How's the mood?

Screaming the ground.

Do you hear me?

The way your words.

What's changing in the space of our minds?

The following program was made possible by bond v Stanton Foundation.

And viewers like you.

I may be the worst friend you will have to, you know.

But you just open up to be my friend.

To will try.

Yeah, I me see that.

Beep beep beep.

How's it going?

Okay.

We good?

Okay.

Here I.

Run!

I may be the worst break you ever had.

Do you want to.

Just something up to me, man?

I am stepping back.

I am the host of sounds on 29.

I got to talk with Greg before the show.

And every chance that I ge to talk with him, I cherish it.

I think he's one of Colorado's best thinkers, best artists, best people, best dads.

And the rest of the band is just such an incredible group of, like, top tier assassins.

I'm just man, Colorado's got some talent right?

So with that, get hype, get proud, get loud for the dead pioneers.

And.

John Wayne.

Where are you at?

You got your cowboy hat.

You hate in your heart.

It's pitch black from the very start.

You are no hero.

You're a male.

Kills hero.

I heard you ask your team, John Wayne.

What's your big break?

Fake cowboy.

Overcompensating, old boy.

John Wayne plays SS pictur tucked in his little cowboy hat.

This cowboy that never existed.

White narrative gets it twisted.

I want to punch you.

Mission to the silver screen of why?

Kevin Costner, where are you?

Where you got your cowboy hat?

The savior of the West.

Inquire with a cowboy fan.

You suffer for your art, stealing stories and starving whores.

Come on.

Your brain can't break your faith.

Respect for your indigenous food.

Romantic with a capital arm.

A grave robber with a thirst for war.

So tired of your devotion to the men.

There's no nobility just tottering there.

Silver.

Lies and genocide.

You profit off the murder of a way of life that you'll never find.

Best cowboy that ever existed.

White narrative gets it twisted.

I wanna put you close fisted here down your silver screen of white.

Greg, I want to just get right into it.

When talking with a mind like yours, an artist of your caliber, I just want to hop right into it.

When we last talked, you talked about being native.

Being indigenous as first an foremost, a political identity.

Can you talk to me about that a bit?

Yeah.

The misconception of indigenous existence in the United States is that we're a racial group.

We're not a racial group.

We're a political group, a political status.

We're canonized in, the so-called founding documents of this country.

And, and also canonized as, as Indians, which, you know, 4 or 500 years later, we know is an incorrect term.

But we still use it.

And, which change sort of the way in which, like, as a native person, when you know that, you realize that it changes the way that you articulate our issues and recognize, the power and the importance of the things that we say that are sort of on a political, social, or even a cultural spectrum.

You know, I found out that you public enemy has plays a big role in some of your political and activist awakening.

Yeah.

Like, so how does a kid from Salt Lake City encounter Chuck and then become a visual artist and then leading this, this incredible group tha pioneers like, what's that path?

It's not as straight as a lin as you had just stayed as head.

For sure.

Music was always really important growing up.

And my father was a hippie.

And so it was just like you know, Bob Dylan and Crosby, Stills and Nash and Presidents Nash and Young and Neil Young and, even, you know, some others like Steely Dan and Steppenwolf and, and James Taylor, you know.

But my mom had a pop sensibility, so she was, Prince and Michael Jackson and David Bowie and things of that nature.

But it was always really important.

And those ended up being things that I connected wit as a, disenfranchized indigenous kid, a brown kid in an al white small town in Utah.

And, so I connected with a lot of music and a lot of things.

But, watching the black experience unfold in rap and hip hop meant something to me because there was something familiar to it, to the shared experiences of being othered, you know, sort of in a, in an American system.

And public Enemy, was it?

I mean, they minced no words.

They they say exactly what you think that they're saying.

And, I love the unapologetic nature of Chuck D and his delivery and cadenc is, something I've always loved.

I know.

Welcome to the terrordome.

From the beginning to the end off of, fear of a Black Planet.

And that really sort of is, I think, a catalyst for my own political ideas in awakening, realizing that there's a shared experience between the black experience and the indigenous experience as we are both two groups that are rooted in the foundation of this country.

And in its problematic, you know, presentation.

That translates, I think, to a career of being unapologetically outspoken.

Within my work, within my activism, within, anything that I've been attached to.

And now to, my inability to speak in a poetic way, what you hear is what you get.

And, and that that's how it exists within dead pioneers, which to me feels like a culmination of everything that I've been working on into this one project.

And it just happens to be the projec that seems to be gaining ground.

I don't know that it's necessarily better or worse than anything else I've ever done.

It just in the moment, it seems to be the thing that is being amplified the most.

No one notices.

No one seems his life has no guarantees.

Now you're talking.

Can hear.

Towers over you.

Stands there uncertain stands.

Stoic, nervous as control.

Boy on service.

He just strikes.

He constructs.

This is all you know.

Watching is a phone.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr.. Give me more.

Give me more.

You want to Snow White, which was a phrase in a days.

In the day.

Juicy fruit, juicy fruit, juicy fruit.

You got away.

Straight with silence.

He stands tall, calling Chief Waits.

Basketball.

He smiles.

He exudes going offense, a scheming madness.

This one right here.

No need to destroy his friend.

Once down.

Pass you the solution on.

There's a mental anguish at your fall back to.

He says we met before.

In the morning, before I was born.

Which was the phrase.

In a daze, in a daze.

Juicy fruit, juicy fruit.

Juicy fruit.

Kick up play.

All right.

He takes this out of remorse.

He lives in sync with the strength of a horse.

He flees to be indigenous and to be free.

He represents you.

He represents me.

Thank you.

He says we could be sworn evermore.

Give him more office, more words.

Whisper a phrase in a day.

In a day.

Juicy fruit, juicy fruit.

Juicy fruit juice.

Got way.

I see family be such a strong component.

And strong communit being such a strong component.

Like so many of the aspects of your artwork, it just said something really powerfully to me that I came in here and two of your kids are here.

Yeah, like in the best punk regalia, like, like best dressed folks here, like, know like, but like just knowing that, like, they're here and supporting.

Yeah.

Given what you were even talking about with family just like that.

Just that speaks volumes about how embodied your activism is and how embodied your art is.

Yeah.

And just how dope it is to be able to see like a punk family like being proud of their dad.

I think, I think because of how I grew up, I recognize that, kids need love and engagement and encouragement and communication from start to finish.

Not until they're done being toddlers.

Not, you know, lik it has to happen all the time.

And I just want to be a good dad.

I introduce my kids generally at about 12 years old, to a lot of this music and one of these bands, my middle kid, he's 13.

He's sick.

Otherwise he would be here as well.

But sage, like anybody who's been following my work, especially in the last ten years, sage is a fixture with me in my work.

You know, Phoenix is not far behind.

He's 16.

But that means now tha they're coming to me with this.

But this is music we love.

This is a scene we love.

There's a spirit of it that is that we love, you know, and and we get to share that together.

But it feels like, oddly enough, if you've never seen a pit before, it still feels like a safe space for my kids.

And, I don't have to worry about them.

We just let them be what they want to be.

And, you know, to my parents benefit.

They never gave me a hard time about what I listen to.

They let me have my thing.

But I like to.

I like that get to share that with my kids.

And, you know, when you get stuck, you're going to get some work with the make up first.

Year you can you guarantee you don't amount to it will need to go get it will need to get it right no matter what you think.

We're going first.

You know what that means?

Hope first.

It means we've been here a long time, and now it's time to get to fix that language, that culture.

Back ceremony back I tell back home runs back land that land bound.

Up in the music.

No routine song.

Doesn't matter how good it is.

Today.

We're back.

This is Phoenix, my son.

You know, with a country that is so almost by design.

Blind to the modern, situation of indigenous peoples.

I just want to ask you, like, about, like how how are you choosing to represent yourself as an artist, as an indigenous artist?

It like what a conscious choice that is, that people might not be aware of.

That's a huge identity factor, right?

I mean, and our identity as native people has been really predicated upo the perspective of our existence versus the reality of our existence.

In one of my songs, I said, that a woman who's talking to me, doesn't realize that while native, I'm als having an American experience.

It means that I can be an indigenous person, whatever that means for my tribal community, for the people that I'm connected to.

While also being an American, whether I like that or not.

Which means that I am essentially, can sing our ceremonial songs are I can d certain things in certain ways.

But I can also listen to Kendrick Lamar and appreciate that, like, these things are not mutually exclusive.

My presence as, the frontman of, of Dead Pioneers really is, showing anybody that sees us or that comes in contact with us to realiz that I don't have to play Indian in order for yo to believe that I'm an Indian.

And, so I don't wear feathers in my hair, and I don't, adorn myself with certain things.

I kind of dress like a car mechanic, really.

And I like wor shirts and and, work pants.

But, recognizing that, you are forced to reconcile my indigeneity through my words and not my appearance, I continue to walk like a ghost in a graveyard.

A 4000 year home.

I look like a stranger out here.

No matter where I continue the wrong walk.

So, Wolf, you're ignoring the proof in your strangely so innocent yet seem still.

You're so full of fear and destruction is evident.

What we told you.

We don't.

We told you this wouldn't work.

Now we see, now we see that we see a monster smirk.

From all the things tha the earth brings to us in love and benevolence.

In the beginning it was bad, and it's still pretty sad in your wielding, malevolent eye.

You're stuck in the right side of your judgment.

It doesn't seem to matter too much.

One day you'll find me standing over your arm and with nothing left to clay.

No, we told you we couldn't.

We told you this wouldn't work.

Now you see, now we see.

Now it's one smirk.

Elon Musk sent over us in an effort to take it all.

Put him on the edge of a cliff that will provide an excellent, excellent fall.

It was thought of me.

And soon you will see that none of us really are no small feat growing things on this earth.

And you will die alone.

They told you, we told you.

We told you this wouldn't work.

Now you see, now you see.

You can't see one smirk.

We told you.

We told you no.

We told you this one.

I want.

Now we see, now we see that we see.

What's this for?

How did you flip that switch?

Knowing that you're an artist who is not afraid of any kind of medium like you, will find the ways to express yourself from performance art to mural pieces to, comic book reappropriation how did you make the big leap into music?

I have, made an entire career of doing things I have no business doing.

My wife would tell you that, too.

She would just tell you, like, how many times I've picked something up that I've never picked up before and said, no, I can do this.

Like, in my mind, I understand like, these are the principles.

I can do that.

And I have made a career of it.

But I am also surrounded by highly, intelligent and talented musicians that are helping me move in a way.

And now we're to a point.

I think we're we're all working together.

I know what my job is, and and they know that.

I know what my job is, and we're doing it together.

Adaptability.

I mean, a good performance artist, you know, which is probably my biggest and most prominent medium, good performance.

An artist can b adaptable, has to be adaptable.

When you show up to the venue it's never going to be exactly what they said it was or wha you thought it was going to be.

And so you just have to be able to adjust.

But at the same time, you're also looking at, you know, a 50 year old man, who is emoting something that he's had inside of him since he was a kid, that I wish I could have been in a band when I was a kid.

I wish I could have had the resources and the friends and and access to what I have access to right now.

My privilege has gone up.

And having access to those things because of my career, and my life's work, that I didn't have access to when I was a kid.

But very much, you are hearing oftentimes words that I wish I could have heard or, could have said when I was young.

But honestly, I also I might not have had the wherewithal to do that.

Correct m if I'm wrong, that kind of like rebuking of the frontier thesis and all of that is part of like, just like the thesis statement of dead pioneers, like, yeah, no, we're meant to be completely irreverent or irreveren in in the presentation that the, you know, actually makes me think of, Kanye West.

Several years ago was working with a white artist who had painted, a skull with a headdress on it.

And that was part of his merc for, you know, for one of his, one of his big tours.

And, that's a that's that's a dead Indian.

That's that's a dead native person.

And, and we exist all throughout the, the narratives of the United States.

But you know, what about about the dead pioneers.

You know, what about the dead settlers?

Like, you want to talk about our deaths so much?

How about we spent some time talking about yours?

And so it's meant to be in that space, which is a little tongue in cheek, but, it's also just sort of an empowering take back, a moment, and realize that that there's other stories and there's more enrichment and frankly, a little bit of humor that we could add into that.

To, to have some fun with.

You all are releasing your second album.

Yeah.

So can you just talk about, like, first project, second project and what it was like going from like, kind of like a maiden flagship one to now, like being able to like.

Yeah, I mean, the first record, we, I kind of say that we, we did on accident, we put a band together on accident.

The idea originally was to create original music that would accompany the punk, pan-Indian romantic comedy.

We got into the recording studio and we thought maybe there was something there and we just sort of released it, independently.

Like, we're not on a label.

We weren't doing anything.

And, we released it in September 2023, and within five months we had over 500,000 streams on, Spotify.

And, got a huge punch in the arm from Germany.

And and UK had some pretty good numbers as well, and we just no PR, no marketing.

It was just we put on Bandcamp, we put it on Spotify and sort of walked away from it and it turned into something else.

Signing a record deal in April 2024, started working on the second record and really are with a recor company, Castle Records, that, is an independent record company, but they they support us.

So what we do and to m that was the deal breaker doing the first one was so hard by myself and even just with the guys, like it was a struggle.

I was like, I can't do this again if we don't have some help and, we have help.

Second record.

You know, the first record feels like an accident.

An accident on purpose.

The second record is more deliberate.

Recognizing a sophomore record is really sort of, the one you have to prove that you're not a one off.

And we worked really hard on it, but also just remained unapologetic in what we were doing and what we were creating.

And like I said, being surrounded by talente musicians makes it what it is.

Well, Greg, thank you so much, man.

Yeah.

And then thank you.

Thank you for everything that you've done for yourself and for this art scene and what you're going to continue to do.

So thanks again, I appreciate it.

Appreciate you mayor.

Just a pyramid scheme and you ain't at the top.

You're demonization of those different than you.

It's not just a cottage industry in America, but an honest to goodness American value for.

The foundation of this country is rooted in slavery and genocide.

Born in the bosom of colonialism.

God.

Don't.

Care for places.

The original inhabitants as corners and the homelands.

Don't be scared about learning the whole history.

It's not going to hurt you.

Capitalism can only exist if there's a poor class.

There are hostiles from the homeland to the people.

This structure is a rich game that breeds homophobia, transphobia, crisis and egoism.

And it all makes me so very, so very tired.

These damn every profession we share space and resources and ideas that would be communistic in nature.

And I hear this.

That's against nature.

Three cheers for free speech capitalism.

It's okay if everything dies a long as it dies under my boot.

By the way, it's not political song.

Why didn't we believe this was.

We on the land of spirit years.

You remember when John Trudeau said, God protect your spirit because you're in the special spirits.

Give need.

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