#Michael dubin

[mikeywayarchive]

michaeldubin: A few days at SDCC

[Jul 22, 2023]

[ag-updates-and-archives]

L.S. Dunes: Present tense

Anna Zanes|January 7, 2025

L.S. Dunes appear on the cover of the Winter 2024 Issue — head to the AP Shop to grab a copy.

L.S. Dunes are more than the sum of their parts. 

That’s not to say the band members aren’t alternative heavyweights in their own right. Though they scoff at the term “supergroup,” the collective CV of members Anthony Green, Frank Iero, Tucker Rule, Travis Stever, and Tim Payne scoff right back. But come here for nostalgia or crate-digging, and you’ll be sorely disappointed. It’s not to say these five are rejecting the superlative, or shying away from their legacy — they’ll tell you outright that their work across Saosin, Circa Survive, My Chemical Romance, Thursday, and Coheed and Cambria have paved the way for the artists they are today, not to mention the explosive, tender entity that is L.S. Dunes. The point is, after decades of experience as key players in the East Coast post-hardcore scene that emerged during the millennium, LSD have learned it’s less about sticking to your guns — and more about trusting your gut. 

By way of a group chat spawned in the creative desert of COVID-19 — initially serving as a brain dump for the antsy artists — L.S. Dunes were formed. However accidental the band may have been, quickly, it became a lifeline. Though for them, the comfort and companionship they found in each other and music was unsurprising. “This shit is ancient,” Green tells me. “People have been gathering to sing, dance, celebrate music, and get cathartic for fucking as long as we’ve been on this planet. And it’s cool when you can find people that are going to properly pay homage to music, give music what it deserves, and not make it about them or a scene or an image — they just make it about how powerful and transformative music can be if it’s really done in an honest, true way.” By texting back and forth parts on the fly, instinctively building off one another’s input, the group began to grow and evolve — a familial, DIY process that they’ve stuck with to this day, whether they’re working in the chat, on the road, or in the visionary womb that is Will Yip’s Studio 4. 

There are few rules but a handful of mottos. For one, Dunes refuse to look back — instead opting to highlight where they are today as artists, embracing the thirst for experimentation and creativity that started it all, supporting each other no holds barred, and shrugging off lurking expectations. As Iero puts it, “One of the big rules in the band is that you chase everything.” 

We’re sitting backstage in the nondescript green room at Brooklyn Paramount — the guys are gearing up for their third show supporting Rise Against on tour. “The way I can describe it is like a trust fall,” Stever says, and the other four nod along enthusiastically. “This band is doing that with melodies or guitar parts for me, and they always catch it — and it doesn’t matter if it’s not exactly what I thought it was going to be. I trust that it’s going to be something that I really love, and that’s what we do here. That’s what made me addicted to it from the get-go, sending it constantly, whatever I have.” Onstage, they embody the same ethos. L.S. Dunes are a fluid unit, undulating in tandem with the ferocity of Green’s maniacal movements, riling up as he cracks the mic cord like a whip. As energy builds, magician-like, Green appears to grapple with an invisible forcefield for a hair-raising moment — and all breath seems to catch — before he pushes it back out into the crowd, dousing the audience with an unbridled display of emotion and sweat. Whether the display is rageful, loving, or pained seems unknown, and also unnecessary. Like magnets, these five musicians are conducted, and connected, by something unseen. 

In describing L.S. Dunes — a feat — I lean on the word “present.” Rule agrees. “This is the present. We have our other bands, but this one reminds us to be here now.” Evidently as an audience member, it’s felt. Watching them take the stage for their debut set at Riot Fest — with only two rehearsals under their belt — I witnessed lauded alternative heroes play a daytime festival slot on a small stage, a special, and momentous, opportunity. But not because it felt like a My Chemical Romance underplay, or a portal through which I could catch Circa Survive reincarnate. Once Dunes began to play, all greater context, any preconceived notions, and even the surroundings fell away. This was no Pet Sematary situation — bringing together many styles, Dunes balance chaos and meticulousness in a manner that revival or replication couldn’t touch. “It’s naturally its own thing,” Stever says, “because we all as individuals bring something completely different than we could have to our other bands. That’s a double-edged sword from the get-go that we have. We’re going to be related to everything we came from in this band, and that’s OK. We’re lucky for what we have outside of it. But we get the short end of the stick sometimes.” 

The short end of the stick, for members of “supergroups” — and actors leaving sitcoms alike — is, in many ways, typecasting. Iero, Green, Stever, Payne, and Rule have altered culture in their own right, as a part of the soundtrack that fueled an entire generation of emotionally driven listeners. For many, their work has been the impetus in identity and community building — and as such, they’ve been woven into the rose-colored memories of our youth. Considering their success, it’s easily assumed — in the age of anniversary tours, nostalgia festivals, and the reissue of knee-high Converse — that these artists will live as our Warped Tour scrapbook, and on command, can bring us back, and make us feel that way again. Or that they want to. For L.S. Dunes, it’s simple — grow or die. “Yes, everything that you’ve been through and experienced has gotten you to where you are today. There’s no sense in hiding from that. But at the same time, there’s no sense in rehashing who you were, and what you did then. Those projects exist. We did that already. Go listen to that shit if that’s what you want to listen to — it’s still there,” Iero impassionately explains. “We’re not saying that we wish it didn’t happen. No, I love that it’s there! I believe in, appreciate, and stand by 99.99% of the things I’ve ever created throughout the years, even though sometimes I may look back and cringe a little bit.” Rule, piggybacking on his bandmate’s point, drives it home. “Our younger selves,” he says, matter of factly, “are what allowed us to start a fucking supergroup.” 

This year, ironically, L.S. Dunes performed at Las Vegas’ nostalgia-drenched When We Were Young Festival — and stuck out as one of very few new bands on the bill. With the exception of Green, the whole group were on double duty that weekend — Coheed and Cambria, My Chemical Romance, and Thursday were also set to play. In the heat, 30-something interviews deep, my Swiss cheese-like memory was stretched to its limits. For two days, we’d been summoning the ghosts of MySpace — for some with fondness, others trepidation. For most, both. Eager for the oasis of an idiosyncratic perspective, I sat down with Dunes, during the millisecond they happened to be all in one place. The band were straddling two honorable realities — feeding hungry fans 20-year-old records and satiating their current creative drive. When I brought up the phenomenon of nostalgia, Iero had insight: “If we rest on our laurels on that shit, we become a caricature of what we were then. You’re placing yourself in a timeline that’s already passed. But moving forward and taking chances, that’s also hard. The music industry is in this giant cycle of fear — we have to keep doing the same thing because nobody’s buying records, but nobody’s buying records because you’re doing the same thing. It’s a fear-based cycle.” The key to breaking it? “It’s about understanding the pitfalls that are out there, and also believing in what you’re making so much that you don’t give a shit,” he says. 

I’ve heard it said, “expectations are planned resentments.” And Dunes have come up against these — fans of their previous projects lashed out, and a controversial video the group made with AI was met with a wave of internet backlash. But at the end of the day, they’ve won out. The LSD fanbase is as dedicated as they are when it comes to realizing this new chapter. “It’s like any relationship. If you’re not giving your authentic self, there’s no way there’s going to be true growth or real understanding,” Green says. “But if we’re giving our authentic self as much as we possibly can, as a group, we can cultivate a relationship with our listeners where they just want us to be happy, and make the music that feels truest to us. And it’s not always going to be what they’re expecting.” Anyway, none of this was supposed to see the light of day.  “This was all just an exercise. None of us needed to be busier. We have no business being on the road as much as we are right now, between all of our bands!” Rule reminds me. That same sentiment has been their bedrock, and their driver. “[L.S. Dunes] still operates under the guise that it wasn’t supposed to see the light of day. That takes the pressure off — the only pressure is in having fun and making stuff with your friends. You’ll end up with genuine, free-spirited songs and art, and that’s what we’re trying to do.” Being present is L.S. Dunes’ North Star. And with success, they haven’t changed course. The exercise is still stepping out of fear and looking forward, and the triumph is emerging authentically themselves, as an unapologetic unit. 

In the final cut of Past Lives, their 2022 debut album, the band tell me many songs are their very first takes and demos. Onstage, they’ve adapted songs on the fly — Green instinctively added a verse to “Fatal Deluxe,” in real time, and they haven’t looked back or played it as it is on the album since. “Collaborators can do stuff like that,” he says. “If there’s grip, there’s too much fear in the pot. There needs to be a little bit, but you can’t get sucked down into the fucking void. With too much fear, it’s impossible to be as creatively exploitive as we’ve been able to be with each other.”

Another slogan the band live by is “first best guess.” With all credit to Rule, the remark has turned into lifeblood for LSD, and it works, in part, due to how well the quintet gel together. “We don’t critique in a way other than with positivity. We don’t get halfway through a song and think, ‘Oh, what do we need to do here?’ If it’s not done yet, we still just keep being creative and keep piling on, and eventually it just falls into place,” Payne outlines. “There are very few songs that we were like, ‘We need to change this.’ It’s usually just first best guess. When Tucker puts drums in, first best guess. That’s usually the most natural, and that’s how we all approach it. Just like, ‘Let’s go with it.’ Hop on while it’s exciting.” 

Since the start, intensity has been signature to LSD’s music. Lyrically and sonically, their sound is layered, complex, analytical — a smooth compound of multiple ideas and techniques. Lyrically, Past Lives toed the line of darkness, and though that subject is no stranger to Green, entering that space again took a toll. What began as helpful felt heavier as time went on. “The first record, I was like, ‘OK, I’m going to use this as my therapy. I’m going to get all this dark shit and all this hard shit I was going through,’” he reveals. “But I didn’t realize how careless I was being with some of the spells I was casting, lyrically, for myself.” Forever a champion of using his pain for artistic good, Green kept this in mind while the band got to work on Violet, their follow-up album. “I saw this second record as an opportunity to counteract some of the damage I did to my own brain,” he continues. “Just singing some of those songs for an entire two-year cycle… I thought, ‘How do we make something where it’s not going to feel like I need to go to therapy at the end of the show?’”  

Violet does see growth across the board, and Green infuses his poetic lyricism with newfound hope — though, as a whole, the band tell me their sophomore album is, in many ways, just a continuation of the first. The creative momentum has been stimulating and powerful from the jump, as has their kinship. But with tours and sessions at Studio 4 with Yip under their belt now, bonded in new ways — this is where the rubber meets the road. “It’s about friendship and companionship of us as a group,” Green says. “Everybody knew each other, and some people were closer than others at the beginning of the band. My mom used to say — when you make a pasta sauce, you can serve it that night, and it’s great. But the next day… it’s sauce. We started LSD, and it was cool. We were all together. But really over this time of everybody being together, our friendship as a band has altered how we operate. It’s become this big relationship.”

From Past Lives to the forthcoming Violet, that bond has catalyzed a shift. “The biggest difference for me between the first record and the second record, as far as writing and all this stuff, is that on the first record, we sent ideas back and forth, and we were so excited,” Rule observes. “It was that excitement of sending your first best guess. On this record, we had our first best guess with confidence. I think playing together gave us confidence to be able to have more guts making this record.” But the call wasn’t only coming from inside the house — those who’ve really seen, heard, and honored such an authentic and personal project have only furthered this sense of confidence. Green goes back to the idea of connection. “The fanbase for this band is very unique,” he says. “They have given us a very clear signal of like, ‘Hey, we got you. Go do what you love.’ So I don’t feel like we had to climb up from a mountain or anything like that. It was almost just a newer experience of being able to write.” 

Sonically, Past Lives also felt like an exorcism of sorts,blending catharsis and cynicism. The textural album surges to the rhythm of Rule’s urgent, explosive drumming and Payne’s profound bass tone — Redditors have deemed him “Tone God” for a reason — and the tactile chemistry between the two guitarists, who clearly coax each other out of their comfort zones. It’s aggressive and guttural, swinging from fast to slow — while, like a pulsing artery, Green’s dark dialectic reigns, dialing in feelings from his introspective and heart-wrenching solo album Boom. Done. On Violet, however, from instrumentation to structure, you can literally hear their increase in confidence and closeness — not only in the risks taken but in the restraint as well.

For the first 43 seconds of the album, all you hear is the bright, rough timbre of Green’s voice and a percussive inhale. Spiritual and esoteric as the lyrics are, it’s a deeply human moment, one in which you can really feel that “trust fall.” Then, instrumentation seeps in, and there’s a bit of Deftones’ “Be Quiet and Drive (Far Away),” and its forefather, “Never Let Me Down Again” by Depeche Mode — both of which are also built on a crescendo of breathiness and heavy guitar riffs. Off the bat, the track begins to build the case that where Past Lives was a passionate and uninhibited contemplation of death, Violet is an anthemic, self-assured celebration of life — a paradox that only LSD could articulate so beautifully, back to back. 

“It doesn’t matter what we do individually. The most important thing is what’s best for the song. Whether that’s playing less or playing more or not playing at all — there are a lot of things you can do to service a song in the best way possible,” Payne points out. “We all went into the first album with that mentality, but again, you’re tracking remote, and you’re like, ‘Oh, I’m going to do all this shit.’ With Violet, we really harnessed that. Collectively, we all simplified, having the knowledge that ‘I can actually play less here because I know when you write your shit, it’s going to fill up that space,’ and that’s what makes all of the parts play off each other. Sonically as a band, this is a little bit more of a less is more approach.” 

Less may be more, yet, true to form for Dunes, Violet has infinite layers. No two tracks are alike — the empowering ballad “Paper Tigers” sees refined arrangement and toothsome rock riffage. It’s Rule’s favorite, and the drum fills let you know it. “Machines” is purely post-hardcore, soaring and melodic, apart from a few delicious shrieks. That one is Payne’s preference, while Green goes for “Fatal Deluxe” — “I get lost playing that song,” he says. For Iero, it’s complicated. “Forgiveness” might be his favorite on paper, but from the green room at Brooklyn Paramount, he professes, “It’s the type of song that when you write it, and hear it, it fits any definition of the word success. Writing a song that gives me chills, that if I heard it from someone else, I would be fucking sick that I didn’t write it myself, that’s success to me. So if it comes out and no one likes it, I don’t care. It doesn’t matter to me. It’s already the best thing I may have ever done.” If you know anything about Iero, you know he’s been a part of a generous handful of bands, as well as written on 5x platinum songs like “Welcome to the Black Parade.” It’s a hefty claim, though the rest of the group corroborate — it gives them chills. 

“Songs are like loves, right? They’re like relationships. Sometimes you meet someone, and you’re just not ready for it, and it doesn’t work out. Sometimes you rekindle that down the line when it works out for both of you. Songs are just like that,” Iero explains. “They just come together, and it’s this beautiful romance that is love at first sight, and it just happens. You only get a couple of those in your lifetime. ‘Violet’ was that for me. I have the video of me playing it for the first time. I had gotten this guitar that my friend Michael sent me, and I just sat down to play it, and the first thing I played was ‘Violet’ almost in its entirety. Then that day, I sent it to everybody, and I was like, ‘I don’t know if this is good or not.’ Then Tucker sent it back with a drum beat, and I was like, ‘Oh, I think this is really good.’ All of a sudden, we just started writing on it, and I was like, ‘Wow, this is kind of cool. Maybe this is something that’s going to make the record. Then Anthony sung on it — and then I was like, ‘Oh, my God, this is everything that I love about Morrissey and the Smiths, but without the racism. It’s one of those things that just fell out of me, and it seemed like it fell out of everybody else at the same time. The way it came together — the song steps up, and when you think you’ve had your chorus and that’s all you’re going to get, it steps up again. It’s just one of the most beautiful things I think I’ve ever heard.”

The process that ensued echoed every familial sentiment these five men had shared with me. Green adds, slightly smirking, “He doesn’t remember this, but Frank turned and looked at me, and goes, ‘This part needs to be big.’ I’m also thinking the same thing in my head, but my heart started to beat. Like I was at the principal’s office.” He continues, enthusiasm building, “I wrote and wrote and wrote and listened, and I absorbed... And I was on my way to the studio singing to the song, listening to it in reverse — and had a moment. I was so excited when I got to Will’s studio… I was just so overwhelmed by the spirit of what makes you creative and what gives life and what destroys something to make something new. I knew it didn’t matter if anybody else thought it. And that’s the type of special that this band has.” Tucker laughs, “I remember walking into the studio — and you were losing your mind. Then I listened to it. I fucking fell in love with it.”

It would be remiss not to honor Yip in this story. An authority when it comes to contemporary alternative music, Dunes favorably call him the “sixth member” — a title bestowed on the producer by not one but two other bands I’ve spoken to recently. All the fanfare is well deserved. Sonically, Violet embodies the confidence and stride the band have felt on their sophomore run — it’s sharper, shinier, and tighter without forgoing any of Dunes’ spontaneous emotion. He reaps fluidity and cohesion across 10 truly diverse tracks, matching the thoughtfulness of Dunes themselves. But most importantly with Yip, for this band that value trust above all else, they’ve never had to worry. “He’s really specific. He has this thermometer gauge to get that feeling right — he’s all about feeling. He’s not going to fucking push you to do anything. He’ll always advocate for you,” Green gushes. “He’s never going to do whatever the label wants or whenever anybody’s paying, and he’s going to make sure that you’re comfortable with what you’re singing, what you’re playing.” And for a band born out of a desire to subvert expectations, that’s the ideal environment. 

Though they gave me more than enough, one question lingered after my conversations with L.S. Dunes. As someone who has dated, befriended, unfriended, and been surrounded by musicians for 30 years, I couldn’t crack the code as to how, and why, these five talented men can honestly just get along. A band that leave ego at the door, unequivocally in full support of each other, feels as common as seeing a solar eclipse. But like eclipses, LSD are also about alignment. For the band, it was the time and place, with enough time and places behind them, that they had agency to begin. “They say you can’t pick your family — we got to pick our family with L.S. Dunes,” Green says. “We get to decide this is the amount of crazy we can deal with. This is the amount of chaos we can handle within each other — and this is what we can add to it.”

[killthefuhkinglights]

screenshots from the test live stream just now with michael dubin

looks like there’s gonna be a livestream tomorrow, so keep your eyes peeled!

[tyforthevnm]

michaeldubin: 4.9.23

[April 11, 2023]

[current-mcr-news]

instagram story by michaeldubin

[April 15, 2023]

[chemnections]

(07/19/24)

[callmeblake]

Photo Credit: Michael Dubin (via altpress)

[forfoxessake]

Michael Dubin shared some new (old) pics from last year and I just had to take a second look at Mikey’s North Face jacked since it’s a SWARM special edition with the tour year in Roman Numerals and I don’t think I had seen that before.

[bastardsofravenkroft-blog]

god bless michael dublin.

[sweetheartlv]

Where is this in Europe 🫣

[mikeywayarchive]

Instagram story by michaeldubin

[Jul 20, 2023]

[ag-updates-and-archives]

altpress “One of the big rules of the band is that you chase everything,” says @.frankieromustdie, of @.lsdunes, the band he started alongside four other alternative heavyweights. For our winter issue, L.S. Dunes sits down with AP’s Editor-in-Chief @.annazanes to talk about making the first best guess with confidence, the “sixth member,” and their highly anticipated sophomore album, Violet. Click the link in bio to read the full story, and order your copy of the winter issue today. Story by @.annazanes Photos by @.michaeldubin

posted january 7, 2024

[tyforthevnm]

IG story by michaeldubin

[April 11, 2023]

[lsdunesarchive]

michaeldubin via Instagram Stories

(Riot Fest 2022 (Chicago, IL) | September 16, 2022)

[chemnections]

https://twitter.com/hesitantghoulx/status/1719990367024455992?s=61&t=-FAQ0Hbbr4pzBYaZof040A

Im STILL seeing lies that they made fun of fans

michael dubin never did anything wrong, he and his kid are victims of harassment.

there was never any reason to think he was mocking fans, again it was peak projection that fans thought he was making fun of them for being unreasonable because deep down they knew they are being unreasonable. again another stretch bad faith interpretation gains a life of it's own.

funny how so many of these fans claim to fight the gender binary then claim a man wearing a long hair wig can only do so in a mocking insincere context.

'fans' still sticking to the lies just want a reason to hate dunes and want to convince others to. maybe instead of 'being critical of your favs' fans should be critical of other fans who run harassment campaigns.

[thorninyourpaw]

daryl palumbo has one of the most beautiful voices in the entire world