Artist To Watch in 2026: Dead Pioneers

Exploding out of Colorado, Dead Pioneers has been taking the scene by storm. With two albums out on Hassle Records, and a 7" out on Alternative Tentacles, they show no signs of slowing down. Rumors abound of new material on the way.

Dead Pioneers vocalist, nationally known Indigenous artist of the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe, Gregg Deal, started this project as an extension to a performance piece titled “The Punk Pan-Indian Romantic Comedy”. With the intent to create original music for this performance piece, the Dead Pioneers was born! Working closely with guitarist Josh Rivera and drummer Shane Zweygardt, Gregg tried to form something over the Covid lockdown. Original music from Shane and Josh got things flowing, but things clicked when Gregg met Lee Tesche, lead guitarist for Algiers, at an art residency in Florida and became Dead Pioneers bassist.


Heavily influenced by Gregg’s Indigenous voice, this gave enough information to begin forming songs and the overall sound of Dead Pioneers. Later adding guitarist Abe Brennan to the crew while recording their first self-titled LP at The Blasting Room in Fort Collins, CO.

Dead Pioneers is rooted in creating and performing a sound heavily influenced by the punk aesthetic with an edge built on a First Peoples perspective and not afraid to tackle hard political and social issues, standing in solidarity of Indigenous rights, Black rights, Brown rights, Asian rights, Gay rights, Trans rights, Workers rights and beyond. 

Catch this band everywhere this year, and you can join our Patron to get access to the limited edition version of their "Bad Indian" 7"!