From the small coastal city of Newburyport, Mass. to Brooklyn, New York, the indie rock duo TOLEDO is made up of Daniel Álvarez de Toledo and Jordan Dunn-Pilz.
The longtime friends first met while busking in Newburyport at 10 years old. Though distance became a barrier between the two during their college years, the pair now live in close proximity to one another in Brooklyn.
As you have probably taken notice, the band’s name originated from Álvarez’s full name, “Daniel Álvarez de Toledo,” in addition to the Spanish town of Toledo, Spain.
Álvarez’s Spanish roots don’t end here. On the band’s first EP, “Hot Stuff” (2019), they released a song titled “Qué Pasa?” Though the only Spanish featured in the song was the words “qué pasa,” a few years later, in 2024, the band released their third EP, “Popped Heart,” which included a track called “Lindo Lindo,” with a chorus entirely in Spanish.
In 2017, the band released their first single titled “On My Own,” where listeners can hear a slight surf rock influence alongside the clear alternative ones.
The following year, the duo released another single titled “Crane Song” that slowly made its way as one of their top songs on Spotify.
Though the band went on for a few years creating music almost entirely about love and heartbreak, the duo began to make music about internal struggles and troubled upbringings.
These topics can be heard most prominently on their debut album “How It Ends” (2022), but listeners can also begin to find traces of them in “Sunday Funday” on their second EP “Jockeys of Love” (2021), which soon became their most popular song.
On Instagram, the band posted a video of them playing “Sunday Funday” in their backyard, accompanied by Carr Bonner and @not_gui. The video included text crediting Álvarez and Dunn-Pliz’s opportunity to quit their babysitting jobs to the success of the song.
As of more recently, the band released another EP titled “Inertia” and is beginning their headlining tour throughout the United States on Nov. 5, the duo will come to New York on Dec. 5.
For fans of The Marías, Clairo or Sufjan Stevens who want to try something different, TOLEDO is the band for you.
