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Dose: Iowa Hardcore Band Celebrates Label Deal, Drops Two New Tracks From Debut LP

Photo: Angelo Rossi

Iowa hardcore band Dose is ready to get busy. The quintet was formed early in the pandemic by guitarists Jackson Bunz and Brandon Espinosa, eventually bringing in their current lineup of vocalist Tim Tucker, bassist Derek Ferrin, and drummer Sam Boesen.

"We played our first show in October of 2021 with Militarie Gun at the skateshop here in town, Subsect, and that show was the warmest welcome we could have asked for," Jackson told me via email about Dose's early days. "Since then we’ve been playing a bunch both in town and around the Midwest, we did our first short tour in January playing shows with Constraint and Gates to Hell, and back in April we went out west by ourselves for 10 days."

In terms of their style, Jackson does a good job of describing what Dose is all about: "Fast hardcore punk from all eras is what we pull from the most, whether it’s the early Agnostic Front material, Floorpunch, to the lockin out NYHC worship like Mental and Rampage, or even bands I feel like we all grew up being stoked on despite our age differences like Ceremony, Bracewar, Down to Nothing, etc."

In the latest development, Dose have signed on with Life and Death Brigade Records who will be releasing the group's debut album. To get us ready, the band just dropped two songs from the LP, and guitarist Brandon offers some insight on the tracks: 

"'Moral Swing' is actually the first song we ever wrote back when it was just Jackson and I almost two years ago now, and 'Doused' came together later on in winter of 2021."

"Growing up in the Midwest in lower income neighborhoods with all the weirdness that surrounds those areas forms most of my perspectives," Dose singer Tim Tucker explained to me. 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

A post shared by DOSE (@doseisaband)

As always, I get the skinny on Dose's local hardcore scene. Drummer Sam says: "The local scene in Des Moines hit a hard reset through COVID and it’s a whole different world now, there’s plenty of people that have been around for a minute but a majority now are these skater kids fresh to the scene/fresh to hardcore that are stoked on it and it’s a great thing to see. Honored to be the introduction to this world for a bunch of kids that may have not gotten that same welcome elsewhere.

"Due to how close the major cities are in the Midwest and how often bands will play in each other’s cities, there’s a really good and welcoming environment whether you’re in Milwaukee, Chicago, Minneapolis, Springfield, Kansas City, anywhere. I feel like there’s sick bands and good people any place you can play within a 4-5 hour drive and it rules.

"Shoutout to Big Laugh, Enervate, World I Hate, Fire Sign, Trucha, Sentenced 2 Die, Slug, Side Eye, Prevention and the million other Springfield bands, and the Iowa rockers in Devil’z Advocate (RIP), Daizey, Method, and Chain of Command."

The Dose LP will be coming out via Life and Death Brigade Records towards the end of the year. Streaming will be up on August 13th and physicals will come a few months after that. 

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