The Mystery Lights will take you back into the 60s 

Courtesy of Daptone Records

The Mystery Lights have a sound that literally will take their listeners back to the 60s with songs It`s Alright, Follow Me Home and What Happens When You Turn the Devil Down. They combine elements from Psychedelic Rock, Garage Rock to 60s Oriented Rock. 

Whenever the band performs, the lead singer Mike Brandon, moves around a lot and even does a little jump while playing a Gibson ES-335. In their song Follow Me Home, the music video, it gives homage to the hippie scene that emerged in the 60s. 

“I love that approach, the old 60s style. I think that’s when people took music real serious, especially with songwriting,” Brandon said. “It’s very like writing actual songs with choruses and thinking about the guitar tones and I know you were working with really very minimalistic equipment and minimal miking and just capturing the energy. But I love the 60s approach, so that’s what the mystery I try to do. Keep that approach.” 

The band formed in Salinas, CA when Brandon was a teenager with his other friends Luis Solano and Joe Delamora, who is no longer in the band after he decided to pursue a career in the sheet metal industry. There was a small punk scene but Salinas did not have venues to perform. 

“But a couple of amazing bands growing up, a lot of power pop, a lot of punk bands like the Tartan Clan, Bands like Los Dry Heavers, Uzi Suicide, Luxury Suites, the Spurts, Last Chords, Wild Ones,” said Brandon.

Then they started playing shows across California but they stopped playing when Brandon moved to New York City. But Brandon convinced Solano to come out to NYC which he did quickly and the band was reunited with new members. 

In 2013, the band befriended the crew of Daptone Records resulting in their first release after they wanted the band to come out to have drinks and listen to some records. 

“We went back, listen to some garage, old garage rock, soul, psych. And they said,‘we’re going to start a subsidiary rock label and we would love for you to be the first release,” said Brandon. 

In their song Melt, it`s faster and heavier and it brings a mosh pit to shows when they perform this song. It`s like a combination of Garage Rock and Psychedelic Rock but it also gives some Punk vibes to it as well. Another song of theirs Mighty Fine & All Mine gives it more of the Punk vibes. 

Brandon wrote the song It`s Alright after having an anxiety attack and the thoughts of looking for love after drinking he will just figure it out. 

“We over catastrophize sometimes in the midst of anxieties. Then when we take our kind of zoom out or maybe get some sleep and have a coffee the next day, you think about it differently, shift your perspective,” said Brandon. “So it’s just about, you know, everything’s all right, even if it’s really bad. It’s just is what it is.”

In their song I`m So Tired (Of Living in the City), that song is about a love-hate relationship with New York City when he doesn`t lie how fast the city can be but how people end up coming back to it after they get bored. 

“I go home to California and Salinas and then everything closes at midnight. And [New York City] it’s like you could get a steak and a beer at 4 a.m,” Brandon said. “It’s just the grass is always greener.”

The Mystery Lights have toured globally with a few big shows in Primavera Sound, which is a festival in Barcelona, Spain and they did a festival in Beijing, China. Recently, on Feb. 13th, they performed a show in Montreal, Canada. 

“I think that might have been a moment where I’m like, whoa, it’s a festival. You know, crazy crowd,”said Brandon. “There’s like 200, 000 people in the fest.” 

But Brandon prefers a cozy crowd with approximately 300 to 500 people. On Jan. 4, The Mystery Lights had a show in The Lodge Room in Highland Park, in Northeast Los Angeles which Brandon thought was a perfect show. 

Currently the band has three full albums and they have a fourth album in the making. But Mike Brandon has a power pop record called Fast Kids Forever by his solo project Fast Kids released back in December 2025. 

In March, The Mystery Lights will be going to Europe and then to the United Kingdom in December.