Meet deb. —Familiar Faces, New Band and the Debut Single, ‘Ankle Weights’

deb. (Photo and Art by Matt Sledz)

‘So sick of running with these ankle weights

The broken record repeats …

So tired of making all these same mistakes

(And I’m longing) for some relief’

— ‘Ankle Weights’ by deb.

We’d be tempted to call the debut single, ‘Ankle Weights’ — dropped today by the new Buffalo band ‘deb.’ — ‘well-crafted’ if it weren’t for one simple fact: Doing so would be a gross understatement.

Rhythmic, kinetic and multi-layered, the song is lifted further by expressive and soulful vocals and sensational lead guitar work. In listening, it doesn’t take long to realize this is some top-shelf indie rock by a very high-level band.

Upon our first spin, what struck us immediately about ‘Ankle Weights’ is deb.’s musical craftmanship. And by midway point of our second spin, we were completely lost in the song’s deep groove.

If this tune — now available on streaming platforms including on Spotify HERE and Bandcamp HERE —doesn’t make you move, well, check your pulse because you might be dead.

‘Ankle Weights’ said the band’s Brendan Orr, is “the perfect encapsulation for what deb. is all about: catchy melodies, rhythms you can move to, multiple vocal performances, and our diverse array of musical influences represented. It was the second song we wrote together, and we were all really feeling it from the start. It was produced and engineered by RJ Demarco, engineered by Trevor Balbierz, and drum engineered by Rafi Bloomberg, all of whom were great to work with.”

deb. has the sound of a band that’s been around a lot longer than it actually has, and that’s largely due to the fact the group is comprised of experienced scene veterans. Besides Brendan (rhythm guitar/vocals), deb. includes Erik Corrie (bass/vocals), Dakota Lord (lead guitar/vocals) and John Perdue (drums/vocals).

In the lead up to the song’s release, 1120 Press spoke with Brendan and John, who were kind enough to set aside some time to talk about the band’s origin, its writing process and how it’s going.  

1120 PRESS: Thank you for speaking with us and congratulations on the new single. Can you tell us how the band got together?

BRENDAN: The idea for deb. started initially back in 2023 when Erik, Dakota, and I started to loosely jam and write together. We would get together here and there to write without any real direction while we'd hang out. Then last year, we decided we wanted to get serious about the band and properly start it up, but to do that we knew we needed a drummer. John drums in Previous Love, an incredible local group that my band Canetis played several shows with over the years, and I've always really admired his drumming and singing.

I went to a Previous Love show at Mohawk Place in 2024 and was talking to John outside the venue after his set when I brought up the project to gauge his interest. I told him about the vision for the group, how we wanted to be intentional about making music that was very different from all of our current/former bands at the time, and that we wanted to lean into everyone singing since Dakota, Erik, and I all were lead singers in our respective original bands prior to deb. (not to mention that I’m a massive Beatles fan and love that they all sang). Thankfully, he was really into the idea off the bat, even without knowing Dakota and Erik super well, and he was the first and only drummer we asked. We started jamming and writing together soon after that conversation and have been full steam ahead since.

deb. (Photo by Matt Sledz)

JOHN: I was really stoked about the idea of deb. when Bren first introduced it to me. The four of us first got together at Mister Goodbar, had a couple rounds of drinks, and talked about music for a few hours. We were all on the same page with what we wanted from the band, which was a great sign. We immediately started gaining momentum when we began jamming together. Dakota, Erik, and Brendan are all great dudes and very talented musicians, and I was very thankful to be welcomed into the fold.

1120: The band has been writing beyond the single released today. How has that process been going overall, and is there a particular musical direction for which deb. is aiming?

BRENDAN: There's definitely a handful of common threads, but we all love and find inspiration from a pretty wide array of artists, which makes the writing process so much more interesting than if we all liked the exact same artists and music. When we're writing, we're all very collaborative and don't leave any stone unturned when it comes to trying ideas out. Each of the four of us will present song ideas that we came up with, then work together to finish the songs and fill out the arrangements as a team. Directionally, like I mentioned before, I think we all just want to make music that's different from what we've done previously and not put ourselves in a box. In my opinion, hyper-focusing on things like fast vs slow songs, happy vs sad songs, etc. is really limiting and restricts artists' creativity, so it's cool that deb. is all about showcasing our depth in that regard. If there's a couple of artists that we're inspired by, that I would say we're in a similar vein of, it'd be Young the Giant and Still Woozy. 

JOHN: I joined the band with a background in punk/rock, while the other guys had their own influences ranging from R&B, funk, indie/alternative… It's a really fun mix while we’re trying to write. We began jamming by just finding a few songs to cover that we all could agree on, and we ended up trying out songs by Harry Styles, Peach Pit, and Still Woozy like Brendan mentioned. I love incorporating cover songs into our live shows, especially with us just starting out. It allows our audience to hear what we are all influenced by, and it gives everyone some context on how we’re creating our first batch of original songs, especially a song like ‘Ankle Weights.’

1120: You’ve played a handful of shows already. How has the response been; and though you’re all veterans of the scene, does it feel like you’re beginning all over again and starting from square one?

BRENDAN: It's been an incredibly fun and rewarding challenge playing together, in part because we definitely felt like we were starting from square one. We all have a pretty extensive amount of experience in the music scene and playing in bands, which has very much guided how we've approached this band. I think we all operate with an awareness of what has and hasn't worked in our past bands and let that inform how we work together, from the management side of things, to writing, to performing, and everything in between. 

Playing out has been a blast. We've played hundreds of shows between the four of us over the years, but even with that experience, it still takes time to establish and lock in performance chemistry when you start to play with new musicians. Our excitement for the music we're writing has helped foster that chemistry a lot because we really believe in what we're doing and I think that's reflected in our performances. Not to mention, our first show back in April was a sold-out fundraiser at Nietzsche's so we really threw ourselves to the wolves right off the bat. The response, whether it’s friends, family, fans of our other bands, or our peers in the music scene, has been great and has genuinely furthered our excitement for the band. 

JOHN: I love drumming and creating music, so deb. and Previous Love both mean so much to me. Previous Love has been active since 2017, so starting a band from scratch felt strange. deb. began setting goals with song ideas and booking shows and the response so far has been very positive! I can speak for all four of us that we can’t wait for ‘Ankle Weights’ to be out in the world.