In a sunny Orange County garage, the members of alt-pop band People R Ugly sit scattered across office chairs and lawn furniture. Singer Zak Dossi and guitarist Julian Delgrosso idly strum guitars, bassist Bill Biers lights a joint, and drummer Tristan Kevitch perches on a coffee table.
For a band thrown together less than a week before their first show, People R Ugly have moved fast. After a packed year playing festivals like Lollapalooza, Bonnaroo, Summerfest, and Warped Tour, they released their debut album “GARAGE” last October. Now they’re kicking off 2026 with their biggest tour yet, hoping to, as Kevitch puts it, “make every fan fall in love with them.”
That love story starts in Dossi’s garage, where the band writes, records, and produces their music. It also lends its name to the band’s debut album, “GARAGE” — a high-energy blend of catchy pop hooks, DIY hip-hop production, nostalgia-driven alt-rock sound, and, according to Dossi, “whatever else I’m listening to that week.”
People R Ugly experimented with several new genres throughout the album, which marked a fresh sound for the group. “It’s just four dudes in a garage saying, hey, let’s try this,” Delgrosso said. The band’s DIY mindset extends to production, which Dossi handles himself.
“I like doing everything myself when it comes to the recording, production, and mixing,” Dossi said. “I have more control over it and can come out with more of a unique product.”
People R Ugly described “GARAGE” as sounding “fun,” “sexy,” and, uniquely, “green.” The color dominates their visuals, from album art to what they call their “stupid green jumpsuits.” “It used to be a rubber hazmat suit, but that was just impossible to be in,” Delgrosso said. “So Bill’s mom made us windbreaker ones, which are a lot more comfortable.” The band’s shared sense of humor is constant, often spiraling into extended bits about matching tattoos or the city of Des Moines, Iowa. It’s almost hard to believe that four years ago, the four were near-strangers.
People R Ugly began when Kevitch, a college baseball player who had been drumming since age 9, spent years cold-calling venues across Los Angeles hoping to book a show. When one of his dream venues — the Whiskey-a-Go-Go — accepted, Kevitch was thrilled.
There was only one problem: He didn’t have a band.
In the seven days before the show, Kevitch tracked down Dossi, Delgrosso, and Biers on Instagram. They spent a week writing songs, rehearsing together, and recruiting people off the street to attend their show. What made them stick together?
“Unconditional love,” Delgrosso said. “Also, I just kind of booked a plane ticket and never went back.”
The band’s name was just as impulsive — chosen because, according to Kevitch, it would “look cool on a marquee.” “It just kind of stuck,” Kevitch said. “We’ve tried to make up a reason for it over the years, but the real answer is just like how we made the band — last-minute and off-the-cuff.”
That spontaneity extends to People R Ugly’s online presence and visual direction; in addition to unique promotional strategies like defacing their own posters with phallic imagery, the band also comes up with the ideas for their music videos. “The video department for the most part is me and Tristan,” Dossi said. “We’ve been video editors as our day jobs for a long time, so every music video and content that you see is us making and editing that.”
Kevitch shared details about the music video for “WAKE UP,” which he described as “our biggest music video project off of the album.” “We smoked a lot of weed and came up with the idea on the spot, and we were like, ‘there’s no way we can pull this off,’” Kevitch said. “And then 8 months later we attempted it, and it came out exactly how we saw it in our heads.” The video was recently nominated by SXSW for Best Music Video alongside major artists like Chappell Roan, Kendrick Lamar, and Tyler the Creator.
“I felt like it was a joke,” Delgrosso said of the nomination.
“No!” Dossi argued. “It’s the best music video there!”
The video features Blink-182’s Mark Hoppus as the band’s high-school principal giving Kevitch awful advice at a talent show.
“Obviously he’s one of my favorite singers ever, so the fact that I got to direct and act in the same scene with him was surreal,” Kevitch said.
In addition to Hoppus, the band has played host to a number of unique collaborators including Sublime’s Jakob Nowell, the Plain White T’s Tom Higgenson, and Dr. Michael Kogon — the urologist who performed Delgrosso’s adult circumcision. After People R Ugly’s song about the procedure (“Circ23”) went viral, Delgrosso tracked down Kogon and flew him out to play bass with the band at Warped Tour Orlando.
Now, the band is preparing for their “biggest and longest” tour yet opening for The Summer Set, expressing excitement about playing “GARAGE” live. “We’ve been playing it at pretty much every festival we’ve done over the summer,” Dossi said. “Probably half our set was the new album before it even came out. But it’s gonna be dope now playing it now that people know the songs and the words.”
When asked about their goals for the tour, Kevitch responded: “To make every fan fall in love with us.” “Especially when you’re opening, the crowd might not know who you are,” Kevitch said. “I want everyone leaving the shows like, ‘People R Ugly is the best fucking band on planet Earth.’” The band also teased new music post-tour. “We’re an independent band now, so we can do whatever the hell we want,” Kevitch said.
“We’re working our way towards a second album,” Dossi said. When asked what it might be about, he responded: “The next one’s gonna be a concept album. It’s gonna be about a time-traveling horse.” The band agreed, laughing as they discussed potential costumes and matching horse tattoos. “You heard it here first.” Biers said. “Time-traveling horse.”
