Aging & Wisdom Quote by Trevor Dunn

There is something disarmingly modest about Trevor Dunn’s “Hopefully,” a word that doubles as a shrug and a spell. Rock history is littered with bands that talk in manifestos - reinventing music, changing the world, burning brighter than everyone else. Dunn reaches for the opposite: longevity. Not glory, not dominance, just the chance to keep going long enough for the work to matter.

The phrasing is telling. “As a band” isn’t just a grammatical qualifier; it’s a reminder that the unit is fragile. Bands aren’t businesses or solo careers with hired hands - they’re messy micro-democracies held together by taste, ego management, money, and fatigue. By emphasizing the collective, Dunn signals that survival is the real achievement, and that “growth” is as much interpersonal as it is artistic.

“Grow and develop” reads like a quiet rebuke to the myth of instant classic albums. It frames creativity as a long game: touring that tightens arrangements, experiments that flop, lineup chemistry that deepens, a shared language that only forms after years of playing rooms that don’t care about your vision. The band doesn’t arrive fully formed; it becomes.

Then there’s “a good length of time,” a phrase that sounds almost domestic - like hoping a relationship stays healthy rather than promising eternal passion. In an industry built to chew through novelty, that’s the subtext: endurance is radical. Dunn isn’t lowering the stakes; he’s redefining them.