Happy birthday to us! Thank you to everyone who has kept the spirit of Dexter Danger alive and well for the past 22 years.

The other day, I read a review of Hellafornia by someone who was only five years old when the album was released in 2005. He lives in Indonesia and writes for a small online punk rock magazine. He found us through Bandcamp and Spotify and what attracted him to our music was a punk rock spirit that was “magnetically honest and true.” He also said that if he had a choice between listening to famous punk bands and Dexter Danger, he would choose us every time.

I was humbled that after all these years, people on the other side of the Earth were drawn in by the same energy that drew us into punk rock when we were kids. The fact that our music continues to reach people around the world is all due to the Dexter Danger community. Because you’ve kept listening, other people are still finding us and connecting with our music in incredibly special ways more than two decades later. This is the community you helped create.

Dexter Danger has served as an anchor in my life. It allowed me to focus on creating art with my best friends and building something special that others could benefit from. The scene we created together in the Bay Area gave all of us, the outcasts, geeks, misfits, and creatives, a place where we could feel a sense of belonging. A place where we could just be ourselves.

I’m eternally grateful for creating music with my best friends, sharing our music with you, and growing a community together. What drives a community is not the band, but the yearning feeling to be a part of something much larger than any one of us.

For those of you who have the original Hellafornia CD artwork, in the liner notes, you’ll see a quote by Jesse Michaels, singer of Operation Ivy, a key band in the Gilman punk rock scene in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It still holds true to this day. 

“[T]he momentum that drives a subculture is more important than any particular band. The momentum is made of all the people who stay interested, and keep their sense of urgency and hope.” – Jesse Michaels, Operation Ivy (1991)

Thank you for not only keeping the scene alive, but carrying the torch of urgency and hope for anyone who is searching for a place to call home.

Peace and Love,

Aymen Trouble