Dredg

Dredg came together in Los Gatos, California, in 1993: Gavin Hayes singing and playing guitar and slide, Mark Engles on guitar, Drew Roulette on bass and synthesizer, and Dino Campanella drumming and doubling on piano and organ. They started out as an alternative metal band, but the debut Leitmotif in 1999 showed them drifting toward art rock and prog, and it did well enough locally that Interscope Records signed them in 2001 and put it out again. El Cielo followed in 2002, a critics' favorite that built them a devoted cult.

Catch Without Arms, in 2005, is where the cult went wider. It was the first of their albums to make the American charts, and MTV gave "Bug Eyes" its moment in the light. It's the most streamlined thing they'd done, big, clean guitar swells and Hayes's soaring voice wrapped around songs that still take the scenic route.

They split from Interscope in 2009 and put out The Pariah, the Parrot, the Delusion on their own, reaching their highest chart places yet. Chuckles and Mr. Squeezy in 2011 went somewhere else entirely and the fans didn't follow, and once the tour behind it ended in May 2014 they stepped away on what they called an extended hiatus. They reunited in January 2018 and began working on a sixth album, which, as of 2026, still hasn't appeared.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.