REAL DETROIT WEEKLEY - DUTCH PINK - band pic by me

Dutch Pink Wrap Up Times New Roman "I remember talking to you a while ago," drummer David Iannuzzi looks past me, down the bar to address his longtime friend, singer/guitarist Dustin Leslie, "and you were furious, actually, that we weren't done with this album yet. You'd realized that there was all of this hope, a new administration, the stimulus money, people thinking things are going to get better and you were like, 'No! We wrote this way back here, before!'" The pair, with bassist Clyde, make up Dutch Pink. Their batch of redemptive ballads, Times New Roman, is, after a year and a half of hanging in limbo, finally being released (6/24 at the Magic Bag). "We wrote this fucking album three years ago," Leslie says, unable to restrain an amplified exclamation. "We wrote this when people started losing their jobs at the beginning of the recession, at the tail end of our own 30-month-long orgy of songwriting." As Clyde had pointed out earlier, the album title is allegorical of Detroit being the modern paradigm of the Roman Empire's ruin. "And the only reason it's coming out now is because we actually lost our jobs," he clarifies with bemoaned irony. The dynamics of Dutch Pink, and the heart each player exudes, are so much more nuanced because there is a thick bond of familial friendship between the players. After surviving a flooded rehearsal space and brief stints of unemployment, the band is finally releasing their third proper LP — and after seven years as a band (and two decades as friends), feeling rejuvenated and resolved. RDW