These Are the People You Meet at Desert Hearts

Well, the cat's outta the bag. Desert Hearts, dubbed "The West Coast's Fastest Rising Party Squad" and "The Shangri-Lawless of House and Techno," returned to the Los Coyotes Indian Reservation outside of San Diego this weekend for three days and nights of deep and weird dance music. The dancefloor during M.A.N.D.Y's set on Friday night was a sight to behold as attendance swelled to over 1000 people more than Desert Hearts 2-year anniversary in November.

The party was the biggest and best bash the crew has ever thrown. But strip away the countless engrossing DJ sets, the otherworldy production, the heralded landscape of the Los Coyotes Indians, the outrageously good soup,and what you're left is what makes the Desert Hearts vibe so special: The people. With that in mind, we peeled ourselves away from the dancefloor to get to know the people of Desert Hearts a little bit deeper:

Photo: Juliana Bernstein

What defines a goddess?
A woman who is confident in her own abilities as a light worker and enjoys empowering other women to do their light work.

What's a light worker?
Someone who moves with good intentions from the heart in everything they do. If you lead yourself with the light inside you and you can share that with everyone around you, then that's truly you being a goddess and showing everyone that they have the light inside them. They just need to let it out, because it's there.

What are the vibes at Desert Hearts like?
So colorful! Magic, sparkly, fairy dust everywhere. The happiest. And lots of fucking weirdos! I love it.

What's the weirdest thing you saw this weekend?
Well! There was a man who lost his clothing. And all he needed was this enormous afro and platform shoes. Technically, he was dressed, and at least he was expressing himself!

Photo: Dersu Rhodes

What is a superfreak?
I'm an utter and total moral degenerate who likes to dress up like a complete weirdo.

Why?
When you dress up, whether it's Halloween or a party like this, somehow, it allows you to reorient yourself and you have a clean slate emotionally. You get into this weird mood where you lift day-to-day burdens. The other thing is, I like to be right up to the edge of bad taste, without actually crossing over. I know someone who walks around naked. I don't like that. I'd rather wear a very, very small merkin, but not be gross.

Where else do you get to do this?
Well, Halloween and here and that's it. People think art is about not having rules. That's not true. Rules are great. It's how you play with the rules that allows you to express your creativity. Without rules, you'd be like a body with no skeleton. You need that skeleton, and then you work it. It's like – How can you obey the rules, but in a way that's interesting and different?

Photo: Juliana Bernstein

You guys are getting pretty good at this festival thing
We have everything dialed in now, so we're comfortable and can actually be out on the dancefloor. The last one, we were all busting our asses – I was working the whole time!

It looks like a family affair on Saturday's lineup
Yeah, it's all Desert Hearts. Everyone's been saying that they're stoked we're all on one night and not spread out. I'm super stoked to follow Deep Jesus and Marbs and Mikey's playing right after me. We always jam out and set each other up.

Photo: Dersu Rhodes

Tell me about Desert Hearts hygiene. How do you keep it together for four days?
I use baby wipes, a quick hippie shower in the mornings.

What separates Desert Hearts from other festivals?
This is my second time here, and it's a closer vibe, with much happier people. The whole one stage, one vibe thing brings everybody together.

When was the last time you slept?
I slept for a few hours on Friday night, but that's it. I was on the dancefloor until like 10AM this morning. I really liked Porkchop's set, and Atish at sunrise this morning was really good.

What's one of the most remarkable things you've seen this weekend?
These people I met were dressed up like it was a wedding and were serving cake and wine this morning on the dancefloor. I have no idea why they were doing it! We're all good neighbors. Everyone's just really welcoming.

Photo: Juliana Bernstein

How was this banana squad formed?
Everyone's going bananas at 2pm for Monkey Safari's set.

Have you seen any other fruit squads or teams of anything?
Not yet. We've seen one or two other bananas. I thought I saw a monkey chase me, but…

When you see another banana, is it like, "chill, join our squad," or is someone getting peeled?
It's like, "we're goin' bananas! We're goin' fuckin' bananas!"

Photo: Galen Oakes

This is turning out to be a special weekend
Last night, that was insane! I get really emotional sometimes. I had to step away and, fuckin', have a little cry. There are more people than we expected. I think there are like 3200 people here. There were 2200 the time before. The DJ booth was so crowded last night I couldn't even get up there! This might have been a little of a big jump for us, but I think everything's running smoothly.

How did you get caught up with this lot?
There was nothing going on in San Diego and then I heard of these guys. I went up to DJ their 'Jungle' party and was blown away. I just thought 'Thank God, some young blood.' We became friends and tried to throw this little party. It was this little renegade thing and there were like 300 people there, but, even though we had nothing - no stage, one structure, I knew it was going to be something.

Are you Mikey Lion's father?
No.

Photo: Juliana Bernstein

Who comes to Desert Hearts?
People who wanna dance in the desert and express themselves through creative movement and creative clothing and just camp. People that wanna be in nature and wanna be in touch with earth.

When did you have that moment that you got into the vibe of the festival?
Right when I got here. It was like, "yeah, welcome back." And there were those moments you have those connections with one of your friends. You look at each other like, "yes, this is what we live for."These tunes, these people, these wild and crazy freaks just dancing in the desert and the forest…

Photo: Dersu Rhodes

What's it like being the tallest person here?
The biggest difference is actually the sound. If you bend down to the level of all the other people, it's really bass heavy and you don't hear any of the highs. When you're up here, it's a lot clearer. I can see the stage wherever I am and I'm a beacon for all of my friends. I never get lost!

Don't you feel bad for the people behind you?
Nah, equal rights, man!

What have you noticed about the top of people's heads?
Some people are definitely prematurely balding and they're not aware of it.

Photo: Juliana Bernstein

How did you guys end up here?
We have friends from Vancouver who hooked into the San Diego burner crowd and they've just been raving about Desert Hearts. I've been doing festivals for a very long time, it's my culture. For a lot of individuals coming here, it's a real eye opening. It's some people's first festival, and I can tell that. It's so awesome.

What's special about the location for you guys?
The desert. High desert. The setting is unbelievably beautiful. And it's sacred land. It's healing and has vibrance. And it's close to getting back to the city.

What's the difference between Desert Hearts and burner culture?
Here, I would say it's younger. In that, there's an insecurity vibe, but also a fun vibe. There's a lot of energy, but also a lot of darting eyes, y'know? Like, "I don't know who I am yet, and I really wanna find out!" Also, the toilets here, fuck man, they're either not being serviced enough or people are being less considerate with what they leave behind. I was at Bequinox last week and you didn't even have to wipe the seat!

Photos by Dersu Rhodes, Galen Oakes, and Juliana Bernstein.

Jemayel Khawaja is Managing Editor of THUMP - @JemayelK