Auto Escape

“Auto Escape combines great songwriting, melodies and performance in a way that is universally appealing … They are one of the best new bands around and I’m very excited about their future.”

- Chris Ryan, Music Director / DJ for KDGE 102.1 The Edge, Dallas’ biggest rock station


“Auto Escape draws from several moods and styles, often in the same song: poppy, snotty, sexy, angst. This is rock with a promising future…”

- Ayo, DJ for KDGE 102.1 The Edge, Dallas’ biggest rock station


“...The Auto Escape EP blew me away. Rockin’, poetic, melodic, driving rhythm section, sincere vocals… my cd player has been stuck in repeat mode ever since.”

- Shameless Entertainment (Los Angeles, CA)


“From the minute they took the stage, I was captivated… their music is catchy, unique and amazing. This band just nails every single song and has such an awesome stage presence. They were even better live than I expected… their CD is absolutely amazing, and I just can't seem to get enough of it.”

- The Houstonian (Houston, TX)


“Auto Escape was excellent… an awesome band… they’re going to go far… they deserve the attention.”

- The Fort Worth Weekly (Fort Worth, TX)


“I seriously cannot say enough good stuff about Auto Escape... The band rocks, plain and simple. Last night I got to experience the band live and I was blown away. It’s so refreshing, not only to find an amazingly talented band, but to also find out they have a head for this business and are willing to do what it takes to get where they want to be…”

– TexasGigs.com (Dallas, TX)


“Really good strong pure rock with catchy melodies and very nice vocalwork… melodic while still rocking quite hard… bound to have a big break soon.”

– Strutter Magazine (Holland)


“...their Britpop-sounding alternative rock has depth and melodies with longevity... this is a band that actually writes thoughtful music... tunes that demand more than 2-3 turns in the stereo...”

- www.melodic.net (Sweden)


“Auto Escape is the best I've ever heard from this genre from Dallas."

– Lindsay Graham, DConstruction.org (podcast radio show) - None

"I have the emo bangs," laughs Donnie DeBoer, pulling his lengthy locks away from his face. The singer and main song-writer for local rockers Auto Escape smiles mischeivously as he makes fun of the genre in which he plies his own craft--though he's the first (and loudest) to disagree with such simple categorization.

"What we all are into," DeBoer says, "is as far left to right as you could possibly go." After a prolonged discussion concerning the merits of Radiohead and the Flaming Lips, about the only two artists that all four members can agree to liking are Incubus and Lauryn Hill.

"I knew this wouldn't make any sense," deadpans DeBoer. But it does, as one listen to Turn It Off, their most recent EP, will testify to the band's mining of classic rock influences (early Aerosmith, Big Star) and its estrangement from all things generically emo.

The group of 20-somethings has been together for two years, creating a sound that thankfully recalls Cheap Trick more than it does My Chemical Romance. Along with Donnie and his curious little brother Nathie (who swears his favorite album is A Christmas Together by John Denver and the Muppets), Auto Escape includes Grant Pittman and Matthew Melton. Together, this rather nondescript-looking quartet appears ready for a move out of local obscurity.

Tracks such as "White Roses" and "Falling Asleep in the Snow" from the recent EP, while leaning toward the mainstream, still crackle with compositional freshness and pop smarts that put Auto Escape ahead of their immensely popular yet emotionally pretentious brethren in the emo community. "I'm just a backseat driver waiting for an exit sign," DeBoer sings on "Backseat Driver," another solid new cut, unknowingly expressing a consistent theme: abandoning the horse you rode in on once some new territory is in view.

With a focus uncommon for a band so young, all four members of Auto Escape eschew hobbies or even guilty pleasures in a need to make their music consistently better. "I don't even own a TV," says bassist Melton, although he confesses that his musical single-mindedness has occasionally gotten the better of him. Once he watched his bass fly out of the back of his pickup while going down Central Expressway.

"I really cried that day," Melton says, shaking his head, still fixated on his misfortune. Better crack that anti-emo whip some more, DeBoer. - The Dallas Observer

Up-and-coming Dallas rock band Auto Escape will play a show Saturday at The Door to celebrate the release of its new five-song EP, Turn It Off.

Since it's our life's mission to annoy everyone around us, we figured we'd really get under the skin of lead singer Donnie DeBoer. Musicians always cringe when you ask them, "So what's this song about?" Well, we challenged DeBoer to answer that question for all five tracks on his band's new EP. Here's what he gave us.

"White Roses" deals with all the ways we torture and mutilate our innocence. It is a confession song - a song about forgiving yourself and accepting the consequences. "I'm just another salesman with lies up my sleeves/No one believes me and I don't believe myself." I think that line sums up the feeling I had when writing this song.

"Backseat Driver" is about faking your way through life. We know we're doing it, but we do it anyway, and somehow that's acceptable and normal. "For the first time I slowed down at a stop sign and looked out at all of the pieces in this game/Waiting for a chance at fame/We're all the same because all our disguises and poses and one-liners never make it real/How does it feel?"

The image I had in my head when writing "Falling Asleep in the Snow" was of a beggar standing outside a window in the most bitter cold, watching people full of life and warmth and joy inside, knowing that he will never be welcome in that house. It is a very introspective, dark song for me. I have a lot of emotion tied to that song, and it always kinda rips me up when we play it live.

"Not What I Had in Mind" is the peak of the process. The storm before the calm. The song is about anger, resentment, fear, betrayal. The lyrics are an attempt to express what I think we all feel on some level: Why the hell am I here, and why does it hurt so much? Why are you ignoring me? "I bought you a pretty little dress and you take it off for everybody else/You take my heart and throw it on the floor/You taught me a pretty little song and I sing for you/But you're not listening." For some people, it's a song about cheating, and that's fine. I wrote it about God.

"Turn it Off" is meant to be your final thoughts before you fall asleep. When you lie there with dried tears all over your face and your stomach is torn up and sick, but you know the worst is over. - Quick (from The Dallas Morning News)