The Bad Penny (beta)

Dumb Waiter’s saxophone player and vocalist, Tristan Brennis, is wise to the fact that many musicians are speaking out in resistance to MAGA and fascism because the war being wages is between right and wrong, not right and left.

“In this day and age, you know, in 2026, it’s kind of hard not to be political,” he says. “I don’t think, when writing [our new] album … any of us intended to make it political. I think it’s just we’re a reflection of our surroundings. You close your eyes, you blink, and all of a sudden, you’re like, ‘Wait a second, we’re actually pretty pissed off.'”

Dumb Waiter’s new album, Change, comes out Friday courtesy of Ossein Collective/Records. We’ll have more on that in a couple of days, but for now, we bring you Tristan Brennis’ illuminating installment in the Bad Penny’s On Tyranny series.

For more on Dumb Waiter and to pre-order Change, go to their Bandcamp page.

Here is the “On Tyranny” video interview archive.

This entry was posted on 07/29/2026 at 4:44 pm and is filed under Features, Interviews, On Tyranny, On Tyranny, Videos with tags authoritarianism, Dumb Waiter, fascism, On Tyranny, Tristan Brenni, trump, tyranny. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.