iDKHOW

One Liner:  Glammy 80's inspired rock from an ex-Panic! guy

Wikipedia Genre:  Indie pop, new wave, pop, rock, electronic rock, alternative rock

Home: Salt Lake City

Poster Position: 17
Weekend One Only.
Saturday at 1:25.

Miller Lite Stage.

Thoughts:  Confusingly, when you search Spotify for IDKHOW, you get a band called I DONT KNOW HOW BUT THEY FOUND ME, which is shortened to the unbelievably twee iDKHOW.  The band was originally formed in secret by two members of a band called the Brobecks, from Salt Lake City.  The drummer had been in something called Falling in Reverse, and the singer in another famous band to be named momentarily, and so they wanted to keep things under the rug until they could leave their other respective bands and seriously launch this one.  Apparently, since that time though, the drummer guy broke the singer guy's trust too many times and he's out.  Hope he didn't fall out with Falling in Reverse boys.  So now it's just Dallon Weekes, the singer guy.

In addition to the Brobecks, Weekes was also a member of Panic! at the Disco, from 2009 to 2017, playing bass, keyboard, and backing vocals.  He credits the jenky punctuation in this new band's name with the punctuation of his prior band, claiming that "punctuation was a big deal [in Panic!], so I just wanted to take the opposite approach and get rid of it all."  The band's name was inspired by a line from Back to the Future.

WHO DO YOU THINK?!? THE LIBYANS!!!

Weekes described the music as "hipster nonsense" and "Glam Wham," which feels like an oxymoron.  Wham! is Glam, bro.  Their second single is still their biggest streamer by a long way.  It also ended up on their 2018 EP called 1981 Extended Play.  "Choke" has 214.6 million streams.

The singing voice makes me think of Royal Blood, like this is a goofy, glammy offshoot of that heavier rock and roll band.  Not sure why this ends up being their top song - many of these other tunes are more fun to me, personally.  Two albums - 2020's Razzmatazz and 2024's GLOOM DIVISION.  Their top streamers aren't on those, but the biggest tune on one of those albums is "New Invention" from the 2020 disc.  27.7 million streams.

Now his voice is making me think of someone else.  A little bit of Panic! with that falsetto bit, but someone else too.  The Highly Suspect guy?  Twenty One Pilots?  Dunno, but I really like the slinky bassline and groove in the bottom of that one.  Earworm for sure.  Just so you can hear the newest action as well, here is the top track from the new disc - "WHAT LOVE?" with 3.1 million streams.

Feels like this new disc leans even harder into the 80's schtick.  Maybe the drummer was keeping them angled towards a more modern rock sound and now Weekes and indulge his fantasies.  I generally enjoyed listening to this today, although I'm not entirely sold on the idea of watching it live.  We'll see how the schedule shakes out but was a fun listen anyway.