Lone Kodiak aren’t looking for a comeback moment or some big scene push. With Reptilian, the first single from their upcoming EP No Receiver, the East LA trio return in a looser, more instinct-driven mode. We caught up with them to talk about the track, the creative pressure valve it opened, and how they’ve been shaping music under the weight of personal loss, burnout, and noise—internal and external.
The track’s not polished for the sake of it. It starts with a synth line that could’ve gone anywhere, then snaps into something darker, twitchier. There’s whispering, shouting, refrains that loop and build like radio signals going bad. The lyrics hint at paranoia, obsession, false prophets. It doesn’t explain itself, and that seems intentional.
“For the vocals I wanted to try something different,” said vocalist and guitarist Dainéal Parker. “I’m sure it exists, but I had never heard whispers laid down over a punk beat.” The whisper thing stuck. They passed vocal lines back and forth between Parker and bassist Daniel Alden to break up the monotony. That small shift gave the song its strange pulse. It’s uneasy, but not in a way that screams for attention.
The EP, due out June 20 on a very limited 7” vinyl run, came together quickly. No overthinking, no drawn-out demo phases. “I told myself, ‘Just get out of the way and let [the songs] go where they want to go,’” Parker said. He was tired of writing and reworking songs for years only to burn out before release. Reptilian was written in May, recorded by June, and done by July.
It’s not all sonic experiment, though. Parker points out the frustration behind the lyrics, some of which stem from watching people fall down digital rabbit holes and justify ugly beliefs. “The evil people will justify in the name of a flawed belief system, it’s madness,” he said. “I’m troubled. I’m angry. We all should be.”
No Receiver itself takes its title from a lyric on another track—all this love and no receiver—a line that stuck with Parker after a personal loss. That tension runs through the record, but it’s not heavy-handed. The band aren’t making grand statements, just following where the noise leads and putting out work that feels honest to where they are now.
There’s more on all of that in the full interview below—covering everything from physical media and LA weirdness to creative failure, noisy online culture, and why they stopped trying to be a pop band.
You’ve been through a lot as a band—accidents, lineup changes, a pandemic. When you finally got back into a creative rhythm, what felt different this time around?
It feels like an accomplishment to have endured at all, you know? Lots of bands don’t survive past the release of their first EP, much less a pandemic and half the venues in Los Angeles closing.
Did you feel like you were picking up where you left off, or was it more like starting from scratch with new instincts?
It was more of an attitude change, really. It was liberating to fully commit to what we already were – rooted in the harcore and punk scene, celebrating each respectively without being derivative of either.
Then comes “Reptilian”—a track that hits like a fever dream. Where did that one really begin for you? Was it a lyric, a sound, a feeling you couldn’t shake?
“Reptilian” was a kind of defiance of my own laborious, overly detailed writing style – pouring over every bit of minutiae, endless tinkering to get it just right, which of course it never is. Four years later you’re finally putting out music and everyone–including yourself–is over it. I didn’t so much write it as I felt my way through it.
There’s something strangely hypnotic in how it builds—were there any moments during writing or demoing where it started pulling you in a direction you didn’t expect?
I was really intentional about not having expectations for any of the songs on the new EP. [I told myself,] “Just get out of the way and let them go where they want to go.” There was some liberation in having already gotten an album out. The pressure was off, so overthinking didn’t have to be such a burden this time around. Even lyrically I kept it simple; normally I would never repeat a verse, but there was no need to complicate it.
Swapping vocals between you and Alden on the verses—was that a creative decision from the start, or something that emerged accidentally during tracking?
My critique of the initial demo was that there was too much me. It’s already a repetitive song, but having the same voice echo its own whisper got a little monotonous. I pitched the idea to him and it worked better than I could have imagined.
That whisper-over-punk-beat thing—you mentioned Heilung as an influence, but was there a moment in the studio where you thought, “This might not work”? What pushed you to stick with it?
Yeah, I’ve just been trying to listen to different types of music to learn from what artists are doing creatively. I don’t want to get stuck in the same patterns, writing variants of the same song over and over again. Heilung does crazy stuff with their vocals; and it wasn’t just about whether I could do what they were doing, but whether I was pushing myself to be creative the way they clearly were.
But no, there was no point in which I doubted the song. It came together fast. Written in May, recorded in June, wrapped by July, well before I had a chance to tinker with it.
What does “Reptilian” reveal about your state of mind when you were writing it, and how much of that chaos was deliberate versus instinctual?
It’s a confrontational song. I’m not happy with the state of things. I’m exhausted with overly confident influencer types who think they’ve stumbled onto some secret that lifelong experts in the field are somehow blind to. Full-grown, perpetually online men letting message boards convince them their own children would be better off dead than be “captured” by an imaginary demonic force. The evil people will justify in the name of a flawed belief system, it’s madness.
So yeah, it was deliberate, and my state of mind? Well, I’m troubled. I’m angry. We all should be. [Writing this as ICE raids my neighbor’s homes here in Los Angeles]
“No Receiver” sounds like a metaphor as much as a title—was there something personal behind that name, like a sense of disconnection or speaking into voids?
It’s very personal. It’s a lyric stolen from the third song on the EP, “Lucky Charm”: All this love and no receiver. The idea itself is stolen from Fleabag, when Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s character is opening up about her grief for her late mother: I don’t know what to do with all the love I have for her.
Last year I knew I was going to lose someone that I loved dearly, and it dominates my emotional state even now. It felt like an apt title and a subtle tribute.
Is there a moment in the new EP where you pushed yourselves to a place that felt a little unsafe—creatively, emotionally, even technically?
We certainly tried. I don’t know if there’s a specific moment, but I didn’t want any of it to feel safe, and part of that was the pace of the project. We booked time with Rob [Daiker, producer] before we even had the songs finished. The idea was to prep just enough to be ready for the studio, but not so much that we entered the endless tinerking phase.
The whispers, the insane yelling, doing a metal inspired ballad in dropped A with a Top Gun inspired synth … this was very much a “Fuck it, does it feel right? Cool, then let’s do it.” approach to making an EP.
There’s a sense of unease and static running through the new single—how much do you draw from digital culture, overload, algorithmic paranoia, etc. in your songwriting?
I like that you picked up that it could be that, and I do hope people can make it their own in that way. And yes, there is certainly unease, but for me, it has more to do with my previous answer. Doesn’t make you wrong, though!
What role does failure or burnout play in your creative process? There’s something in your quote about kids who run away and start over that feels deeply personal.
Three things truly terrify me: addiction, jail, and failure. Every creative runs the risk of failure and rejection every time they share their work, put on a show, etc., and it’s exhausting. The music scene is brutal, and while I know I’d regret it later on if I up and left it all behind, it is tempting to give up the dream and go live a simple, quiet, less ambitious life somewhere.
So does the song keep me in it? Does the music keep me coming back? As long as it does, I’ll keep doing this.
What’s your relationship to physical media? That limited 7” feels like an intentional relic—what does vinyl mean to you in a time of infinite scroll?
Man, kids today don’t understand (get off my lawn!) the pure joy of cutting the cellophane, checking out the artwork, reading through the liner notes while listening to the whole album from start to finish. It’s meditative. I read somewhere that something like half of the vinyl is being bought by people who don’t even have record players, so it is kind of a collector’s item, but also–you actually own it. Even when you buy a movie on AppleTV, you don’t own it. They can delete it any time they want. Spotify could be defunct in two years … look at iTunes.
Plus, streaming doesn’t pay very well. With vinyl, we make 90% of the profit. It would take like 25,000 streams to make what selling one record would earn us.
The Echo show is coming up—do you approach live performances differently now after everything that’s happened in the past few years?
Yes. The show can’t just be the songs you’re playing. It should have a flow, an arc, a climax. If you’re talking on stage, it should be intentional and written into the set. Dead space is forbidden. We’re not rockstars, but let’s put on a show as if we were.
Looking back at your debut album, how do you hear it now after all the disruptions and personal changes?
So, I can’t fully separate it from the difficulty of making it, but I’m still very proud that it exists, that we actually got the thing done and put it out there in the world.
East LA isn’t exactly known for dream-grunge—how does being where you are shape your sound, or is that more of a resistance than an influence?
One of the things I learned about LA early on is that you can be whatever you want and no one will bat an eye. Psychic animal communicator? That’s awesome! Aspiring sound bath practitioner? Cool! But whatever you are, be that, and don’t try to be anything else. If you’re trying, they’ll know. You have to just do it, and whatever it is, if it’s authentic and interesting, people will respond to it. So we try to not worry too much about what the scene is doing. Let’s just do what we do and do it well.
You’ve said before you don’t fit into the Hollywood rock scene—what does that rejection or disinterest mean to you, and does it give you freedom?
There is indeed freedom in taking your own path.
Who are some artists from your local scene—or even nationally—that caught your attention in 2025 and deserve more ears?
Night Talks from here in LA. They’re friends of ours and all we can do is try to keep up with their consistently quality output.
Schpilt from Phoenix; we played with them a couple times last year and they’re doing some interesting things in the psychedelic arena.
Sunfish from SLC; phenom talents and super cool people we’ve done a few shows with.
And of course Ear Ringers and I’m Sunk who are supporting us at The Echo.
Do you think there’s a renewed space for bands that don’t play by industry rules—no chasing clout, no viral bait, just raw output?
There’s no space for any of us, clout chasing or otherwise. The general public doesn’t want us, and the industry is busy chasing TikTok stars. If you want space, you have to create it. No one’s going to give it to you. Cynical take, maybe, but that’s me.
If you could go back to 2016 and give yourselves one note before forming the band, what would it be?
Don’t change your name. Don’t try to be a pop band.
What do you think people get wrong about LONE KODIAK when they only hear one song? What’s the hidden layer?
Oh, I have little to no insight into what people think of us. I know when our album (If We Have a Future) took off on YouTube, and Inner Monologue hit like 650,000 plays on SoundCloud, we were getting all kinds of feedback, mostly positive. Some of the takes I was surprised by, but nothing stood out to me as being “wrong”, per se.
Ok, thanks so much for your time. The last words are yours.
Thanks for writing about independent bands!
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