The Essential Scat The Coyote Problem plays California rock. Drummer Danny Cress, bassist Billy Fritz and singer-songwriter/guitarist Peter Bolland form the core of The Coyote Problem. Blending together the grit of alt-country, the swing of swamp rock and the simplicity of singer-songwriter folk into Americana rock that one critic dubbed “California-cana”, The Coyote Problem make indigenous California rock. The new album California took the prize for Best Americana Album at the 2007 San Diego Music Awards. Their second album with award-winning producer Sven-Erik Seaholm at the helm, California shines with confidence, grace and grit. Ollie of the San Diego Reader says, “Plenty of bands have set a drum-brush beat and a mandolin background against a lonesome lead vocal, but few do it with the clear, ringing glow that The Coyote Problem achieves.” The band’s previous CD Wire, also produced by Sven-Erik Seaholm and also released on their own label Long Road Records, choked out the competition and earned the Best Americana Award at the 2005 San Diego Music Awards. Of Wire, the San Diego Troubadour says, “A master’s course in roots rock style…heartfelt songwriting expertise…the perfect soundtrack for a long lonely ride out to the desert.” Bolland’s solo CD Frame, released in December 2002, earned a Best Americana Album nomination in the 2003 San Diego Music Awards, as well as a rare and coveted four star rating in England’s most respected music magazine, Uncut. Other great reviews followed, as well as radio play on KPRI 102.1 FM, 91X FM and several television appearances on KNSD NBC 7/39 and the County Television Network. Demonstrating their eclectic appeal, The Coyote Problem has been tapped to open for acts as diverse as Son Volt, Los Lonely Boys, Blue Oyster Cult and Arlo Guthrie. The Band Like Allen Ginsberg and William Carlos Williams before him, Peter Bolland was born in West Paterson, New Jersey. The youngest of three boys born to Dutch immigrants, Bolland spent four years as an east coaster before his family moved to southern California. He grew up in Ventura, a sleepy beach town between LA and Santa Barbara. Growing up on the cosmic cowboy music of the Burrito Brothers, Neil Young, Emmylou Harris and Jackson Browne, Bolland learned a few chords and idled his youth away searching for the perfect wave and the perfect song. After spending a little too much time in college Bolland earned an MA in Philosophy and began teaching in San Diego where he settled with his wife Lori. And through all the years music was always present. Writing songs and playing in bands was just a way of life. California native Danny Cress plays drums like Ringo, Charlie Watts and Buddy Rich all rolled into one. His style is dead center in the heart of classic American roots rock, back when there was no difference between rock and jazz and country, it was all just music. His uncluttered, no-nonsense approach to drumming make him one of the most in-demand drummers in the San Diego scene. Bay area refugee Billy Fritz plays bass like it’s the only thing that matters.  But then again, that’s how he does everything.  Earnest, honest, solid as a rock, Billy brings the low-range hot caramel candy to The Coyote Problem sound.  Billy goes so deep inside a song he almost disappears, but you can still feel him in the soles of your shoes.  If simplicity were a religion, Billy’d be Pope.  They don’t teach this kind of clarity in music school.  You either get it or you don’t.  Billy gets it. California Rock California rock has a beautiful family tree. With roots deep in the Americana soil and branches eight miles high, California rock twangs, sizzles and glides into the twilight of its own dreamy hallucination like a hippie in a hammock in a Mill Valley A-frame. Is it country? Is it rock? Is it folk? Is it idealistic? Is it cynical? Is it depressing? Is it euphoric? Yes. Most famously practiced by Tom Petty, Neil Young, the Eagles and the Byrds, California rock has many disciples. With Gram Parsons as its dubious patron saint and early acolytes with names like the Flying Burrito Brothers, the Byrds, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Jackson Browne, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, New Riders of the Purple Sage and the Grateful Dead, California rock can be found wherever there is a bota bag, some Zig Zags, a swimming hole and a sunburn. When Jackson Browne wrote "Take It Easy" with Glen Frey of the Eagles, the Golden Seal was formed. A manifesto to mellowness, to going with the flow, to being here now, with an up-front beat driven by a banjo bullwhip and honeyed with sweet stoner harmonies, "Take It Easy" had it all: the desert heat, the sad freedom of the road, the uncertainty of love and the faith to let life be what it wanted to be. Simplicity is the essential element of California rock. Trusting that the mysterious center of things is best revealed by uncluttered music, direct lyrics and child-like honesty. Favoring clarity over cleverness, feel over fuss, bringing the beginner’s mind of Zen to the jaded world of rock and roll, California rock lets guitars be guitars, drums be drums and in the special ordinariness of this moment the grace of transcendence is found. It’s in the novels of John Steinbeck. It’s in Jack Kerouac’s Dharma Bums. It’s in the sound of the train from San Ysidro to Santa Barbara to Salinas. It’s in the cathedral rock of the high Sierras, the dust of Bakersfield and the surf at Rincon. It’s in the hills of Laurel Canyon, the streets of Hollywood and the sandstone of Joshua Tree. America is restless and kept moving west to escape itself. When it ran out of land it sat down on the beach and began to practice the long-lost ancient art of self-acceptance. Here in California peace is not just a political ideal, it’s a personal mission. Out of this simple hunger deep in the soul songs were born. Like the songs of The Coyote Problem.