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photos: Moe Horta

Since their captivating debut at Chicago's Riot Fest in 2022 and the release of their exhilarating first album, Past Lives, L.S. Dunes has evolved into something truly magical. Born during COVID chaos and shaped by challenging time constraints, they have consistently defied the odds, expanding their fanbase with each new breathtaking track. They have become not just an exciting but an essential supergroup – featuring members of My Chemical Romance, Thursday, Coheed And Cambria and more – a journey we've all been a part of and can take pride in.

By any measure, the band's latest album, Violet, once again helmed by Grammy-nominated producer Will Yip, lives up to the legacy they continue to build. In many ways, it opens up an opportunity to rediscover L.S. Dunes in a different light. Where Past Lives takes its oxygen from the thrill of frenzy and impulsiveness, Violet breathes deeper with a more open and expansive palette. Whether it lives in the confident and steady pulse of a song like "Machines," in the rousing lyrical empowerment of "Paper Tigers," or in the way that "Forgiveness" forges itself as an anthem for love and unconditional acceptance in the face of our personal failures, this is a body of work that not only offers hindsight but also instills hope and a sense of magic. And isn't that what the world needs more of?

The Noise had the opportunity to chat further with frontman Anthony Green and guitarist Travis Stever about the magic of the album as well as maintaining a healthy work-life-balance shredding alongside fellow self-proclaimed “workaholics,” guitarist Frank Iero, drummer Tucker Rule, and bassist Tim Payne. 

Violet feels like a shift from Past Lives in terms of sound in some aspects. How would you describe the musical progression between these two albums?

ANTHONY GREEN: My perspective of it is so narrow from my vantage point, and I see a growth relative to our personal relationship growth. When we were writing and putting together Past Lives, we were figuring out how we operated creatively, and you got to hear that in real-time on Violet. With this album, I can't really speak to what other people would have experienced while listening to the first one, but I know that on this record, it feels like we know each other better, and I hope that comes across.

TRAVIS STEVER: I absolutely agree with everything he said. We also got to be around each other.

Anthony: Oh yeah. 

Travis: I mean, it's like a whole different language you speak when we're together. I have video footage that I was going through to kind of remember some of the stuff that we did, also to try and remember parts. But just looking at it, we had this one part that we were working on in Violet – okay, and I'm working on it, Frank's across, you can't even see him, but you see Anthony behind, and he's doing this smile. He's doing this smile and dancing, but then I hit this bum note, and he's all of a sudden, like, [makes cringe face].

Anthony: Haha, yeah, I remember. [laughing]

Travis: But you didn't mean it! The best part is that you did not even mean it! It's just the natural language of music that when something happens, it's inevitable, and I died laughing because I was like, "I would have done the same thing." We were like-

Anthony: You were just trying stuff out. 

Travis: Yeah, I was trying stuff out, but we had gotten somewhere where we were all excited with the melody, and he had already done some vocal melodies; it was just this exciting moment. And it was like, “That's how you work.” There are things, such as body language and everything that goes together in the studio. I mean, I love Past Lives, I love how it came about. There's some beauty to creating art like that, which was something new for all of us. It was like painting a wall from a distance. But this was doing it together.

Anthony, the lyrics on Past Lives were profoundly personal. As you know, many of the lyrics on all of the projects you have worked on together and individually feel like lyricism is a crucial aspect of the music. How do the themes of Violet compare to those on the debut album? Are you exploring new emotional territories or continuing from where you left off?

Anthony: Well, thanks for saying that stuff about the lyrics. I think that when I was writing Past Lives, I was sort of just kind of, you know, you're like “I can't help making things sort of autobiographical.” And I try really hard even when I intend to write a song where I'm like, "Okay, this is from someone else's vantage point, or this is about this story.” Or even there's been songs where I'm like, "This is inspired by a movie or something, and it still ends up becoming autobiographical.” There's my narcissistic nature or something, and how it just goes that way. But I feel like this stuff that came out for Past Lives, I was running and gunning in my life at that time, and it all kind of came out like that. There was stuff that even after it got written, I was like, "Whoa." I was desperate for connection at that point in my life, and when we were writing Violet, I really wanted to make sure that there was intention behind the songs and that there weren't these cliffs that you drop off of, you know?

I feel like this antenna when I'm working, and after a while, when you're tuned to a certain frequency that's very negative, you find yourself in this loop. So this record for me was a lot of trying to break out of that loop and find silver linings in the worst, most destructive aspects of the things I've created in my life to keep moving forward.

Let’s circle back for a second about band chemistry, working through the pandemic, and now working together post-pandemic, which feels silly to say because I feel like the world is still kind of burning. But anyway, with Past Lives being your debut, how has chemistry within the band evolved since then? You went from working on an album during a global pandemic to now having free reign once restrictions were lifted. How has the way you've worked together changed, and in what ways have you all bonded as a band to create this stronger cohesion in Violet? 

Travis: I don't know if this answers your question, but it was very clear from the moment that we were all in the same room that no matter what, if we started playing any melody, then we were all off to the races. It's very hard to find that in a group of people where everybody's not afraid to jump in and start creating together, and that's what we have. That's the one [thing] I've never experienced with this band where there's no hesitation in starting to create when we're around each other. You know what I mean? We can lean on each other if one person's pretty burnt out.

For instance, I remember coming back from Australia and meeting up on the last Dunes tour, and everybody was working on something in sound check. I just felt so burnt out, and I didn't know if I could do it, and they all comforted me and made me feel like I was safe to hold out, wait for it, and then they worked on it. And when I came in to work on it, it was like, "Oh, wow, I could just jump right in. It'll be okay. I'm okay here. I'm not like failing everyone, right?” When we give each other that, probably because of what we've been through before it, not throwing shade at any of the other bands we're part of or anything like that. It's just we grew up playing music. We have a maturity that hopefully, or I assume, we all bring to this, that I don't know, it's just it makes a different kind of scenario coming into it that perhaps it's hard to even bring to the other things we're part of because we're so used to the roles. But we can come here and say, “Oh, this is how we started this, and this is what we do for each other,” the trust thing, you know, we do that for each other. So, how has that differed? It's gotten better, consistently better, and even in the distance, like from the long-distance writing, it's constantly happening. We've already been doing that, and I know [Anthony] already has millions of melodies, everything that we send, and that's what we do.

That's great to hear.

Travis: That's my take on growing, you know?

Anthony: Maturity was a cool word that stood out to me. We were saying that whatever our intentions were in building this – it was like how people get together to have a club, how people will play sports, or like a group of dads getting together to play music. Most of the challenges have come from, like, "Okay, how do we share this with the world? How do we make this more than just like, what it is for us and allow other people in and do it like a band,” you know, maybe like a real band. And getting to know each other, getting to have each other's back in situations where it's like, "Yeah, we're gonna do a tour. We're gonna do things." Ultimately, I think that, at the core, we want each other to be happy. Because we know if we're happy or taken care of, we're gonna make something really fun together. Having that be the nucleus, everything's built around it, and it makes it very challenging, and again, this doesn't bring anything that other projects are lacking. I just think that this is a new thing that exists outside of certain pressures that we all have, you know?

Travis: Well said, that's it.

There's a lot of instability in the industry right now, where artistic expression feels more like a survival tool than a form of catharsis. So many artists seem pressured to release music just to get by. What do you think about this shift?

Anthony: I think with this project, we all cross-pollinate with whatever else we're working on, you know? I know that as soon as I'm done writing a Dunes song, it keeps your creative muscles strong and to have something where you can always just express yourself and know that there's a bunch of people that are gonna be like, "Fuck yeah, that's sick."

Travis: It's interesting, and watching him answer that and say it like that, I just can't wait to work on new stuff. 

Yeah?!

Travis: Already! That's what's hilarious. It's like, we get together and work on stuff in the room together, but also, like, work on all the things that we have already, you know, like, there's --

Anthony: There's a bit of enabled workaholism in this group. 

Travis: Oh yes, totally.

Anthony: All of us, I think, are like dealing with different, you know – I've definitely had my experiences with, like, compulsion and addiction and all that stuff. And I think a lot of it for me has been finding things you can put that same energy into that aren't as destructive. And, like, there's a little bit of workaholism in us that probably isn’t healthy. But we’re wrangling it in together as a group. When you like what you do, it can be very challenging to know when to stop.

What did you learn from making Past Lives that influenced the creation of Violet? Were there things you wanted to do differently this time around?

Travis: I don't think we had – we weren't like, “We have to do it this way.” There were intentions just to be together, and we were able to do that. I know that Anthony shares this, too. The goal was that eventually, hopefully, we could be in a room for a few days and have some fresh, brand-new ideas. There were road maps for songs already there and some ideas that were more spur of the moment.

Anthony: Not all the structural changes, though. The dropout in “Violet.”

Travis: Yeah! 

Anthony: Us all in the room talking about that and then trying it out at different lengths. Like, where does it feel? And I remember at first I was like, "It just doesn't feel right there," yeah. We had to listen to it and, like, settle into it.

Travis: Absolutely. So I kind of am going to go against what I'm like, I'm going to agree with Anthony. I mean, even the beginning of the album, the song, “Like Magick,” that's a song that Anthony had sitting around. He was just plucking and singing that melody over and over, and it just got in our heads, and we were like, "We need to use that," and it became a band song. And that happened with our 2022 record. But you know I kind of contradict myself by saying that that can happen from a distance, but there's like this, this beauty of it happening in person.

Right. 

Travis: That we hadn't experienced yet together. 

Anthony: We also hadn't written where we knew each other creatively, but we're just sending files back and forth, and before writing Violet we got to experience playing all of the songs live and seeing how that evolved, and adding parts. There were times when sitting in practice, where you would jam on something, and Tuck would start playing, and we could all tell our creative sense, our navigational sense as a group towards whatever we like creatively, is very strong. It's weird, you go to capture that, and it's like you can capture that so many different ways, but it's almost like grabbing this flow state that's so great, and trying to then limit it, putting in a structure, putting in a boundary, and just kind of kill everything but the littlest spark about it. Then you get all these little sparks together, and it's like, it represents something that represents the song. But like, I don't know, I'm like, not trying to talk shit on any of our other projects, but even just in playing the songs that we recorded for this record live now, I'm like, "Oh, I could have done this. I could have done that…”

Travis: Yeah, we can do it! Like, that's the cool thing.

Anthony: Playing “Machines” live, I was like, "Oh my god." And we're still evolving and growing. I feel like this is just the foundation of what we're able to experiment and do together. Everybody sort of trusts each other to bring their own freakiness too. I don't ever have to worry, "Okay, we need to work on this." Like, I'll think of something I need to work on or want to write something, and I want to push myself. I know Travis is doing the same thing with everything he plays. Everybody brings that energy to push themselves.

It sounds like that evolution just happened very naturally. 

Anthony: Yeah, definitely. It's like when you're like, I just need a haircut. I don't know exactly what I gotta do, but it's gotta just-

Gotta be different.

Anthony and Travis: Gotta be different!

Is there a specific concept or theme you focused on for Violet that differs from Past Lives? How did you build on the foundation of your debut album?

Anthony: Lyrically, I think magic was something I thought about a lot, magic and light and the idea of what magic is and what feels like magic and how the concept of mysticism in music gets strangled out. Where putting a record out and making a recording even – like, back in the day, there were people that when they started recording music, people were like, “Fuck, no, you can't do that to the listening experience.” And we experience that now with every kind of thing that comes up, I don't know. I just think that the music alchemizing your pain and suffering into something tangible and giving hope is something that I wanted to think about when we were writing this album. The idea is that it can be therapeutic. 

Are there any tracks on Violet that stand out to you personally? I loved the intro track "Like Magick," midway point "Machines," and "Holograms."

Travis: Oh, so many songs on the record right now are my favorite! I can’t pick.

What about you, Anthony?

Anthony: I've been listening to "Violet" so much, and I started trying to play it on acoustic; it's such a good song; it's so good. We also were practicing it, and you know, I sing the majority of the stuff on the record live or on the record, but like, Frank will sing with me, and like, he sings with me on that live, and I'm excited to play that. I don't know, I can't pick a favorite, honestly. This sounds so stupid, but for every one of these songs, I had this experience writing and crafting with this group, where I was so personally invested in every little part of it that it was such a joy to be a part of all the steps, watching everything get created, even from the sidelines, when they were working out musical stuff. I was like, "Okay, cool. I could fill something in, cool here. I can give this space here." I can't pick a favorite, you know?

And that's okay. They're all your favorites!

Travis: Oh yeah, it's always subject to change.

Anthony: "Like Magick" is cool, just because it gives me this charge where whenever I'm with the group where I have something and where they're like, "Hey, I want to work on this. It's an idea that I was messing with,” and they take it and make it cool, that always makes me feel really good.

How do you hope Violet will be received by your fans, especially those who followed you since Past Lives and throughout your separate work? Is there a particular message or feeling you want them to take away from this album?

Anthony: I've honestly divorced myself from the outcome.

Yeah? 

Anthony: Yeah. 

That's probably the healthiest thing to do.

Travis: I think that's the healthiest thing you can do. It's the healthiest thing any of us can do. Are we gonna look? Yeah, we're gonna see what people say.

Anthony: I have this faith that the people who have been so supportive up until now truly want you to have harmony within what you're doing. So I know that that's there, and I have faith in that, but for the better of myself, I find all my victory in just having the record be something the whole band could put our hands in a circle and go, "Woooo!" And then sharing it with the world is, like, it's like, a big bonus, you know?

Travis: Yeah. I agree.

Anthony: I hope, I always hope, like, if I'm cooking something for somebody, like, I hope they enjoy it. I hope they enjoy it as much as I do. But this is kind of a different scenario, I guess. It's hard to say.

How do you plan to bring the album's energy to the stage? What can fans expect from your live shows this time around? Are there any songs that you're super excited to perform live for people?

Travis: Yeah, we already started working on a couple of them that we'll be doing out on tour with Rise Against in Europe, and we have some headlining shows out there in the UK and Europe. I imagine once we're out there, I'd say that we already have five or six of the ten songs ready to play live, and then we'll work on the other four. Frank was writing us all yesterday about "You Deserve To Be Haunted" and even trying to mess with that, which would be a seventh that we would already have ready.

Anthony: We started playing that "Fatal Deluxe" song on the Rise Against tour, too, and that song, oh my gosh, is my favorite. It was my favorite song to play in the set; we closed the set with it, and that song was transformative for me. It takes me someplace else; I feel confident when I play that. Something about that, everything about that song, it just is so fun to play. The same thing happened when we started playing "Machines," and I got lost in it every time; you know, it took me somewhere. Yeah, it's cool.

Travis: "Fatal Deluxe" is something Anthony mentioned before; that's a good example of us taking a song and adding a whole new ending. Something that maybe we'd be like, "Oh, we wish we did this in the studio," but that's what's cool, as a band, we'll take things like that, and we'll add it to the live set. So that's what's cool about once we're all together and we're on tour, we'll start working out these little nuances, and people that come to our shows will start to see them evolve as they come to the show.

How do you see the future of L.S. Dunes? Are there specific directions you're excited to explore next? Is there something that you feel the need to just accomplish with this project other than just make fucking great music?

Travis: I mean, I think that's just it. To continue to make music with them.

Anthony: Yeah, that's it. I mean, like I said, everybody gets to kind of witness our club of dads who don't get together to play music together, you know what I mean? As long as we can maintain the nucleus of how much fun it is just to be together, make music together, let each other explore, and keep it growing. I hate looking into the future with anything too much, you know?

The future should be a surprise.

Anthony: Yeah, and I feel really lucky to be a part of this. Like really lucky, like, every day of my life, even when the shit is happening with it, where there is the hardest shit that we go through with it. I'm still just so grateful to be participating. I know that music is healing, and there's this other aspect to it, so just throwing it out there, you're just participating. No outcome is needed to keep us apart from caring about each other and nurturing each other's strengths personally and professionally; that's my goal. We can make another ten records. We can make one record, whatever there is, just as long as we stay loving and supportive as a unit; who knows?