Singer-songwriter Dave Hause explores the contrast between youthful dreams and harsh reality in his new track "We Could Be Kings." The frontman for the punk band the Loved Ones, Hause takes a heartland rock approach on his solo fare, drawing from Bruce Springsteen and the Gaslight Anthem (the latter of whom he's playing a show with this month in New York).
"Growing up in a working-class neighborhood in America in the 1980s involved all kinds of promises," Hause tells Rolling Stone. "If you believe in this God, if you go to this school, if you work hard, if you are a good person. . . you could seemingly have it all. Seeing what those promises and expectations really shook out to be for so many people is a very different scenario than what was hoped for. This song is for those people."