Ok so sitting backstage at Reggie's Rock Club in Chicago, about to eat some dinner, figured I'd check in with you guys. First off, thanks to everyone who has come out so far...to Long Island, to Philadelphia, to DC, to Raleigh, to Bonnaroo, to Pontiac. These shows have been amazing and very invigorating for us as a band. Every one of these shows has been shockingly high energy, and the vibe between us and you guys has never been higher. Last night alone, when within seconds the stage barricade was pushed over and eventually taken out, fuuuuuck. There are people coming who have seen us 50 times, 20 times, 7 times, and many people who are just seeing us for the first time. All coming separately, but all leaving as one big sweaty blob ready to tell posers everywhere to SUCK IT.

      This meet and greet contest thing we've been doing, has also been very inspiring. We get to meet cool people every day and talk to them about normal every day things, and its really nice and makes us feel more connected to you guys, which is really the whole point right? You have no idea how psyched we were to meet a 14 year old kid with a Drive Like Jehu shirt on, a badass attitude, who knew the names of everyone in Jane's Addiction, who had been listening to us SINCE HE WAS 9, and chill and watch Guns 'N Roses Live At The Ritz 1988 with him. Every day, we meet cool people because of this meet and greet, and we look forward to it. You guys always thank us, but really, THANK YOU, cause it reinforces that we are doing something right when we meet you guys and realize that we have pretty much only awesome people in our audience and an extremely low douchebag percentage. Between interacting with you onstage, meeting you offstage, and talking to some of you on here, I've come to the conclusion and would be willing to bet that percentage wise we have WAAAAY more killer people and WAAAAY less douches than most any other band. It would suck to be in a band and realize that you wouldn't really like 80% of your audience if you got to know them. Fortunately you guys all seem to kick ass, and it's noted and appreciated.

      We played that hippie festival Bonnaroo the other day and the night before our set we jammed with Nails again on the "Wish" song, in what apparently was the last song(pre-encore) of their last US tour ever(hopefully not!). That was a great time, thanks goes out to those guys for being the nicest people(band and crew) and to Trent for going out of his way to endorse us as a band and always look out for us when we're around. Check some videos of the Nails/DEP jammer from the fest, a crowd view HERE and a sidestage/backstage view HERE.

      We, recently, as some of you may have seen, announced our new album title....."OPTION PARALYSIS". GET FUCKING EXCITED. We are getting together all of our full demos, and we'll be hitting the studio for real to lay down actual tracks in a month and a half to two months or so. Within the next coming months we'll be sneaking bits and pieces of our new stuff into our shows, our blogs, our video thingies, all over the place. I'm sure you caught the snippet at the end of the last video....more is coming.

     ALSO....we have announced that we are creating an umbrella known as PARTY SMASHER INC. that we will be putting out all of our future endeavors under. Our records, our shirts, our whatever the fucks....all of it is from now on coming out under that moniker. You'll see that on there no matter where or what it is, and that's how you'll know if something you are getting is really an official DEP release and not a copy, like on the limited shirts and limited other things that we are gonna be doing. That will be on there, and if you don't see it, on EBAY or something, it's not legit.

      Totally off topic, but a topic that everyone should be checking out if you wanna see punk ethic on display at the highest level...is the scene over in Iran. In case you haven't been paying attention, shit is going OFF over there. Revolution is breaking out, and its really inspiring to see. People over there, young people in particular, are refusing to live under a corrupt rule that disregards their personal liberties and freedoms as human beings, and are taking matters into their own hands. I'm not talking about little protests like we are used to seeing here, I'm talking about shit that you can't even imagine unless you see pictures like THESE. The government there isn't allowing in international media, they are monitoring and regulating anything that comes out of their country's media, and they are monitoring and shutting down phones, power grids, text messaging, internet servers, anything they can do. They are misreporting things to make the situation not look as extreme as it is, they have burned ballot boxes, and are beating their citizens with their own militia and the help of Hezbollah and Hamas resources as well. The only way real news is getting out is from the youth and students managing to get out twitters and pictures like the ones above. Check out a constantly updated twitter account HERE to read about what is really going on. Remember that those people there are our brothers and sisters as human beings, and that we as aware and conscious people should be aware and inspired by their activism and refusal to allow old and restrictive paradigms to shape their future any longer. That shit over there is as punk as it fucking gets, and if we have any fans over there, we are inspired by what you are going through and hope that one day your situation will be such that a band like us will be able to come play for you.

      Anyhow....everyone....keep kicking ass....KILLING POSER BULLSHIT EVERYWHERE....and we'll talk to you soon.

-Greg