Hailing from two disparate - but not all that distant - Bay Area communities and musical scenes, Skeptik and Danny G were soul-bonded after a chance meeting at a house show, and in short order went from strangers to friends to brothers in arms to sharing motel beds all across the country. Oh, and they make some very strange and awesome music together too!
Skeptik had his musical beginnings in the hip hop/funk band Multiple Organisms and shortly after would start the hip hop crew the Lobetrotters Collective, while Dan cut his teeth with his indie rock/hip hop band Full Moon Freakz as a teen, recording and engineering for his friends who rapped and learning to make beats on his own. Though the two wouldn’t meet for years, the foundation was laid for their shared interests and influences to one day blossom into more.
A hastily scribbled number on the back of a sticker while trying to avoid arrest as a house show was broken up would lead to the pair starting a friendship, and Dan joining Multiple Organsisms on guitar and taking photography duties on the Lobetrotters Collectives’ Bridging the Gap tour. While on the road Dan and Skeptik bonded over their shared interests and musical inclinations. Dan’s melodic, groovy, video game-esque production and Skeptik’s philosophical, reference laced, emotionally drenched lyricism would combine to form dubldragon. A few months later in the Fall of 2014 the two found themselves releasing and immediately touring on their first, self-titled, album.
Dan had already established himself as an engineer through his work with several Bay Area studios throughout his teenage years and early 20’s, and Skeptik’s penchant for show and tour booking would lead to a position booking tours for the artists on the roster of Buffalo, NY based label Deep Thinka Records, including Blueprint, Illogic, and Tanya Morgan. Through these deepening links to the underbelly of the music industrty, the two were able to bolster their skillsets and each bring something unique to the table. Dan had the musical expertise and multi-instrumental ability, and Skeptik had contacts, connections, and a head full of ennui-coated rhymes.
A year later, in 2015, the pair would release their sophomore album, Y Wulvz?, inspired by and based on the video game Bloodborne. The album features track after track reflecting on the nature of human behavior, ultimately asking the question - if we could be anything, why would we choose to be wolves? Dan’s guitar and bass work is all over the record, including not one but two guitar solos in the title track, and the record features two instrumental tracks - first, the live beat routine that to this day features heavily in their live set, Malicious Intent, and second the fully organically composed and performed Just Enough Dust To Weigh Down A Feather. The album was released during Sammy Warm Hands’ Vacant Eyes Tour, which would be the dragons’ first time traveling beyond the Pacific North West, taking them through the South- and Mid-West and all the way up to the mecca of indie hip hop - Minneapolis, MN, performing 21 shows in 23 days in 20 cities.
In 2019 the group’s third offering, the cyberpunk inspired Macroforms, would release through Milled Pavement Records just in time for its rollout to be way-laid by the pandemic. If the first album was the dragons feeling one another out, and Y Wulvz? them finding their true sound together, then Macroforms is them owning it. Skeptik bounces back and forth from high energy raps to growling vocals like those found on Chiba Blues, and even finds a little time to dust off the pipes and sing on With You. Dan’s compositions continue to mature and blend more and more influences, as evidenced by the incredible double bass fill in the intro to UHD, or the funky multi-layered drums all across Marble. In spite of being unable to tour on the record, this did not stop the dragons from releasing several music and lyric videos for the project, or releasing their follow up collaborative ep Funcoland with longtime friend Voltaire Slapadelic in June of 2020.
Skeptik and Danny have performed in a total of 15 states, touring alongside the likes of DJ Abilities (RSE), DopeKNife (Strange Famous), Sammy Warm Hands (Crushkill), and Paulie Rhyme (Deep Thinka Records), to name a few. They've also shared stages with Sage Francis, Mega Ran, Blueprint, Illogic, Jel, Sole, Bop Alloy, Ceschi, Grayskul, and many more. Having played over 100 shows on the road and easily over 300 shows together total, they are long past the 10,000 hours mark of mastery.
Drawing inspirations from everything from math rock to sad raps to Japanese children’s cartoons, the dragons dubl combine their might into the form of deeply groovy, surprisingly philosophical, dense pieces of music that could fill the belly of the mightiest fire breathing lizard for weeks as they sleep upon their throne of gold and cow carcasses.
Skeptik's a dragon, Danny's a dragon... Too dragons, you get it.