In early January, former Sugarcult guitarist and self-described pack-rat Marko DeSantis filmed a Cameo video giving a mini-tour of his collection of his rock ‘n’ roll memorabilia, a collection so impressive and museum-like that he was in talks to have his own show or podcast about it tentatively titled “Marko’s Garage Sale.” But just 30 hours later, DeSantis’s Altadena home — a “monument” his “teenage dream that came true,” because he’d bought it with the money from his rock band’s major-label deal — burned down in the Eaton Fire, along with all of his irreplaceable archives.
But DeSantis’s cherished memories remain. And he is making new memories, as the music community rallies around him and his similarly affected peers: His old friends Green Day invited him to perform with them at a fire benefit, and he got to walk the Grammy Awards’ red carpet as an invited special guest. I was honored and thankful that amid all of this chaos, he took the time to speak with me about his experience, with such surprisingly unflappable optimism, for Musicians for Fire Relief, a March 6 livestream fundraiser benefiting the Sweet Relief Musicians Fund. Watch and read his inspiring conversation in the video above and Q&A below, and visit musiciansforfirerelief.com to rewatch the entire broadcast, donate, purchase merch, and learn about other ways you can help.
MUSICIANS FOR FIRE RELIEF: I’m here with the man, the myth, the legend, Mr. Marko DeSantis. It’s always lovely to chat with you, Marko. I do wish it was under less sad circumstances, though.
MARKO DESANTIS: Yeah, I know. It’s good to see you too. And I’m really appreciating your pink room there in your house! … When this happens to you, you start to really become attuned to houses. Like, when I see someone else’s living space, it makes me really nostalgic for ours that we unfortunately lost last month. But it also is in a way kind of soothing, because it’s like you miss your stuff, but when you see someone else’s stuff, you sort of get a contact high off of it.
I am so sorry that you lost your Altadena home in the Eaton Fire. I know you’ve been in L.A. a long time and have deep roots here.
I’ve been living in L.A. for a long time. I’m actually originally from Santa Barbara. But as a kid growing up, only 93 miles from L.A., when you have the stars in your eyes of just being addicted to rock ‘n’ roll, you quickly find out that there’s this place where it’s not only the sort of incubator for rock ‘n’ roll, and you’ve got the music industry here, but also we found out that there were all these little places where you could find the bands that would in a few years become the bands that everybody else in the mainstream would know about. So, we kind of almost made a sport out just coming down to L.A. all the time and sneaking into clubs and just checking it all out. And that was so inspiring to me. It really took the cape off the superhero and showed me that it was possible, rather than just something you could see on MTV and dream about. … When Sugarcult got a record deal in 2001, I quit my job. I was working part-time at a record store — that’s what a four-year degree from UCSB got me! But I did it on purpose. I basically just wanted to continue being a teenager. So, I filed for an extension on my teenage years and moved to L.A. in actually February of 2001. So, fucking 24 years ago. … I’ve pretty much tried to find a way to be a teenager my whole life. I’m not adult-averse, it’s just I try not to throw out the inner child with a bathwater.
I think that’s why despite all the horrific stuff that you have had to deal with in the past month or so, that you still are exuding so much positivity. But you did eventually grow up a little bit. You got married, you had a family, and you settled in Altadena, which I know is an amazing community that is rallying together now.
It’s an incredible place. … When Sugarcult really started to kind of take off, I bought this house. It was the first house I ever bought and we bought it in, gosh, 2006. We lived there for 18 years and we had a one-year-old when we moved into that house and had another kid a couple months later. And so, those kids just grew up in that house. For me, on an emotional level, it’s not just a house… as a kid who grew up in a relatively kind of laid-back town like Santa Barbara and then had this kind of absurd dream/ambition of being in a rock ‘n’ roll band and making a life of that. Most people grow out of that by the time they get to maybe age 17. For me, I just was stubbornly hanging onto it and kept on at it and it worked out for me and for a lot of my friends that we grew up together. … Moving to L.A. getting a record deal, going out and touring around the world and having songs on the radio, just basically living the dream. Being able to buy a house is such a weird thing; it’s something where you think, “If I buy a house, it means I have to quit music and go get a real job.” But to do it through rock ‘n’ roll is a real point of something to really feel proud of. And so that house was more than just a house; it was a monument to my sort of teenage dream that came true and the accomplishment of being able to have a band and get it off the ground and make it happen. … And then I was always the guy in every one of my bands, from when I was 14 and I had my first band, where I was probably a borderline pack-rat. I saved everything. I had archives.
You recently posted something on Instagram that was a sort of a guide to some of your memorabilia and things.. And you had filmed that right before the fires happened.
Yeah, so I’m on Cameo. And this guy just kind of ordered a Cameo from me and didn’t really give me much of a direction. So, I was like, “Well, I’m going to kind of let him into my world, as if he was at my house in my studio right now,” and I just kind of showed him some stuff. I kind of riffed on it for extra, much longer than I would normally do a Cameo for. … I was basically showing a bunch of the stuff in my office. I was like, “I’m going to use this as a show-and-tell.” And full disclosure now that it’s probably not going to happen, I had just met with a few people about this. I was trying to think of how can I do a show, like a YouTube show or a podcast that would not just be another random dude with a podcast… had this idea to basically do “Marko’s Garage Sale” or something like that… where I could turn it into a show where I’m just like, “Hey, this is the water bottle that I got when I went on tour with so-and-so “and explain the story behind it and then maybe put it on a companion website and auction it off maybe for charity.
It wasn’t just a museum of my stuff; it was also just I’m such a fan and so interested in all subsets of pop culture. Even in the ‘90s when I’d come down [to L.A.], I’d come down to shop on Melrose and I would obsessively collect all those colorful rave flyers that they used to have in all those stores. And I never actually, I think I went to one rave in my life and it wasn’t like my jam really, but I was just so enamored of it, like, “Wow, this is such a cool thing, these are going to be artifacts someday,” and I would just save them. I actually had a whole wall in my teenage bedroom that was covered with them. I’d also collect punk rock flyers before that I would collect flyers from the bands that were playing English Acid. I’ve always been a real pop-culture in enthusiast and just geek about it all and just thinking this is somehow going to matter. … I wanted to share this stuff with people. And so, I thought at a certain point in my life, “Keeping this in my own possession is actually kind of selfish. I want to put this on display, not so I can brag that I have it, but to share it with other people. Let someone else hold it for a little while and maybe turn it into a book or maybe turn it into a website or just something where I can show it to the world.” And so that’s the hardest part about this — not the selfish “woe is me, I lost my stuff.” It’s more about how I was carrying this stuff for a long time so that I could share it with somebody, and now I don’t get to share it with anybody. That’s the selfless part of it that makes you even more sad in a way. Not just my loss. It’s the world’s loss. Most people didn’t save this shit and most people don’t even know this stuff exists.
Obviously this is all very traumatic, but it seems like you’re holding up OK. It seems like you have a positive attitude. How are you getting through this?
Well, thank you. To be totally real, there’s probably a certain amount of adrenaline that this just brings up in a person. When you have such a trauma, it’s like a certain amount of adrenaline and shock. So, I may very well be running on that. I may see you out at a club or something in a year and just unceremoniously fall down and start crying. I’m prepared for that. There’s just no playbook for this. We’re all prepared to deal with a certain amount of loss. I’ve had dear friends pass away, have lost family members and things like that, and it’s never not sad, but eventually there’s an acceptance to knowing that, well, people are born and then they live and then they pass away. But we’re not hardwired for this. … We really don’t have the idea of losing all of our things and losing our shelter and losing our possessions. We don’t have that hardwired in us.
So, it’s almost like disbelief. But I’m kind of thinking about this out loud, so hopefully this isn’t tedious: I’m thinking that maybe all of my years, I’ve spent the better part of 20 years living out of a suitcase on the road. … I was able to just learn to live in a tour bus, live in a hotel room, live in a small space with a bunch of people and be on the run and adapt to new dressing rooms, new stages, new monitor mixes all over the world, for years and years and years. … We’ve now just settled into a rental house that will be our temporary house for the time being and so maybe it’s going to hit me now, but when we were in the hotel [after evacuating], I still felt like maybe I’m on vacation or maybe I’m on tour. The hotel just tells your brain that your home still exists somewhere, and you’re just in a little outpost of it. But now when I’m moving out of the hotel, I’m realizing, “Oh my God, all this stuff that I’m bringing with me to the next place is literally everything that I still have!” Which is wild.
And I keep saying maybe to your previous question, “How am I getting through this?” I keep telling myself and reminding myself that up until this day, I knew about two people who’d had a house fire in their life. And now I know 35 people, including probably five of my dear, dear, dear, close, close, close friends that I’ve known for years. So ,I imagine everybody is connected to this. Everybody knows somebody who’s directly or indirectly affected by this. So, it’s really been incredible to see the outpouring of love and support and generosity and kindness. I keep saying that this didn’t happen to me — this happened to L.A., and I happened to live in one of the parts of L.A. where this happened. I don’t know if that makes it easier or to stay positive, but you don’t have that victim complex.
I love how you’re talking about how everyone’s been rallying. Your old buddies Green Day did a benefit right at the Troubadour after the fires and brought you up onstage. That must have been a cool moment for you.
Yeah, the fire was barely out. … [Green Day] had a gig in South Africa and I think somewhere in the Middle East, and then they had literally 10 days off, this little, tiny chance to come home and catch their breath. And they took that time and not only did Fire Aid, but then their cover band, a side project called the Coverups, played the show at the Troubadour and gave all the money to Altadena Boys and Altadena Girls, which is like a teen-run fund to help fire victims and mental health resources and all that kind of stuff, which is amazing. And so, I heard they were doing that, and I got in touch with them, and I thought they were going to just invite me to the show. But they were like, “Here’s a list of 20 songs. Pick a couple that you might be comfortable with.” I was freaking out. … I got to pick easy Ramone songs. I don’t have a guitar anymore; my gear was gone. My Ramones record that was signed by every Ramone who’s now all dead, I’ll never get that back. But anyways, I got to have it for a long time. I have the memory of it. I’m OK. It’s going to be OK.
And you got to honor that memory by doing a Ramones song.
Yes, I did “Rockaway Beach.” We were literally at this hotel, and the hotel had these decorative guitars hanging on the wall of the hotel bar, and I went down there at 2 in the morning and pulled one off that wall, and I broke a string on it right away. And I never break strings! Then I took the other one and I was trying to play it. It was so out of tune and I was trying to learn it. I kind of fudged my way through “Rockaway Beach,” and then suddenly I’m at the Troubadour and it’s sold-out, and they’re like, “We’re going to bring Marko up.” And I just come up there and Billie Joe takes his guitar off and hands it to me. So, that was super-fun. Also, it was aside from the fact that it felt really good to participate in something that was helping fire victims, Billie Joe gave me a chance to talk on the mic and sort of say my thing, which was really helpful. And then just playing a song, even though it’s like a two-minute song, that just was so therapeutic. It really gave me a chance to just be myself and connect to something that’s such a big part of me, which is just being a rock ‘n’ roll musician. You realize in that moment that someone can hand you a guitar and you can get onstage with some people and play a song, and you just feel like things are going to be OK.
And then you got invited to the Grammys that week!
Yeah, this guy John Loken, who was originally the A&R person that signed Sugarcult, he reached out to me out of the blue when the fire happened and was like, “Dude, I’m so sorry. I want to cheer you guys up. I work with the Grammys now. I’m going to try and hook you up for the Grammys.” I thought we were just going to have tickets, but we get there and our Uber goes through is suddenly behind all these Escalades and limousine and drops us off. And I’m on the red carpet standing right next to Olivia Rodrigo and Cardi B.
I know you didn’t really have many clothes anymore, so what did you wear?
I literally walked into a Goodwill and just rifled through some stuff and found a black suit jacket for $6. It was one of those days where they were having half off; it has a yellow tag. I got that jacket, and I just had this plain black T-shirt on underneath it. I found this scarf that I had managed to stuff in the glove compartment of my car and forgot about a month ago, so I threw that on. And then we have this gay couple that we know, and they were out of town, but they gave me the code to their door and told me where their shoe room was. They had a whole shoe room! And I got to go through and every shoe either didn’t fit or it was so garish that I couldn’t pull it off. And then I finally found these pointy-toed St. Laurents, and I just squeezed into them and I wore ‘em on the red carpet.
I thought the Grammys handled the fire situation tastefully. There were people who didn’t want the Grammys to happen, who thought it would be in bad taste. But I feel we still have to do celebratory things.
We’re not canceling things. I keep saying, you can’t let this burn you down too. This can burn down your house, but it can’t burn down your spirit. It can’t burn down your joy. It can’t burn down your love of the things that make you stoked, like music or whatever. And it can’t burn down everybody else’s good time either. The whole world doesn’t have to sit there with a somber situation just because this happened. It’s like, I want to get a contact high off of other people’s happiness. … This might be sounding a little too woo-woo kumbaya California guy here, but I really think that in a weird way, somehow there’s going to be some kind of a net positive. Because the people this happened to are going to open up parts of themselves and their parts of their minds and their outlooks on life that they would never have volunteered for and possibly never had access to had this not happened. And the people who this didn’t happen to are possibly going to reappraise some of the things they maybe take for granted. … I think that maybe this will be the fertilizer that will grow something maybe beautiful in the future. We’re going to rebuild our house. Everyone, most people I know in Altadena in our neighborhood, are planning on rebuilding. And it won’t be the same as it was before, but nothing in life is ever going to be the same as it was before. You have to kind of move forward and embrace the future, I guess.
I’m glad you’re rebuilding your home, and I’m glad you’re keeping a positive attitude. And I think a lot of people who watch this interview will derive a lot of inspiration from your words.
I hope so. … I wrote about this the other day on my personal Facebook page, but I haven’t shared it with anybody in the bigger social sphere. There’s a certain type of tree where the pinecone can last for like 20, 30 years and hold the seeds inside it. And the only way it can be opened is by fire. It’s kind of a weird thing to think that in order for this specific tree to be able to grow new trees, it needs to have fire exposed to it so that the pinecone can release the seeds so that these things happen. So, in a weird way, that’s what I’ve been kind of going with that metaphor. This was not something any of us would’ve ever willingly signed up for, but because it happened to us, we can find a way to maybe reframe it that maybe it happened for us in a really weird way. Maybe there’s something we can learn about our attachment to things or our ability to be resilient that we didn’t know we had in us. Maybe this is something that’s just tested us in a way that if we can ride through it, this can take root and become a better version of yourselves that you never knew was possible. And again, I’m going to invite everybody into that, not just the people who lost their houses. The people whose friends lost their houses, the people who are watching this on the news and imagining what would it be like to lose your house — it doesn’t have to necessarily happen to you for you to be able to der some kind of a lesson out of it. So, that’s something I really want to share with everybody too.
This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity. Watch Marko DeSantis’s full conversation in the YouTube player above.
