It was his voice that got him in the door, but it might’ve been a timely feat of athleticism that cemented Daniel “DL” Laskiewicz as the new lead singer of Bad Wolves.
DL, who previously played guitar in the band The Acacia Strain, joined Bad Wolves earlier this year following the departure of former frontman Tommy Vext. Being he was longtime friends with guitarist Doc Coyle, the band connected with DL and sent him a trio of instrumentals to record his vocals over, and then invited him for an in-person rehearsal session.
As DL tells ABC Audio, it was during a moment after that rehearsal — a moment that will “burned in my mind forever,” he says — that he knew the fit was right.
“We were walking out into the parking lot of the rehearsal space,” DL recalls. “I don’t know if it was keys or something, but from across this long parking lot, [drummer] John [Boecklin] threw keys or whatever it was at me.”
“I just caught them with, like, two fingers,” he says. “The ex-football player in me just, you know, reacted.”
That little bit of chemistry seemed like a sign that DL and Bad Wolves were made for each other.
“Everybody just kind of stopped and looked at each other, like, ‘All right! Let’s go to dinner!'” DL says. “It was one of those moments…It was cool.”
Of course, it certainly helped that the rehearsal itself went well, too.
“The second that we were all finally in a room together with the songs and stuff, it just felt like a family reunion,” DL explains. “It felt really good, felt really natural.”
Bad Wolves’ first album with DL, Dear Monsters, arrives October 29. It features the lead single “Lifeline.”
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