Bonny Doon

There comes a point in every lifer band’s arc where the mirage evaporates. You look around, count the years, look at your bank account, and realize the economic vice grip isn’t letting up. Your country is getting dumber, meaner, and louder by the week. You’ve played every stage from punk houses in Detroit to the hallowed Hollywood Bowl. You’ve buried parents, watched friends fade out, and taken on the heavy, terrifying mantle of starting families of your own. You realize you’re the next generation now, and the choices you make carry real weight.

If you’re Bonny Doon, you don’t dwell on misfortune and hardship. Instead, you get together twice a week, turn up the amps, and make the most refined, red-blooded record of your lives. Forever Green is the sound of a band shedding every last bit of self-consciousness to embrace exactly who they are— a veteran collective arriving at a new plateau through hard-earned conviction and straightforward delivery.

This newfound confidence wasn't born overnight. After a streak of acclaimed musical output in their own corner including 2018’s Longwave, Bonny Doon were recruited to help shape what would become the fabled Saint Cloud era for Waxahatchee. “When I heard Longwave, it changed my life,” Katie Crutchfield told Rolling Stone. “There’s so much spaciousness that you just want to live inside of it.” Anchoring Crutchfield’s milestone Americana pivot as core studio players and touring backing band, the group deepened their collective musicianship and set a new direction for their own future work.

After years of that high-profile run, alongside freewheeling remote recording setups, adding extra players, and experimenting with expanding the scope of the band on 2023’s sturdy Let There Be Music, Bonny Doon felt the pull to return to basics for their fourth full-length. For the first time in nearly a decade, the entire band—Billy Lennox, Bobby Colombo, Jake Kmiecik, and new addition Colson Miller—were living in their native Detroit simultaneously. The band reconvened like they used to when they started twelve years ago; returning to the ritual of gathering in a ramshackle practice space after work to hang out together and write in the room.

In October 2025, they took those songs out to the all analog Oracle Recording Studio, on the historic Rancho Linda Vista commune in Oracle, Arizona—a spot run by a friend of Miller’s, who originally hails from Phoenix. The band was attracted to the idea of returning to the limiting factor of tape, as well as getting outside of their comfort zone of recording in Michigan.

The record’s heart beats the hardest on the lead single, "Lucky Ones." Built on a sweeping, heartland rock foundation, it’s a working-class anthem for a moment defined by economic malaise, a widening gap between the haves and have-nots, and the frustration of putting in honest work without the promised payoff. "I want to know how it feels to be one of the lucky ones," Lennox sings—not with bitterness, but with the earnest hope of someone who still dares to yearn.

"Most people scrape by and can barely afford to live despite working their ass off," Lennox reflects. "Meanwhile the rich get richer and those in power are doing everything they can to suppress the rights and dignity of working class people. It’s kind of a culmination of grievance and frustration both personal and collective. In my case, 12 years into a band, 12 years older, still bartending until 3am, the body doesn’t recover like it used to. You can sometimes feel like your dues have been paid and you’re waiting on something to get easier or fall into place. I know a lot of people that feel like that."

That shared weight carries into opener "Cry With Me," a track that functions like a warm light turned on in an empty room. "It's a call for someone to share the burden of being exposed to the never-ending tragedy unfolding in front of us everyday," says Lennox. "It’s a lot to handle alone, so it’s about having someone else to acknowledge the insanity with and hopefully cope together. Maybe even have a laugh."

Throughout the record, Forever Green balances biting reality with their trademark unwavering ease. These are songs both meant to be played loud and to sway to on warm nights, rooted like the craft of simple cooking: using just a few high-quality ingredients, letting them simmer, and trusting their inherent flavor.

“Right In The Eye” rests in a soft, near-whisper acoustic stillness—a piece of bedside counsel offered low and quiet, like a father speaking a child into sleep or a midnight reassurance to someone you love. Stripped back to its barest bones, the track captures the deliberately lean intimacy that threads the new record together.

“We used to write songs about normal stuff, but now they often seem to deal with the many existential threats we’re staring down as a species,” notes Colombo. “It’s a long list, so I was happy that this one clocked in under three minutes. One of our goals for this record was to approach the songs like demos and just do maybe a couple takes playing the song together and not have ‘parts.’ This one benefits from that, I think. It feels very free to me.

Bonny Doon have survived the grind, outlasted the hype cycles, and come through the other side with something far more valuable: a bone-deep appreciation for the time they get to spend together. They understand the genuine, rare privilege of sitting in a room with your best friends, filling air with sound, and making artwork that feels real. Forever Green is raw, homespun, and completely their own.

-New Commute