Dead Pioneers – Dead Pioneers – Tracks from this self-titled album from Dead Pioneers have been finding their way to us via various music platforms since it emerged a couple of months ago back in Mid September. They’re from Denver, Colorado, and if we don’t cover this before the year ends then we don’t amount to a hill of beans (we, after all, were punk first!)

This is a sound and a set of often urgent statements rooted in the proper Punk aesthetic, Dead Pioneers are a band clearly not to hold back, they’re right in there tackling the issues in that classic US hardcore punk rock way, they kind of feels like classic Dead Kens with a lot more spoken word, that strong spoken word element is an important part, spoke word fuelled by those fast punk rock riffs. “Dead Pioneers was created with a love of music, a love of art and the DIY disposition of just figuring it out and seeing what happens”. They know what they’re doing (even if his cheek bones aren’t high enough), here, let them explain it… 

“Our vocalist, Gregg Deal, Indigenous artist (Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe), started this project as an extension to a performance piece titled “The Punk Pan-Indian Romantic Comedy”. With the intent to  create original music for this performance piece, the Dead Pioneers were accidentally formed! Working closely with Josh and Shane, Gregg tried to form something over the Covid lockdown. Original music from Shane and Josh got things flowing, but things clicked when Gregg met Lee, lead guitarist for Algiers, at an art residency in Florida. Bad Indian was born! This gave enough information to begin forming songs and the overall voice of Dead Pioneers.

Rooted in the Punk aesthetic, Dead Pioneers are not afraid to tackle hard political and social issues, “standing in solidarity of Indigenous rights, Black rights, Brown rights, Asian rights, Gay rights, Trans rights, Workers rights and beyond….” North American Indigenous issues are their main concern, of course that comes with a slice or two of rage and bites taken out of society in general. Hey look, as we keep saying, you don’t need our words, we didn’t read about Dead Pioneers like we might have done back in the last century, we heard them, you don’t need our words, they’ve got enough of their own for you to deal with and this piece wouldn’t be here if we didn’t think you needed to hear the band and know about them. Dead Pioneers are up there with SissyFit as one of the best of the newer proper punk bands who are carrying it all forward with their dark irony and justified rage, and as someone else said, uncomfortable the way punk rock should be and oh and by the way, those aren’t really political songs they’re singing… Brilliant… whatever…! We can go with that and by the way this is not a political thing and it is possible everything we write on these pages is wrong although I think we might just be right to shout a little about this album and this band and and the fine art of properly political punk rock and performance and people doing things in the right way with the right spirit, but hey, we could be wrong, this is not a political thing, here you go, make you’re own minds up…  

Bandcamp / website

“No One Owns Anything and Death is Real is the Dead Pioneers’ latest single off of their self-titled first album. A song about environmentalism, corporate elitism, and the current climate crisis arrives at the indelible truth that no one owns anything, and death is real. Fronted by internationally known visual and performance artist Gregg Deal, this song is projected forth with his Indigenous perspective backed by his band the Dead Pioneers. This group unapologetically pulls no punches”!