Original Czech interview here, by Josef Kaňka. This is just a fan translation. This is a circular translation which is very funny.
On Sunday music group L.S. Dunes will take the stage of Prague's MeetFactory. It was formed by musicians from other already well-known, mostly punk-rock bands. “We don't just want to rely on a past success. Just because we want to have fun doesn't mean we won't work on ourselves,” say its members Frank Iero, guitarist of My Chemical Romance, and drummer Tucker Rule, from the band Thursday. “People might see the decision to start L.S. Dunes as just side thing, but I think it showed very fast that it's not,” says Tucker Rule.
The first single you released last year was called Permanent Rebellion. It is also the penultimate track of the album Past Lives. Will permanent rebellion follow your music forever, or does one grow out of that at some point? Because rebellion is not just a part of L.S. Dunes, but also the main projects of the band members.
Frank: I think it will. Just the moment when we started this band speaks a lot to this. At the beginning of the pandemic they said: “By the way, there won't be any more concerts. We're closing up shop, the world is a different place than it used to be.”
That is a pretty big problem for a group of people who can't do anything other than play in a band. And our response was just starting another band. Rebellion against what someone tells us and what we ‘should’ be doing is probably really permanent and natural to us.
During the pandemic most artists went into the studio, which is why there are more concerts now than there were before. Because everyone is touring with their new records. Did this situation paradoxically create the best possible circumstances that musicians have ever had for creating?
Tucker: Now we have the option to compose the music and also be in the same room, that's great. But it is true it schooled us a lot. Now when one of us is touring with a different band, we still can collaborate and create together long distance.
Because we practiced it during covid. We can create in almost any situation, which is probably the best possible scenario that could have come from that.
Frank: It's true that the situation really played into our cards. You often talk about having to start a new band with someone, but this situation was literally saying: “And now you can. Go for it.”
L.S. Dunes is a so-called ‘supergroup', which is a grouping of musicians from other previously famous and successful projects. You, for example, come from the bands Thursday and My Chemical Romance. People often view groups like L.S. Dunes as side projects, which musicians only use to entertain and distract themselves. How do you view it? Is L.S. Dunes a side project, or the future of your musical activity?
Tucker: The main reason we started the band was creative overflow we had nowhere else to vent out. People of course could see this as a side thing, but I think we showed very quickly that it is not.
Frank: It's definitely a full-fledged band. I don't consider it as a lesser thing, but at the same time I'm not in any way bound by the need for mass success. We just enjoy it. When you don't enjoy something, you logically don't spend much time on it.
So you don't feel pressured? Because the perception of similar bands composed of experienced and successful musicians can be quite stifling. Like in the NHL, when an All Star match is expected to be great hockey.
Frank: The label of supergroup is very unfortunate. We never labeled ourselves that way and others started calling us that. But we generally don't push the way of working where you compose a record with some sort of specific idea of what it is supposed to make people do and how the fans are supposed to react. When you let this sort of thinking into your head, you've lost at your music life.
Tucker: That some people expect something is obvious, but we don't really care. This band brings me a lot of new inspiration, really I go there to educate myself. And also all of my bandmates are my very good friends.
They are the people I would write if something was bothering me or if I needed help with something. Being tied down by some sort of label would be stupid. What makes us a supergroup is maybe for how long we have lasted in the music industry.
How do your colleagues from from the bands that made you famous feel about your new project? Aren't they worried? It's happened many times in the past that because of a new band, the old one broke up.
Tucker: We try to work as one big collective within all the bands that we come from. We've worked together many times in the past. We played at the same festivals, did some other concerts together, in 2008 I drummed as a guest at one My Chemical Romance concert. During the pandemic Frank played guitar on a livestream with Thursday.
How hard was it to get coordinated in the new line-up? Because every band works differently on the inside, and the fact that you guested on each other's projects and met at festivals doesn't have to be important in this case.
Tucker: It wasn't really difficult. We've known each other for a long time, I've been playing with our bassist for over 20 years. It all came together completely naturally.
Frank: You can tell right away at all our concerts. When you see us play, there is no way that we we're not smiling. It's a stress-free environment. We all have a lot of other work, we have families and children, we just want to enjoy this. We're probably to old to be discussing who plays what role in the band. [laughs]
In one interview, your frontman Anthony talked about his fear of Artificial Intelligence, which he also at the same time admires. The use of AI in music is a big trend right now, and there are various kinds of possibilities. Are you planning on experimenting with it, or will you stick to the same process that you're used to from your career so far?
Frank: I think he's mainly fascinated by the possibility of sexual use. [laughs] It probably depends a lot on how you use it. I can't imagine it that much at the moment. Maybe for the visuals, that could be interesting.
But you're not ruling it out?
Tucker: I guess we aren't. When I was learning to drive, I just used the car's mirrors and now I park with a rear-view camera. Things around us are just constantly evolving and sometimes we include them in our lives, and sometimes we don't. I'd say that right now we're satisfied with our creative process and we will use our natural intelligence.
The album Past Lives, that you're now presenting to the fans in Prague, has five orange circles with little lines going out of them on its cover. It looks like lollipops, some say that they're flowers. Can I ask what it represents? If it has any special meaning.
Tucker: It doesn't mean anything in particular. It just looks like a painting that you could see in a modern art gallery. It brings out those kinds of feelings in us. And when a person is picking through a shelf of records in a music store or scrolling through streaming services, the cover could capture their interest, without knowing what band it is.
What is L.S. Dunes planning for the future? Will you be working on another record every day or will it be more free now?
Frank: We're definitely not going slow down. That we want to mainly have fun with our music doesn't mean that we're not going to work. We don't just want to rely on a past success.
And when some young musicians come to our concert, we want them to see that there is hard work behind all of this. That if they want to do this, they have to give a big piece of themselves. At the moment we're writing another record, which we hope we'll finish this year.