and sharp lyrical turns. 

His self-titled debut on Surfdog Records pulled all the threads together. Tracks like “Only One” and “Have it All” carried a sun-bleached Southern California ease, while deeper cuts leaned into soul, edge and restraint. The record racked up the streams and quietly made its way into TV soundtracks (Scrubs, The Real World, Buffy, Smallville), festival stages, movies and opening slots for rock headliners. Then, as it tends to do, life got in the way and Kay hit pause.

Decades later, Palluck, fresh off a tour with The Killers, and Barber, a renowned industry sound engineer with a jazz album of his own, found their way back to their former front man to form Jeremy Kay & Elemenopeas. The name may sound playful, but the music isn’t messing around. The seriousness is in the craft, not the posture. There’s history here. Miles logged. Together and apart. 

Call it a gathering, perhaps no one you know, or just three time-tested musicians with the right sound at the right moment.