#interview alert

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"

Hear Anthony on why the members of L.S. Dunes are drawn to the band "like a magnet"

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?!”

"Music should surprise you, it should be magical"

Hear Frank on the joy of having no boundaries to your creativity

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.

If you’re unfamiliar with Anthony Green, today is your lucky day — there’s now days and days worth of his music to discover and enjoy. Over the past nearly three decades, Anthony has been a prolific musician, pushing the boundaries of post-hardcore and emo while cementing himself as a true innovator. A legend in the scene, he’s formerly been the frontman for Saosin and Circa Survive, and now leads L.S. Dunes, The Sound of Animals Fighting, Fucking Whatever, and maintains an extensive solo career.

2025 alone has been a monster year for him: three album releases across different projects, tours for each of those albums, and even his literary debut. Things don’t seem to be slowing down anytime soon. Here’s a quick timeline of his year so far:

L.S. Dunes – Violet Release: 1/31 L.S. Dunes Tour: 4/8 – 5/11 Anthony Green – So Long Avalon Release: 6/20 High & Driving: The Origins of Avalon Book: 8/5 So Long Avalon Tour: 7/11 – 9/13 The Sound of Animals Fighting – The Maiden Release: 9/12 The Sound of Animals Fighting Tour: 9/25 – 10/12

Dude’s a beast, and that’s not even counting the stuff he has in the works that hasn’t been made public yet.

I caught up with Anthony before a recent show in Boise, ID at the Neurolux. He’s currently on tour for his reworked solo album So Long Avalon, a re-recorded and reimagined take on his 2008 album Avalon. Joining him on this tour are Geoff Rickly of Thursday and Kurt Travis of Royal Coda. We chatted about The Sound of Animals Fighting’s new album The Maiden; creativity; lyricism; dogs; Martenelli’s; and even fighting babies.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

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Ricky Adams @ The Needle Drop: You’ve had a busy year! What have you released so far, and what’s still in the works: albums, tours, or other projects?

Anthony Green: There is a lot of stuff. This tour (for So Long Avalon), and then right after this tour, The Sound of Animals Fighting tour starts. It has a record coming out, The Maiden, which is out September 12th. I started the year putting that record out with L.S. Dunes, Violet. So this will be like a three-record year for me, which is really awesome. Three tours? Possibly more. Possibly some little things coming out. I've been making so much music that is just stuff I'm making that I don't really know what I'm going to do with it. Like experimenting with making atmospheric music and experimental noisy stuff and beats. Just weird things that there's no… They’re not headed to the processing plan. These are just things to build upon my creative muscle. After working in the studio all the time, writing stuff, you have to balance it. So I've spent more time this year, even though I'm putting out three records, I have all this stuff that I'm building that has no bullseye. It's just pure exploration, and it's been really fun.

I've been writing stories. Sometimes I think about putting them out. I just started recently talking to Geoff Rickly and his publisher, and the people at my label have been like, "You should write more." I wrote some stuff for the Avalon book, which was my first time ever writing, which is terrifying. I love writing. My brain works faster than my mouth. And I'm not a book-learned man. I can't really hang out with pseudo-intellectual people. I really like short poetry. When I was growing up reading Henry Rollins and stuff, that's the type of stuff I really liked. It was digestible. It worked with my dyslexia, and it kept my attention. I've always just loved letters from Neal Cassady and Jack Kerouac, stuff like that. There were normal people just talking.

So for a while, I think I was judging myself too much. I'm like, "Oh, if I write, everybody's going to know that I'm stupid." But I'm like, everybody knows I'm stupid anyway. And for better or worse, they've accepted it. I just had no fun with it. I started drawing. I'm drawing, painting like crazy. And the music has been more creatively satisfying than I've ever found it in my whole life. I think it's because I'm doing stuff that isn't necessarily going to come out. The thrill of it. It's weird. This tour is doing good, and it's doing better than I've ever done. The Dunes thing has helped me so much. That band has just saved my life and introduced my music to so many people who never would have listened to me. Having time to do all the projects and work on so much, it's like a blessing.

With the upcoming The Sound of Animals Fighting album, and a seventeen-year gap between records, how did this come about? Was it something that had been in the works for a while, or did it all come together pretty quickly?

It was like, we put out this EP a little while ago, APE SHIT, and it was pretty easy to record and make. Then, honestly, we were just missing it. I think all of us were just texting like, “Hey, should we do something? Remember how fun that was?” I was still struggling a little bit when we did the last shows. It was really just like an obsession meeting an opportunity.

How would you describe the band’s lore currently? The new album definitely has a mythical feel to it. I remember back when the original album came out, in the early 2000s, there was so little information about who all was actually involved in the band.

Rich Balling is the true leader of the band. I am a hired gun, honestly. He came to me in the parking lot of the Chain Reaction with this idea. I had only just heard of RX Bandits and loved them. I was just like, “Fuck yeah, all right.” It was just a musical exhibition.

I remember at the time I was in Saosin. I was like, “Hey, this guy wants me to do this shit. Can I do it?” And they were like, “Nope.” I had to sneak out and do it. I had so much fun because I wanted to write. I could just go in and start singing, you know what I mean? It’s my trick. I love that. I love it so much, and I want to do it all the time. I was out there as a young kid wanting to show people that I could do it.

There were some narcotics involved in the first two records. But as Rich started putting the band together, it just got chewed into shape. We tried things out, and they either didn’t work or they did. I think we’re at a place now where the singers are me, Matt Embree, Rich, Keith Goodwin, and Matt Kelly.

Rich is just a visionary. He told me what he was thinking, and I was like, “All right, what do you want this to be about?” He just told me the album title, and I riffed on ideas of what to make it about. He named the songs. He picked the artwork. It was just like, “Oh, here’s the record cover.” And I’m like, “Sick, it’s my drawing.” I was like, “Okay.”

Oh, really? That's your drawing on the cover?

Yeah. I would have done a way better job at it if I’d known it was going to be on the album cover. But it’s just one of those things the project gives to me in my life, it comes up once in a while. I don’t really know what the lore is like on the other side of the curtain.

This new record is also my favorite thing I think we’ve ever done. A lot of the stuff is sprawling and weird. I got home from the Dunes tour in Europe, then had a Dunes tour in the US, and only had three weeks to do this. I had written some stuff while I was in Europe with Dunes. It was so hard. The songs were nine minutes long, eight minutes long. There were all these parts, and I had all this pressure. I had just finished the Dunes record, and I really wanted this to be good. I didn’t want to be too tired or show a lack of creativity.

I spent every day writing, recording, and coming up with ideas, then went to his house and tracked the vocals. There were so many times where I was like, “Okay, I don’t know what to do here. Here’s one idea where I start singing here, and here’s another idea where I start singing there.” Totally different melodies, different lyrics. I did that for a lot of the record where I didn’t really know what the best thing was because I liked all the parts, so I just sent them all.

Then Matt Embree, who produced it, put a lot of them on top of each other, all happening at the same time. I was like, “That’s cool.” He moved things around and really did a great job making something fun to listen to.

For the upcoming Sound of Animals Fighting tour, are there certain songs you’re excited to perform live?

All of the first acts, all of the first record, is so fun for me to play. I like hearing Keith and Matt Kelly sing “Wolf” because it’s so different live than it is on the record. It’s slower. You can hear it on the Live in Philadelphia album. It’s so good.

Getting to just hang with these guys — there’s a part in one of the songs on the first record where I just say, “What? Everybody else can be free now.” And every time I sing that part, it’s during this buildup, and it’s one of my favorite things I’ve ever been a part of writing. Every time I sing it, I feel like the Lizard King. You know what I’m saying? I can sing anything. It’s crazy. And literally, there are nights where I’m like, “That moment alone is worth everything.” Every time it hits.

“Skullflower” is another one. Just singing those lyrics makes me feel happy to not want to die every day. It’s a thing I wrote when I had a death wish, and that’s been a theme. It’s cool to sing those things now with that wanting—for every day, for all the good shit and bad shit all together, the whole fucking burrito of it all.

Really just feeling it.

Like radical acceptance. Maybe not seeing things as good or bad. There’s this old parable about a farmer who has all these horses. His neighbor comes over and says, “Oh, you got all these horses. This is great.” And the guy’s like, “Is it?” Then all the horses break free and run away. The neighbor’s like, “Oh my God, all your horses left. This sucks.” And the guy’s like, “I don’t know, does it?” Then his son brings back three dozen more horses than the ones that ran off. The neighbor says, “Oh my God, you got all these new horses. This is so good.” And the guy’s like, “I don’t know.” Then the son breaks his leg on one of the horses. The neighbor says, “Fuck, your son broke his leg. This is terrible.” And the guy’s like, “Is it?” The next day the army recruiter comes, but he can’t take the son to war because of the broken leg.

It’s just like that: our perceptions fuck with everything. My judgment of things being good or bad, or what they’re supposed to be, needs to be audited constantly. So I’m cool being in this place in my life. I don’t know if it’s good or bad. It’s exactly what needs to be happening. All I know is whatever’s happening is exactly what needs to be happening so I can learn how to be a better artist, a better dad, better at helping people. That’s it. Fuck everything else.

We go our whole lives being like, “Oh my God, this anxiety, this depression, this whatever.” And then you realize: just allow it. Just let it be. And then it goes away, or it alchemizes into something else. Writing is a really beautiful thing. People talk a lot of shit on music critics, but I think a lot of that comes from people getting hurt because they need things to be a certain way to feel secure in their relationship with their craft. But I love people talking about music. Everybody should be talking about music. Everybody should say what they think about music. You’ve got to check your relationship with your craft, because not everybody is going to like your shit, just like you don’t like everybody’s shit.

I’m lucky. It’s helped me build a good relationship with what I love so much, which is just being in that flow state and sharing it with people who like it. There’s not much more to it. I think there are a lot of people from my generation of artists who thought they were going to be big stars, or influencers, or popular. They thought there would be some kind of external validation. But even if you get it, it doesn’t last. It’s not sustainable. And then you get stuck doing this job, but you don’t have the heart for it anymore, because you need your fucking paycheck or else it’s not fun for you.

But if you can’t have fun when shit’s down and out, you’re never going to have fun.

That internal validation.

It’s weird. When nobody was showing up to my shows, I was like, “Man, what am I doing wrong?” Now that I’m having this little tiny thing where people are coming to the shows and it’s going well, I’m like, “Don’t you dare. Don’t you dare try to enjoy this. Don’t you dare hold on to one little bit of it, because it doesn’t mean anything.”

It didn’t mean anything when nobody was there, and it shouldn’t mean anything now. Just do your best. Do your best. And that’s it. You can hold on to nothing.

Adam Barabas

Between your solo work, L.S. Dunes, The Sound of Animals Fighting, Fucking Whatever, and Let’s Start a Band — am I missing any active projects?

I’m also in a little band called True Fine Mama, a Little Richard cover band from Doylestown. It’s with some buddies of mine who used to work at the local skate park. I play drums, and we just do local shows. It’s pretty awesome.

How do you approach the lyrics for each one? Do they come from separate mindsets, or do they bleed into each other?

I've recently been trying to figure out the modes. When I'm with Dunes, there's a group conscience. They give me the freedom, like, “Hey, you can make this about whatever is going to give you the biggest charge.” I can bring that to the table. But I also find that I want to express stuff that's going to be relatable for the group conscience. I’ll think about them. I wrote a song about Frank hurting his arm and not being able to play guitar and needing surgery.

With Fucking Whatever, I've been trying to figure out the modes because I usually just approach everything like, I'm writing. More recently, I started doing more thematic stuff where I'll be like, “Hey, what do you want this to be about?” I wrote a bunch of songs about my mom and dad, just inspired by their life, thinking about what stuff could be like for them. I never really did that before. In the early days of my writing, it was just word salad — throwing stuff in. Maybe the chorus was about something, maybe the verse was about something else. Back then, I was just trying to sound as much like Cedric from At the Drive-In as I possibly could.

How do you keep organized in terms of scheduling out all these projects with writing, touring, recording, and promo stuff like this?

I have a good team. My team is impeccable, and they know me well. They know what a flake I am. They know I’ll say things. A great example is I wanted to make a video for The Sound of Animals tour. I wanted to sing “Skullflower”. One night I was like, we should make a little video for “Skullflower”, me and Keith and everybody just singing it somewhere cool. My partner Chris, who runs Born Losers Records, was on tour with me. He was like, “Hey, you want to do that today? Hey, you want to…” There was a day where I was like, not today. Then it was, all right, we’ll do it.

When I was like, “Hey, let’s do a book,” he was the one who kept following up on it, like, “Hey, can you get this done? Can you get this in to me by the end of the week?” Between him and my manager, my day-to-day person Kristen who is in Nashville, I have a great team. If it wasn’t for them, nothing would get done. I’d just be chasing butterflies — you know what I mean? Chasing waterfalls. My time management is all organized by them. I’m getting better at it, but it really is by the mercy of my teachers.

What inspired you to revisit your first solo album, Avalon?

Lots of things. The first thing I would say is that over the years, we recorded those songs before we were really a band. I was playing with Keith and Tim, and they just filled in and we jammed. Then throughout the years, those songs just changed so much live all the time. I would love these versions of them that we would play live. Then when I would listen to the OG, I’d be like, “This is cool, but I know it can be better.” After doing Boom. Done. with Keith, I was like, “This could be fun to do as a project. Maybe we’ll do a song, maybe we’ll try one thing.”

I also saw some time for myself where I was like, “Oh, I could tour when Dunes is done. I could do some shows.” If I did that, then I would have the versions of the songs out for people. I could play them and be like, “Yo, check these out,” and not have to be like, 'Oh, there’s a pressure of having to do all new stuff.' I just focused on making them really pretty and lush.

It was like another obsession and opportunity thing where they just met up. Keith really made this. If you’re going to redo something, you gotta do it like that — where it makes sense. It makes it sound like the first one was demos. There’s a charm to it, but I think there’s more charm in the new one.

It was really just that the songs feel so different to me now, too. Sometimes I’m singing about things, and I’m thinking about different things, and I just wanted to put a new little thing on it.

And you wrote a book about it as well. How was that process for you?

It was weird. How is it for you when you write? Do you draft?

Yeah, I do.

How many drafts do you go through? Just until you got it with the piece?

Several. I’ll think I’m done, but then I’ll keep going back and tweaking it.

That's why it was so weird, because with a song, it's like you got this internal thermometer. You're like, it will ping, you're up, you're good, it's at the right temperature. With a story or with a poem, with the word without the melody there, it's like, how do you ever stop? How do you ever stop adding or subtracting? That's where I'm struggling with right now.

I like having the kind of voice and the kind of style that doesn't resonate with everybody. I'm not interested in that. I feel like the modern-day music industry, the way it all is, the ocean of it and the streamings of it and the lakes of it, it's just washed everything down where it's like, oh, if you're going to be super huge and really successful, it's almost like you can't be really great. And it's almost hard to find stuff that's really great out there. You got like Turnstile and Doechii and stuff like that that can break through because of the internet.

Then it's just like, as soon as they get out there, it's like ants to a chip. Everybody just starts trying to exploit it, and everybody starts trying to copy it, and everybody starts trying to trend it. You water one flower and the whole garden grows. I'm a small enough artist that it doesn't really matter. But it's very rare that you see an artist like Turnstile make it mainstream, get their weird individual, unique style of music out there for everybody to enjoy. It's rare.

It's not really a goal of mine to try to be a big artist. I think there was a time in my life where I was like, I wanted it, but I ate my own shit. I was like, okay, with labels saying stuff and people saying stuff. Then you have enough failure in that realm where you realize, oh, their failure is someone else's success. It all really goes back to just like, do I like what I'm doing? If I'm enjoying what I'm doing, then it's like, yeah, I'll be all right. You always win.

I have enough people that I can make something cool. I don't have to do crazy shit. There's enough people out there that really love my shit for one reason or another. They let me do what I want. And as long as I'm happy with it, they're down to support it. And I'm not trying to fuck with that. You know what I mean? Grow that? No, dude! That's how you hurt that. I'm trying to keep that right where it is. They like my drawings. They like my weird songs about cats. They like my songs about wanting to kill myself. I'm good. I just want to keep that forever.

I think artists really hurt that by trying to grow it all the time. I'm done growing. I'm 43, dude. I'm done growing. I'm getting shorter now. I'm like my grandma. You know what I mean? I'm getting shorter. I'm getting smaller. Downsized.

There's such a draw to people who are vulnerable and honest. When people are vulnerable and honest, that resonates with people. But when you're just trying to grow it for the sake of growing it, you can feel that.

Here's the thing. If you find that your vulnerability and honesty is becoming a thing that you're using as a trend, then what the fuck is it? It's not vulnerability, it's not honesty. For a little while, I was doing all these interviews that were just all about being bipolar. And I really want to break the idea that people who are bipolar should feel weird or not want to talk about it. I'm also not trying to exploit that. There's enough of that. It's a fine line. I want to help people. But I don't want the fact that I was a drug addict to be the focal point of absolutely everything. That's silly.

You see artists capitalizing on an overdose? Come on. I'm not trying to do that. And I felt like that was happening a lot of the time, where it was like, 'Oh, you're capitalizing on this stuff.' Everybody wants this story. Extremes go back around, the pendulum swings. I want it small now. The idea of constant growth is built into this capitalistic thing about it, and it's like, nah! I want to make something nobody likes. I want to make something that only the freaks are going to like. I'm going to make something just for the freaks. I want to put out an instrumental album with no lyrics, just oohs and aahs and weird shit, and put it on a Dropbox link. I just want to have fun making music.

My kids are old enough to see everything. I'm going to give them a good example. They can have fun in this world. You don't have to get a big job. You don't have to get a big house. You don't have to get a big car. You just have to have a good community around you.

I'm looking forward to the Anthony Green dub album.

I might. I might. Yesterday, we played three songs in Reno at sound check that were all dub style.

I’ve noticed you post a lot of dog pics while on tour. Is that something where people know you love dogs and bring them by, or are they just chance encounters?

I walk around all day long in the city that I'm at, I just meet dogs. I love animals so much. I like cats too. It's one of the benefits being on the road. Being away from your family. You don't see your kids for a while. You're working, and then you don't have a lot of intimate touch. You get this dog kissing you and loving on you. For a second, it charges your battery. I had a website years ago. I had a Tumblr called Dogs I Dig. It was just pictures of me and dogs. I tried to make stats about the dogs. Now, it's an excuse for me to kiss dogs.

You’ve also been posting a lot of pics of your drink of choice lately, Martinelli’s Apple Juice. Are you pursuing Martinelli’s sponsorship?

I don't know if they would hook up an artist of my size, but I would do so much shit for Martinelli’s. I would write a song for them. I would be their spokesperson. I'm not sure they want a guy like me repping their product, but I would do whatever. Not a lot of sponsors I would chase like Martinelli’s. I think it would be really cool. It's my favorite juice. The whole show last night was about Martinelli’s. It was crazy. I was holding up a bottle of Martinelli’s Apple Juice. People were cheering for it. We could wrap the bus. We could travel in a big apple. The Needle Drop is going to be the start of all this. In a year from now, we're going to have some tour based just all about Martinelli’s Apple Juice. I'll be playing in an apple suit.

Handsfree Martinelli’s chug in Sacramento

I feel like I owe you an apology. I wrote that article [on TND] about you asking a mom not to bring her six-month-old to the show. I definitely wasn’t trying to shame anyone — I just thought it was good fatherly wisdom you were sharing. Also, I loved your response about fighting babies.

Oh, you wrote the baby article?! You didn’t say anything bad. It was so funny, dude. I don’t have Twitter, so I got blown up about it. People were like, “Dude!” No, it was great. I think I either wrote that Instagram story about fighting babies in the middle of the night or the next morning, and then the next day I was like, “Oh my God,” because people were taking it too seriously. Sometimes people take things too seriously, and you can’t really joke about stuff. I mean, I deserve the right to joke about fighting babies.

I also noticed a lot of people who weren’t young parents were coming down on them and judging them. I spoke with this person privately, and I was like, ‘”Yo, I’m so sorry.” And she was like, “It’s all good. It was cool.’ But that’s how you learn. I think the mentality in the whole scene needs to change — from giving each other grace to helping each other learn. There are boundaries to that, too, but being kind goes so far. Just treating people with kindness first. That’s not going to happen on the internet, and I’m not looking for that, but just in general.

That whole thing broke my heart. But! It was funny. I see kids at shows all the time, and I think there’s a learning curve to all that stuff. I was going to see Lana Del Rey at Coachella with my little kids. I brought them all the way to the front, and then she was about to start, and we got stampeded. These two ravers basically parted the seas and saved my life with my children. I’ll never forget them. They were in full rave gear, had pacifiers, and they saw that I was about to drown in Lana Del Rey fans. With these two kids, they just cleared the seas and helped us get all the way to the front of the main stage. It saved my life.

Well, ravers, if you’re reading this, thank you for saving Anthony Green and his children’s lives.

Thank you. If it wasn't for you, I wouldn't be here.

Do you have any plans for 2026 that you’d like to share?

Nope! Let it be a mystery. But I will say, next year is going to be cool!

I feel like it’s going to be tough to top this year, but I’m excited to see what you’ve got in the works.

It's going to be good!

Anthony and I, mirror selfie @ Neurolux Boise, ID

There’s a certain mystical nature to frontman Anthony Green as he expresses the feeling of magic he experiences in Ireland, as guitarist Frank Iero watches one of his closest friends with a bemused fondness, popping in with observations of his own. But, Iero laughs quietly, in a knowing way, as Green’s mind begins to wander, “Ireland has a magical, mystical thing going on. There are fairies here. There’s fucking legit magical shit. Traditional Irish music has some of the craziest storytelling, craziest melodies and songs like he said, there’s songs where the story is linear, you know, and the music here is rich with majesty,” despite warnings to not “talk about ghosts in these old Irish buildings, [because he] might summon something.”

Green’s eloquence and ability to convey his fascination with the magic that lies not only within Ireland, but within music, stretches far beyond what is presented on L.S. Dunes’ newest record, ‘Violet’. And with five of the most powerful minds in post-hardcore at the helm of this newest record – Frank Iero and Travis Stever on guitar, Tim Payne on bass, Tucker Rule on drums and Anthony Green fronting the band – the band’s exploration of genres, sounds and structures pushes the very boundaries their other projects have started, as pioneers of post-hardcore. Honed in on a fine line of post-rock and post-punk, tracks feel environmental and all-encompassing, a swirl of technique that only some of the most innovative minds in the alternative scene can create.

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Eccentric, indomitable, insightful, L.S. Dunes newest venture with ‘Violet’ can be perceived as a vastly different record to their first, ‘Past Lives’, but in truth, contains the same sentiments the band founded themselves on. An exploration of the human consciousness and its relationship with creativity in all of its forms, they push music to its limits, even though to L.S. Dunes, there are none; “There are no rules. Like the fact that there is no right, there is no wrong, it’s just what makes you feel something. Or what sounds good to you. And it’s very subjective, you know? 
The thing that I dig will not be the thing that you dig all this time. And the reason I do it, and the reason that I want to continue to make stuff is because I need to for my own soul and it’s for nothing else. It’s not a tangible thing,” Iero begins. Whether that creativity springs from something tangible or just sensational, it creates a kind of magic, “It’s like you breathe, you walk, you make things, you make songs,” Green hums in agreement. 

Sitting in a dimly lit room at the top of the 3Olympia in Ireland’s capital, Anthony Green and Frank Iero huddle closely, starting off quickly with proclamations of adoration for the country sprinkled amidst the buzz of their first night on tour. Opening for Rise Against on their UK and EU tour, the tour kicked off in Ireland, allowing for Green and Iero to explore the day before, Green’s mind was occupied by the sorcerous atmosphere of the country. And the fact that Green was able to tap into a part of Ireland many people fail to acknowledge, it’s easy to see how ‘Violet’ formed in the way it did, “There’s so much magic in music when it comes to connecting, what draws you out of your comfort zone, and what happens when you’re in a moment in the flow state.”

Through a flow-state that allows for the sorcery  spilling out and morphing into the shape of what is now, ‘Violet’, there are specks of mystery, skepticism, query, and hope perceived throughout the entirety of the record. Fascinating in the way that the instrumentals quite literally convey and encapsulate the essence of how the lyrics make one feel, Green can only describe the experience of writing the record as “touchdown after touchdown – I don’t know sports – but from the very first second I started working on the record… It’s like a joy every time. It’s like when you write something and you’re like, ‘I fucking nailed it, I fucking nailed it! I can’t wait for my parents to read this! I want everybody I went to school with to see this!’ That’s how I felt literally every day leaving the studio, even when something wasn’t hundred percent there, I knew that this group was going to make it better than it could ever have been if I didn’t have this.”

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Green elaborates, “As an artist, as somebody who loves making stuff, there’s only so much I can do when I’m like in my own head, and I can make a cool, whatever, but when you get somebody around you who’s really good and they’re playing, you’re inspired to do more than what you would do on your own… You have four people around you who are inspiring you, who are great, who you admire – so, your output is going to match differently than you just sitting in your room imagining things. And for me, I’ve been searching my whole life for different people to make music with. 
And I’ve had the opportunity to make music with so many great artists, but this situation was one of those fall in love at first sight types.”

With the band originating from their respective, but separate, states of the US amongst the pandemic, the band found a rhythm with starting ideas alone for ‘Past Lives’. But now, with the new record, new paths were foraged both physically and sonically. They “lived in a house down the street from the studio and did the record that way,” Iero explains. Far from what would be considered normal for L.S. Dunes due to “everybody [having] families and other obligations,” and previously made obligations to bands like Thursday, Coheed & Cambria, My Chemical Romance alongside previous excursions with Saosin and Circa Survive. Considering L.S. Dunes only to be a labour of love and dedication is disservice to the mountains they must move in order to find each other in the valley – “And at some point, you’ve got to see a doctor, too.” Forget the dentist, “You got a branch in Vienna?” Iero jests. 

“There’s shit that is happening right now ‘cause I don’t got the fucking time!” Iero exclaims.

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In all seriousness, it “certainly makes this cool thing though – when we do get together, it is kind of like seeing that friend that you don’t get to see very much, but you only have a good time with.” While their friendship is first and foremost, and without it, the band would have never formed, or been as internally successful as it is, they collectively understood that making their first record and doing their first shows was them testing the waters of being a band. “Not just can [we] hang together and make each other comfortable and all that stuff, but like can [we] work out a creative difference? Can [we] compromise on a creative difference so that [we] make it even better than the desired effect from either party? 
Can you live with each other, in close quarters, making music together? All that stuff is the stuff that will make a band like able to make good music.”

Falling in love with the inner workings of the band and the environment it gives each artist in the group – and having it work as harmoniously as it has – allows for the band to blossom and bloom in a way that may not have been possible if pursued any sooner than it had been. When considering the formation of the band its occurrence, Iero wondered aloud whether or not the group could be what it is, had it formed 10, 15 years ago, “I think everything happens for a reason in a certain part of life. I truly feel like the universe kind of tells you where you need to be if you listen to the signs.” And when the signs arrived in the form of voice memos and texts being exchanged in group chats during COVID, they jumped on it. However, it wasn’t without consideration of who they were as individuals and artists, “I know for myself that I could not have handled this type of relationship with people, I don’t think I was ready to be as open as I needed to be in my life until the moment that it made itself available to me. The version of myself that I’m able to move into now at this stage of my life, is because of this band. I don’t know if I could have handled the type of internal pressure,” Green admits.

Screaming about that pressure on ‘I Can See It Now…’ on the newest instalment of L.S. Dunes’ discography, the new album’s ten tracks push and pull, break and crash, sprawling over different sounds and techniques as questions as to our role as people in our environment, the inner workings of human, and questioning the nature of hope, and the magic that lies within freeing yourself from something that doesn’t necessarily serve you swirl in the air: “The idea of being let down by hope, that’s really your preconception and what your expectations are of that. That’s like having a conversation with yourself before you have it. It’s a dangerous game.” Yet Green coincides with Iero that he believes he “found a sense of hope” while “working with the band on Past Lives. Ultimately, the lingering themes of hope that thread through the record showcase a natural occurrence for Green, “I think that just naturally came out because this band makes me feel hopeful.” 

Despite the “inevitable” stress that comes along “when trying to make anything,” which Green considers to be a good kind of stress and pressure – because it means that you see it as “important, and that it means something to you” – the band’s ability to turn inward and reflect was because they were in an environment that made them feel safe. “We put each other first and I think that that helps create an atmosphere where we feel safe, like we’re not gonna work ourselves into the ground for, you know, what? A chance at the big time?” Green jokes.

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While some may – somewhat dismissively – call it a passion project due to its members’ notoriety, it’s more than that. Passion project implies that it’s to the side, only really worked on when convenient. However, nothing about L.S. Dunes and their lives are convenient. That drive, that desire to create a project that is more than just something they work on occasion. No, this project is each member at their most authentic, at their truest ‘creative spirit’: “Much to other people’s chagrin, like labels and managements and all that stuff, like – if it doesn’t feel natural to us, we don’t fucking do it,” Iero shrugs with a bit of a chuckle. “It’s sort of like you have to be selfish so that you can be selfless, you know?” Green adds. 

The authenticity found within L.S. Dunes is evident as members look both to their foundations and what that can be transformed into, pushing themselves beyond who they are at their roots. “I think it’s hard sometimes to get away from the things that are innate to you as an artist, you know? There’re certain places where you will naturally go to or things that you shine within. Whether it’s a riff here, or a melody shift or even like a mannerism within your vocals. We’re all an amalgamation of different ticks that we’ve picked up along away from different people, right?” Iero explains. “You’re gonna have a word that you like to use or a chord change that you like to use. So that stuff, I think keeps you grounded to where you came from, but I think the progression forward is to be aware of that stuff and also try to push yourself outside of those boundaries and push yourself into a place that you don’t feel as comfortable.”

And when you challenge yourself and push your boundaries successfully, it can transform you as an artist. Anthony Green is a glowing example of that, “I don’t know if I’ve ever felt further away from where my roots are than anything ever, and I don’t think it’s a bad thing. I never want to go back to that… I didn’t have a really good relationship with the creative spirit, and it felt like everything I made was almost in spite of my shitty relationship with my creative spirit and with my own self and my body and my ability to connect with my band. So, I feel like this is all new for me.”

A new start, questioning all that has been and all that is, turning pages on times they no longer felt connected to, ‘Violet’ bleeds with deep internal reflections and explorations as they change and morph as a sunrise would, turning the sky violet. And the success of this record to them won’t come from how the record is received by critics, but rather from themselves: “Our victory and our trophy comes when we like the record. Whatever happens after it comes out, kind of just happens – it has nothing to do with us. Like we can make a good record that we like and then be happy to put that out there and that’s where we end,” Green elaborates. Because at the end of the day, Iero acknowledges the “weird connotation with the way that certain people interpret [success].” And he’s right – success has been quantified instead of qualitative. Instead of a release being successful because it was an objectively good record, the quantity in which the record is awarded and perceived by others determines its success.

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Instead, the core of why ‘Violet’ is objectively successful in their terms is because of who the group are at their core, and the creative environment that manifests from their personal identities and reflections: “Our victory and our trophy comes when we like the record. Whatever happens after it comes out, kind of just happens – it has nothing to do with us. Like we can make a good record that we like and then be happy to put that out there and that’s where we end,” Green elaborates.

And the fact that the project is able to be created without restraints, the art truly the only focus, Green and Iero acknowledge their position in the creativity community, “It’s not often that people get the luxury of being able to make something with people who aren’t sweating on you to pay their bills. Like, even if it’s just the tiniest bit of quantum level sweat. When somebody just is like, ‘hey, you do your thing so good. I just love you and I want you to do your best and it’s always you’re happy, we’re gonna be happy, and we’re gonna make a steam roller out of this.’ This is an art project, like that’s such a gift. As an artist it’s made me better, and it’s made me able to work with people better and I think it makes my mission of just wanting to make good music with my friends stronger.”

“To be in a situation where that’s not why we do this – like we would actually probably make more money if we didn’t do this band,” Iero all but shouts in amusement.

A situation so untainted gave way to an objectively good record that tests the boundaries L.S. Dunes view as nonexistent – ‘Violet’ is a testament to the strength and courage of the human spirit in pursuit of creativity and connection, and the magic that is inherently created from such a love for what they do. Indeed, with combined experience of decades in the industry, one would expect a polished piece of work from five post-hardcore pioneers. However, no one can expect the band to reveal themselves and expose their minds and souls to the level of humanity and authenticity this record encapsulates. Untarnished of any restrictions, ‘Violet’ is L.S. Dunes at their most curious, genuine selves. 

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‘Violet’ is out now. For all L.S. Dunes live information visit their site.