"A master tunesmith." – San Diego Troubadour

 

Darius has released six albums as a singer-songwriter specifically and performed widely, at such venues as L.A.'s Troubadour and N.Y.C.'s Speakeasy. He and his bands have played on bills with Don McLean, Lucinda Williams, Guy Clark, and many others. ​​​

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In the late 80s Darius broke up his psychedelic rock band Darius and the Magnets and reinvented himself as an eclectic folksinger. His first solo album, Cardboard Confessional (Gold Castle/Capitol Records) helped make him a fixture of the Los Angeles acoustic music scene of the late 80s and early 90s. The CD received critical acclaim and national radio airplay. The video for the song "White Boy Raving" aired on MTV and made Billboard Magazine's Top Twenty Video List.  

 

In 1997, Darius released Garage Sale of the Soul, just before moving to Sweden for a dozen years. After returning to California, his 2012 album The Coyote Cantos was nominated for a San Diego Music Award. In 2015 he released the album Eleven Story Strum. Open Question to the Sky was released in 2024, and Rhyme in the Wreckage in 2025. These critically-lauded folk/Americana albums were released first under just the name Darius and later under Darius Degher.  

 

But Darius is eclectic. He's also released three albums as the Westwatcher: Locally Exotic (2023), Slide the Wide Horizon (2022) and Groundswell Corduroy (2021). These instrumental, surf-centric guitar albums are inspired by his love of surfing. 

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He's also released music as Stark Shay, with his daughters Cleopatra and Cordelia. Their 2023 EP Treasures was nominated for best pop album by the San Diego Music Awards. 

 

In 2017 Darius started the Sham Saints with Mike Packard, of the Magnets, and released the EP Out of Tune, which included the single Pledge of Allegiance (to the Earth). The EP was nominated for a San Diego Music Award.

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He also lived in Sweden for many years, where he started the Americana band Burning Bridges. In 2003 they released an album: Poor Man's Vacation (and Other Tales of the Wild and the Weary). 

                   

In his nascent years, his band Darius and the Magnets was part of the “Paisley Underground” scene of Los Angeles and San Diego. They released a single, "Saturday at 3PM," on Big Time Records of Australia, along with an EP and two videos, which aired on MTV and other music video shows. In 2026, they were included on This Can't Be Today: A Trip through the US Psychedelic Underground 1977-88 (Cherry Red Records).

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His turnstile of names and band names has made tracking him a challenge, but his releases are available to stream everywhere and are all linked on this site. Links to albums and videos are below. 

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Open Question to the Sky is "a masterpiece, loaded with searing metaphors on par with the brilliance of the early Bob Dylan recordings.” – Wayne Riker, San Diego Troubadour​

                   

”Every once in a while an album comes along with lyrics so wondrous, so vital, that they should be scripted on parchment, bound in fine leather and handed out . . . Darius -- songwriter or poet?” -- Robert J. Hawkins, San Diego Union Tribune 

                   

”Darius was a postmodern eclectic long before it was cool.” -- Jay Allen Sanford, San Diego Reader” 

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