St. Paul-based rock trio Institutional Green are celebrating the release of their debut album Deep Pockets—a ten-song collection composed in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic and deeply tied to the Twin Cities music scene. The LP is available digitally and on 12″ vinyl via Bandcamp, local record stores, and major streaming platforms. Tonight, the band will perform at the Schooner Tavern in Minneapolis alongside friends and fellow rock veterans Annie and the Bang Bang.
All songs were written and performed by Dan Leary (vocals, bass), Kevin Henretta (guitar), and Billy Dankert (drums, vocals), drawing on a combined century of songwriting and band experience. The record reflects a unique process: musical arrangements come first, with Leary developing vocal lines only once the bass parts become second nature. Lyrics are built from retained improvisations. “If you can’t remember the part the next day, the part wasn’t worth remembering,” he says, echoing Paul McCartney’s logic.
Themes across Deep Pockets are broad yet unpretentious. There’s a tribute to two beloved local scene boosters—Paul Engebretson and Paul Lungren—alongside shoutouts to photographer Jon Clifford and the DIY Loring Park Alley shows that inspired the track “On These Two Pauls.” In “Oakley Avenue,” Leary writes from the perspective of someone struggling with despair, telling his family he’s fine when he clearly isn’t. “Lots of losses from suicide and OD’s in my part of town and I guess I wanted to give voice to one of these lost people. One of the unfixable. One of the doomed,” he shares.
The writing also spans broader social commentary. “Slot Machine Simulator” criticizes the rise of online gambling in the U.S., calling it a “silent killer,” while “Tree Of Life” honors the victims of the 2018 synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh. “Their selfless service, welcoming openness and devotion to their jobs seemed the right sort of counterpoint to the pointless xenophobic rage of the terrible event’s perpetrator.”
There’s room for wit and oddity too. “Hey Tomorrow” imagines what a pre-Columbian temple administrator might sing to those about to be sacrificed, and “Arrowheads And Ash” explores the early excavation of Troy, specifically the work of Minnesotan archaeologist Karl Blegen.
The band emerged from pandemic quietude. Prior to 2020, Leary and Henretta were part of Ringout!, rehearsing weekly in a Midway space Leary had rented since 1989. Lockdowns ended that rhythm. Leary spent his quarantine refining a pick-free guitar technique in the style of Mark Knopfler, unknowingly preparing himself for a later pivot to fingerstyle bass. When Ringout! dissolved, drummer Scott Macdonald returned to Arcwelder, and bassist Jeff Budin stepped away. Leary and Henretta kept going, eventually recruiting neighbor Billy Dankert, a longtime drummer for Gear Daddies.
Finding a permanent bassist proved difficult. After several failed attempts, Leary picked up the bass himself in fall 2023 and discovered his fingerstyle guitar work translated seamlessly. “What he had in fact accomplished during the quarantine turned out to have been getting a head start on playing finger style bass.” He soon committed to singing and playing bass full-time. By spring 2024, the new trio was ready. They debuted live on Record Store Day and then recorded with Tony Williamette at Minnehaha Recording Company. Henretta later mixed the album on his laptop in his basement.
The group’s approach matches the ethos of their city’s scene, one defined by original music and self-made momentum. “There are upwards of 15–20 venues… where, on any given night, a person can walk in the door and for 10 bucks hear 3–4 bands play a 45-minute set of original material.” From First Avenue to Electric Fetus, that DIY thread stretches back to the 1970s.
Institutional Green namecheck peers venues, and media allies: Rank Strangers, Mean Magic, Annie and the Bang Bang, Sidewalk Diamonds & The Unnamed.
Venues: The Turf Club, The Schooner Tavern, Cloudland Theater & the place where it all kinda started First Avenue & 7th Street Entry.
Record Stores: Barely Brother Records, Lucky Cat Records, Roadrunner Records & The Electric Fetus.
Media Outlets: Radio K, Some Kinda Fun, KFAI 90.3, UndercurrentMPLS.
The band’s blend of melodic hooks, dry humor, regional insight, and lyrical substance anchors Deep Pockets in a space that’s unmistakably Midwestern—sometimes grim, often generous, and always looking you square in the eye.
Check out the full track by track commentary below.
Side Chick
Power pop ode to attraction in a non binary world. Weaved together with binary cosmological/mythological symbol sets of day/night, sun/moon, Helios/Selene.
Pause
This track attempts to get a band going outta pandemic quarantine can involve way too much stop, go, hurry up and wait. Lotta pause, come and start again.
On These Two Pauls
The song features tributes to the heroic efforts of ‘Front Row’ Paul Engebretson, his oft-times wingman photographer Paul Lungren and scissor-man scene-booster Jon Clifford. Clifford’s HiFi’s Loring Park Alley shows being the inspiration of the verses while the two Pauls, Lungren and Engebretson, being the inspiration for the choruses. Song was born out of a great deal of respect and appreciation for all three of them fellas and their relentless scene boosterism.
Oakley Avenue
Our down-on-his-luck protagonist tells his little sister-and by extension his whole family-that everything is fine during the song’s chorus, when everything is clearly not fine. Lots of losses from suicide and OD’s in my part of town and I guess I wanted to give voice to one of these lost people. One of the unfixable. One of the doomed.
Slot Machine Simulator
Online gambling is an emerging plague here in the states, a silent killer and a trap for many young and old that often ends in financial ruin for entire families and/or suicide of the gambler. These online casinos have an advertising approach that reminds me of drug dealers who’ll make the “First one free, kid.”
Tree Of Life
A tribute to Tree of Life mass shooting victims, brothers named Cecil and David who worked as greeters every Saturday at the synagogue. Their selfless service, welcoming openness and devotion to their jobs seemed the right sort of counterpoint to the pointless xenophobic rage of the terrible event’s perpetrator.
Hey Tomorrow
What sort of song would a guy from present day Minnesota imagine a temple administrator would sing to the soon-to-be sacrificed in pre-columbian central america? FInd out here!
Pandemic Robe
A nod to a friend’s Facebook post about how she was gonna ‘burn the bathrobe’ her daughter had worn for the entirety of the quarantine once it was over. Probably a universal phenomena.
Arrowheads And Ash
Perhaps the only song ever written about the early excavation of the legendary lost city of Troy by Heinrich Schliemann and others, including a Minnesotan named Karl Blegen. Go Karl go!
Darkness Outside
Another pandemic inspired number. This one about an imagined mass break-out from some sort of unjust confinement. Yo bum rush the show style.
