Desert Hearts Cofounders Announce New Music & 2026 Tour: ‘We’ve Always Felt Strongest As a Crew’

Desert Hearts cofounders Mikey Lion, Marbs and Lee Reynolds will tour under the Desert Hearts name this spring and summer, with a new EP by the trio released under the Desert Hearts name also out today (April 29).

This news marks the first time that the founders of the longstanding SoCal-based Desert Hearts festival and musical collective are touring and releasing music under this name. The two-track EP, California, is out via Desert Hearts Records.

The tour announcement and EP release comes after the November news that the Desert Hearts festival will not be happening in 2026. “We went into DHF 2025 with the intention of taking a break in 2026, but we ended up throwing the best Desert Hearts ever,” said a November announcement from the festival. “In the afterglow, we went on sale for 2026. When we finally came back down, we realized what throwing a full scale DHF next year meant, and we didn’t like how that looked for our artist paths and personal lives. We sincerely apologize for getting ahead of ourselves.”

Now, Desert Hearts co-founder Mikey Lion tells Billboard that, “We made a conscious decision to take 2026 off from producing our annual Desert Hearts Festival so we could refocus on what brought us together in the first place: being artists. Desert Hearts has always been rooted in the music, but over the years the event side naturally took a lot of our energy. 2026 felt like the right moment to shift that balance back. At the same time, we’ve always felt strongest as a crew. Releasing music under the Desert Hearts name is our way of fully embracing that identity while presenting a unified sound and vision.”

“California is the foundation of everything we’ve built,” adds Reynolds. “It’s where the first Desert Hearts parties happened, where the community thrived, and where we really found our identity. The DH vibe is uniquely Californian and we wanted to reclaim our roots as we debut as a trio.”

“Desert Hearts has always been about love, connection, and freedom of expression through music, art, and community, and we’ve never compromised on that,” continues Marbs. “We’ve had opportunities to take more traditional routes as we’ve grown, but that’s never been the point. We’re not chasing trends or trying to fit into a system, we’re creating spaces where people can feel something real and connect on a deeper level. That intention has stayed the same for over a decade, and it’s the reason our community is still so strong. We protect that above everything.”

Desert Hearts launched in the early 2010s, emerging from the West Coast transformational festival circuit to become an bi-annual house and techno gathering hosting thousands of fans and an elite collection of artists, with the event founders also taking Desert Hearts parties on tour across the U.S. and beyond over the years.

Desert Hearts 2026 Tour Dates: