Dustin Kensrue

Dustin Kensrue is rhythm guitarist, vocalist and lyricist in the Orange County hardcore quartet Thrice. Kensrue first teamed up with his school mate and friend Teppei Teranishi in the mid 90's, practicing in each

Dustin Kensrue is rhythm guitarist, vocalist and lyricist in the Orange County hardcore quartet Thrice. Kensrue first teamed up with his school mate and friend Teppei Teranishi in the mid 90's, practicing in each others living rooms. The duo soon recruited school-mate Eddie Breckenridge to play bass guitar and older brother Riley Breckenridge as a drummer. The band soon began playing small local gigs under the name Thrice. While Thrice have always been in essence a hardcore-punk outfit, their first full length album "Identity Crisis", which was released in 1999, garnered them much popularity in the metal community, with it's high-tempo palm-muted riffs and intricate harmonised lead guitar-work. Thrice's sophomore effort "The Illusion Of Safety" (2001) is widely regarded by many punk and metal fans as an all-time classic record within both genres. Kensrue's lyrics, however, rarely stray into heavy-metal territory, with introspection and christian morality being the most common themes found in his lyrics. Although Thrice themselves do not fall under the heading of "Christian Hardcore", Kensrue himself is a Christian and almost all of his lyrics are inspired by Christian morals and their place (or lack thereof) in society today, with Kensrue drawing much lyrical inspiration from the 20th century author C.S. Lewis, who penned the well-known Chronicles Of Narnia books and countless books on Christianity. Vocally, Kensrue is one of the most well-rounded and talented, albeit unsung, singers in heavy music today. With the vocals ranging from gravelly, caustic shouts one minute to heartfelt harmonised melodies the next, Thrice have always been extremely difficult to lump into one genre of music, and have always been evolving their sound from one record to the next. Thrice's fourth full-length studio album, "Vheissu", released on Island record label, October 2005, sees Kensrue draw inspiriation lyrically from ancient Christian tales and from the Old Testament of the bible, and vocally and musically Dustin and the band draw styles ranging from Coldplay to Radiohead to stoner/prog-metallers Isis. This autumn/winter sees Kensrue, Teranishi and the Breckenridge brothers tour the U.S. opening for My Chemical Romance, fronted by Kensrue's close friend, Gerard Way, and in the U.K. Thrice will be supporting prog-rockers Coheed & Cambria, fronted by another of Dustin's friends; Claudio Sanchez. Dustin Kensrue and Thrice continue to evolve their innnovative sound and widen the boundaries of heavy guitar music.

Dustin also has a solo acoustic side project called Ursus Veritas.