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Is there a statute of limitations on living out your high school dreams? A question asked and not really answered by the return of Salt Lake City’s hometown heroes, The Brobecks. But who exactly are they?

On Jan. 2, 2025, The Brobecks, an independent rock group, released a recorded, remastered version of their 2005 album “Happiest Nuclear Winter.” Instead of being a standard remaster, this is a completely new version of the album similar to Taylor Swift’s “(Taylor’s Verison)” re-recordings. “Happiest Nuclear Winter” was The Brobecks’ first official release in 16 years and the 20th anniversary of the original album.

The Brobecks were formed in 2003 by Dallon Weekes, Bryan Szymanski, Matt Glass, and Michael Gross. From 2003 to 2013, the band slowly released a number of albums, EPs, and played hundreds of shows before — like many high school bands — they inevitably fizzled out.

There were more than a dozen members of The Brobecks between 2003 and 2009; new people joined as others dropped out. Frontman and bassist Weekes then pursued the band on his own as its only official member from 2009 onward. In the entirety of the band’s lifespan, The Brobecks never saw much recognition or commercial success.

While The Brobecks never officially broke up, they more or less disappeared — at least functionally. They played their last show in 2013.  After that, other than a few releases of vinyl variants and a remastered CD from Weekes’ indie record label, None You Jerk Records, there was no new content, music, or engagement of any kind from the band for 12 years.

But their online fan base grew anyway.  In those “dead years,” there were thousands of posts on social media from fans, and millions of views on many The Brobecks music videos, officially uploaded or otherwise. The band became more popular than ever because of an online community that just barely missed the life of the band they were obsessing over.

The Brobecks quietly lived through Weekes’ career. In 2009, the band’s only widely accessible album at the time, “Violent Things,” was released. “Violent Things” was a record made by Weekes consisting entirely of music he wrote for The Brobecks that he remastered and re-released in order to own his songs. At the time, Weekes was the only original member. Unlike “Happiest Nuclear Winter” (2025), “Violent Things” wasn’t a pre-existing album. It was a re-release of pre-existing songs from different eras of The Brobecks. “Violent Things” wasn’t the first or last attempt by Weekes to re-record and re-release the band’s music.

Reusing songs was always a part of the lifeblood of the band, even at their origin. In 2005, the song “Boring” was released on the original “Happiest Nuclear Winter” (2005) album, only to be remixed and re-released in 2009 on “Violent Things,” and in 2010 on the “Your Mother Should Know” EP, before being released again on “Happiest Nuclear Winter” (2025).

From 2013 to 2019, The Brobecks saw a massive increase in online searches and YouTube views because of Weekes, who released demos and covers on SoundCloud. And, in 2009, Weekes became an official member of the alternative rock band Panic! At the Disco.

There was a long-held rumor that Panic!’s 2013 album “Too Weird to Live, Too Rare to Die,” which Weekes helped to write, had songs that originated from The Brobecks. In 2019, a demo of The Brobecks’ recording of “Far Too Young To Die,” a Panic! song, was uploaded to YouTube, all but confirming the rumor. Weekes would eventually leave Panic! in 2017 to focus on his solo career, but not before garnering a fanbase.

Post-Panic!, Weekes formed I Don’t Know How But They Found Me, a conceptual ‘80s-style modern alt-rock band, often shortened to IDKHow. The increase of online searches for The Brobecks reached new heights in 2017 with the release of IDKHow’s first singles. Officially, Weekes has also remastered and recorded multiple The Brobecks songs, like “Clusterhug” and “A Letter” onto various IDKHow albums and EPs.

But The Brobecks didn’t reach their peak in online interest until 2021 when Weekes was re-pressing and re-releasing “Violent Things.”

All hope was not lost for fans of the band. In early December of 2024, Weekes, Glass, Gross, alongside the None You Jerk Records label, all started teasing something coming at the start of the new year, which they then officially announced as the re-release of their record “Happiest Nuclear Winter” under Weekes’ label. Szymanski does not have public social media.

The record itself is far beyond that of a remastered version of the band’s existing records. The 2025 edition of “Happiest Nuclear Winter” has a completely different sound and feeling from the original 2005 release. It features new recordings, a distinct mix, and different arrangements.

Alongside the record, they announced their to-be-released feature film about the band’s complicated history, “The Brobecks: Not Dead Yet,” directed by Glass.

The Brobecks, by their own admission, aren’t dead yet. Though their next steps won’t be known until the release of their feature film, The Brobecks can finally exist in a world where their work is observed.