[Cover photo credit to Rick Perez]

Los Angeles-based Power Punk duo Mr. Dinkles has released new single “Brain”, which ties into the uncertainty they faced in pursuing music, a process of “starting over” and “questioning everything and trying to pay the bills while figuring out what comes next.” However, as the song suggests, that’s just the starting point for bigger things.

The first single from the duo’s forthcoming five-song EP, REZN, “Brain” introduces a collection “about frustration, insecurity, identity and the pressure to live according to other people’s expectations.” Arriving via Futureless, the label will offer a vinyl edition pairing REZN with the band’s previous EP, RIPT, alongside new merch.

The duo features Mac Rettig on vocals and guitar and Rocco Ramos on drums, and Rettig wrote the track “Brain” after losing a job over what Rettig describes as a false accusation of theft. Already asking for more hours and struggling with the financial realities of building a music career, the sudden loss of income intensified doubts about the decision to move from Seattle to Los Angeles.

Rettig explains:

I was also getting frustrated at myself as to why the band wasn’t growing as fast as I imagined, despite my hard work, and moving to LA from Seattle. I was wondering if I made a mistake pursuing music. My money source dropped while I was already walking in the dark.

That “collision of creative ambition and everyday survival” runs through REZN. The EP also looks at the “need for control that can conceal deeper insecurities, while challenging performative attitudes within punk culture itself.”

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11/22- West Hollywood, CA Troubadour