January 15, 2025 Words: Sam Law Photography: Jonathan Weiner

L .S. Dunes’ abstract band name remains open to interpretation even within their five-strong gang. Back in 2022, explanations were offered on how these none-more-cultured musicians felt drawn to its rhythmic echo of the authors of great literary works: J.D. Salinger, W.B. Yeats, R.L. Stine… The imagery of shifting sands chimed with the realities of impermanence and change that weigh on men facing down middle-age. Even the ‘accidental monogram’ of LSD appealed: a drug for those looking to tap into their deeper consciousness, and to truly connect with the world around them.

Grabbing time with vocalist Anthony Green and guitarist Frank Iero to delve into imminent second album Violet six days before Christmas, however – a period when even the busiest players have called it quits for the year – we can’t help but wonder whether ‘L.S.’ still stands for ‘Low Stress’?

“Eh…” Anthony grins, knowingly. “The meaning of that name does change from time to time.”

Currently battling a sinus infection while in recovery from from a nasty norovirus at home in Doylestown, PA (“It was like a cycle from a scary movie. Your kid would have four days of pooping and throwing up, then three days later you would get it, too!”) the singer could be forgiven for eschewing press duties. Likewise, Frank is with family in New Jersey, relishing the calm before a jam-packed 2025 including a My Chemical Romance U.S. stadium tour whose 365,000 tickets recently sold out in a matter of hours. Neither man – nor bandmates Tim Payne and Tucker Rule of Thursday and Coheed And Cambria’s Travis Stever – need the project that was started as an easygoing distraction in the depths of lockdown. But the more of its mesmerising moments and glitteringly sincere sounds they unearth, the deeper they feel compelled to dig.

“It’s funny,” Frank picks up. “Anything that you do, that you really love and care about and put effort into, is going to come with some kind of stress at times. You’re gonna push yourself. You’re gonna want to expel extra energy into it. The biggest stress for this band is scheduling. Everyone is so busy and has so many things to do that it’s hard to make the touring and release schedules work. That can be stressful. But the important stuff – the creative side, making the music, enjoying the craft of being in a band – has never been stressful. That’s the easy part.”

“A certain amount of stress is good in any situation,” agrees Anthony. “It helps with growth. It draws focus to things that might need attention or care. But generally L.S. Dunes’ stress has to do with ‘outside stuff’ like planning or time. The inside stuff has always been right where it should be.”

Keeping track of every show they’ve ever played is many a musician’s dream but, predictably, Frank and Anthony have long since lost count. Both are surprised, all the same, to learn that L.S. Dunes have played over 100 shows between first hitting the stage at Riot Fest 2022 and today. Having insisted that this band is by no means a side-project, the proof is in those miles racked up.

“Anything worth doing is worth doing for real,” Frank grins. “But no-one is telling us to do it. None of us need to be away from our families. We’re driven by love for the music we’re making. Being a professional musician is a dream I’ve had since I was a kid. More people than I can count told me I how wasn’t good enough, or that it wasn’t going to work out. So to still be so fired-up after 20 years, rather than being beaten down, is an incredible thing.”

"We knew this was going to be more than a side-project"

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Maintaining ‘creative purity’ isn’t an issue, but that kind of hard-touring means survival within the music industry machine. Fortunately, navigating it together has only bound them closer.

“Dealing with the music business is a lot like dealing with the force of a wave,” Anthony explains. “We have the benefit of knowing what it’s like to go out there and be crushed by that wave. To go too far from shore. To go for too much. With L.S. Dunes, we’re so much more able to go out there and set our own pace, surf around, enjoy it more. We’re not fighting anything. We’re not biting off more than we can chew. It’s a luxury to choose how much of that force we give ourselves towards.”

“You’ve got to navigate the business side,” Frank runs on, “but what a great fucking problem to have. It’s like finding diamond shoes that are just a little too tight. It’s made this band stronger and our music more fully-realised, too. The story of us making our first record Past Lives during the pandemic has already been told. We’d written instrumentals that were jammed with riffs and melody. Just so full of notes. Then Anthony came in and, I don’t know how, but he found space for his vocals and ripped it.

“Making an album second time out, we were writing with the expectation and understanding of what everyone would bring to the table. We knew it was a record fans were actually going to listen to: a follow-up to another one they already had. We’ve lived and toured together on the road, getting closer as human beings, creatives and bandmates. We knew each others’ idiosyncrasies and insecurities, when to leave space in something you’re writing for someone else to fill-in. Those trust-falls are so important for an endeavour like this. Making music together or having this kind of creative bond – this give-and-take – with other artists is an intimate relationship. We’re not fucking, but we are giving each other all of ourselves...”

Frank Iero knows the old musicians’ fable of Tom Waits and the empty guitar may be more myth than reality but, as with the best tall tales, facts shouldn’t be allowed to get in the way of the truth.

Legend has it the infamous Californian troubadour walked into an anonymous music shop one day, lifted an old six-string from the racks, rolled it over, turned it upside down, rattled it, shook his head and left. A week later, he returned to the same store and picked up the same guitar, raised it to his face, sniffed the fretboard, peered into the sound hole, hung it back on its stand and went on his merry way. Another seven days passed and he was back to go through the same odd routine. The store owner came over to ask why the esteemed Mr. Waits had so deeply examined this instrument without ever strumming a chord, and if he’d like to properly take it for a spin. ‘Nah,’ shrugged old Tom. ‘That one ain’t got any songs left in it.’ Then he left the store never to return.

“It’s true, man,” Frank grins at the beloved anecdote. “I really believe that every instrument has a soul of some sort; something inside it that you need to draw out. Every so often you’ll get that ‘Harry Potter chooses a wand’ moment where there’s a connection that just blows your hair back.”

Such was the feeling when Frank received a new Fender Highway Acoustic Electric X from a friend close to the beginning of Violet’s creative process. Immediately falling in love and sitting down to noodle through a thank you video, the record’s title-track hit him in its gorgeous entirety.

“It just fell out of me,” he says, the recording still available as proof. “I believe that song was meant to come from that guitar on that day. Sometimes, you’ve just got to follow the road signs.”

"We’ve all been artists our entire working lives, we don’t have anything left to prove"

Hear Frank on why there is no fear of failure in L.S. Dunes

Chronicling L.S. Dunes’ short existence so far, such instances of organic alchemy and easygoing serendipity are in plentiful supply. Anthony stresses that rather than conventional milestones – massive shows, hitting sales targets – the defining moments are smaller-scale, more personal: crying together over shared loss on the bus; tapping into their “telepathy” as songs come together; seeing the signs and synchronicities that prove this band was meant to be.

“It’s too profound to be about some accolade or accomplishment,” he says. “It’s not something obvious you can just put your finger on.”

Frank sighs. Not undermining their other, more conventionally successful bands is a priority for all of L.S. Dunes. But that success is a double-edged sword whose swing it’s liberating to escape.

“I’m gonna be as honest as I possibly can,” he gives a cautious, lopsided smile. “When you’re in this line of work for as long as we’ve been, a certain sense of legacy and fear can creep in. Bands that have been around for a long time can become wary of taking risks and creating something new that might ‘tarnish a legacy’ or ‘disrupt a legendary status’. In this band, there’s none of that.”

Frank has spoken before about his fandom for English art rock icons Radiohead, and there is something of what he describes in how that band’s core members – Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood – founded The Smile to forge onward musically without the weight of legacy. Following the thought, it’s fascinating to think whether the reaction to Metallica’s mega-divisive Load/Reload era would’ve been kinder had The Four Horsemen dropped those albums under a different name.

“We’re in a very unique place,” Frank continues. “We’ve all been artists our entire working lives: 20-something years each. We don’t have anything left to prove. We’re not afraid of pitfalls. There isn’t any trepidation. At the same time, L.S. Dunes is still a new band and we’ve got our whole creative lives in front of us. There aren’t any preconceived notions of what a second L.S. Dunes album should sound like in the way there might be for a fifth or sixth Thursday or Coheed or My Chem record. We’re writing the script as we go along. No rules. Nothing to prove.”

Unfettered creativity sees Violet unfold in bold and unexpected ways. Lead single Fatal Deluxe is both familiar and fresh, bridging the band they were and the one they are becoming with equal measures shimmer and swagger. Paper Tigers pulls together its sludgy tempo, big riffs and soaring vocals to euphoric effect. The aforementioned title-track is a masterclass in grandiose, melancholic post-hardcore: beautifully layered, emotionally complex, unapologetically mature. No song is more emblematic of the sublime interpersonal chemistry than opener Like Magick. A late-in-the-day addition that started life as an Anthony Green solo song, its build from a low, breathy intro is true to the title – a starry sleight of hand that proves anything is possible with spark and a little belief.

“Music is magic,” Anthony evangelises. “It can be a time-machine. It can be a healing force. It can be anything you want. As a musician, sometimes you forget that in pursuit of ‘The Big Song’, but when you really whittle it down it’s just you with your record player and your fucking soul. And how those things harmonise. That’s the fundamental foundation of everything [about this band].”

Frank grins. “You and I might not have grown up together. We might not know each other. But from thousands of miles away I can put my finger on a string on a piece of wood, have that vibrate into a microphone and record it, then when that’s played back, it resonates this little drum inside your head and conjures up an emotion: happiness or sadness, hope or nostalgia. How magic is that?!”

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Painted in terracotta pink, slate grey and wavy greens and blues, Violet’s cover depicts a figure in a boat at sea. Contrasting coldly with Past Lives’ orange and beige artwork – five equal elements in perfect harmony that might represent the members of the band – it feels more eerily unexplained. From this writer’s perspective, it is an image of a wraith, perhaps the Grim Reaper himself, trapped in a storm. Frank and Anthony stroke their chins at this observation, like psychologists whose patient has just seen a blood-splatter in a Rorschach test. Darkness or light, they insist, is in the eye of the beholder, and their own understandings of the image are grounded firmly in hope.

“Are those stormy seas, or are they open waters?” challenges Frank. “Is it sunrise or sunset? Is that figure trapped or are they escaping? Are they looking for something? Longing for it? I’m happy that artwork isn’t actually purple. With the title Violet, that would be too much. But beyond that it’s important that things can’t be fully defined. Open-ended ideas are key. I like to think it’s a person alone, fighting for a way out. To me, that’s hopeful. But maybe I’m the one who’s fuckin’ nuts!”

“It’s like a Tarot card,” elaborates Anthony. “It’s so interesting to me that someone might see Death in that image. Reading Tarot, when you draw Death, you’re actually foretelling a new beginning. Often, new beginnings mean killing something old. That can be hard. But it can also be necessary.”

Over those 100-odd shows L.S. Dunes have played so far, past negativity had worn on the vocalist. Although far from a permanent fixture in their set, the closing line of Sleep Cult – ‘Sorry that I wish that I was dead’ – particularly needled. The kind of artist who needs to re-live the root emotions every time a song is sung, it was a lyric that drew him back into a shadow that he thought he had escaped, and he’d often stumble offstage emotionally rinsed and in tears.

“If I’m going to be singing a song 100 times I need it to light my path,” he reasons. “I was in a real dark place when I was doing Past Lives – and I hate it when artists say that because people are in a real dark place all the time – but I was honestly going through such a tough patch. Feeling free from some of that I selfishly wanted these songs to represent it. Hope is a weird word. A lot of the time hope is about letting go rather than hanging on. I needed to make something that meant that even if I found myself in that destructive mode, it was about destroying something that needed to be destroyed rather than my will to keep going.”

Lyrically, the word ‘violet’ does not appear on this album bearing that name. Originating from the vocal sounds Frank overlaid on his instrumental, it stuck with both that song and this longer chapter. Research would reveal that the colour represents spiritual wisdom, acceptance, strength and creativity. The flower has medicinal purposes. Lapsed Catholic Anthony remembers how priests in Lent would wear violet vestments to symbolise both the brutal passion of Jesus Christ and the promise of salvation and rebirth that always comes in the spring. As writing progressed, it became emblematic of a subtle, cerebral optimism that pulses throughout.

‘You have got a hope that there is something more for us to make / In the midst of understanding / Brick by brick we split the take,’ Anthony croons on I Can See It Now… close to the record’s beginning. By the end, he’s waving farewell to, ‘All the words in history / Aggravate to based in longing / All the wounds that I forget / Things I thought would last forever...’

Understanding. Conciliation. Acceptance. As feelings go, they haven’t the bombast or inherent drama of new love or heartbreak, outrage or jubilation, but these songs know they’re just as capable of changing our world. First time out, L.S. Dunes raged against the atrocities of January 6, 2021 on Bombsquad. In January 2025, 12 months since entering the studio again with producer Will Yip, Violet will blare as the perpetrators of that day take back the highest offices of power.

“We’ve had this secret that we were waiting to release out into the world,” Frank says. “And, for me, to provide something that feels hopeful or uplifting at a time when things aren’t hopeful or uplifting – to be a light in the darkness – is an artist’s job. Things happen for a reason. Maybe that makes this the best time for Violet to come out. In times of darkness, the last thing that we need is more despair. I was asked recently what, other than music, makes me hopeful on a daily basis. Honestly, it’s my kids. They allow me to see on a second-by-second basis that not everything is dark and shitty. The kids I’m surrounded with know the difference between good and bad. They want things to be better. They see what’s fucked up. They think it’s crazy when we can’t seem to fix it. Being an inspiration for them is so important: showing that [that fight] is not all for nothing.”

Conventional success – that double-edged sword of fame and fortune we spoke about earlier – may not be the endgame for L.S. Dunes, but there’s nothing lacking in sense of achievement.

“Success is about being friends and caring about each other,” stresses Anthony. “There are plenty of people my age doing this job that don’t even like it anymore, but they don’t know anything else. To be 42 and still making this music and building this band for each other is a gift. There isn’t some big thing we’re working towards. It’s about doing what we’re doing. That gets more exciting to us every day. If that feeling stops at some point, we’ll know what to do. Until then, we’re going to keep digging and writing music and playing shows. It’s what we’re made of. It’s who we are.”

“I’m never thinking about the end,” nods Frank. “Success is being there, being present, being gracious for the time we have. I continue to write and create things without thinking about it much in the same way that I don’t think about the next breath I’ll take. It’s just what I do. And in the same way that no-one knows when it’s the last time to go outside to play pretend with their friends, I won’t know the last music I ever make. I just keep going and going and hope that the next thing is better than what came before...”

Violet is released on January 31 via Fantasy Records.