Stepping Into Character
With Dijon

I grew up around influential people who would constantly show me DIY music and go to house shows when I was in college. I’m sure that exists on the West Coast, but there’s this specific stamp that feels very East Coast. You know, up and down to New York and Philly, going to see shows. I think it’s a subconscious nod to that world.

The real spirit of the record came when I formally met Mike [Mk.gee] and we made the first song, “Big Mike’s.” We tried a couple of cuts in a more traditional recording situation, and then it was like, “You know what? Let’s just put the mic all the way over there and try it again.” That distance from the rejection of trying to be as clarified and present in a literal sense comes from how I grew up hearing stuff. The abandonment of trying to record well—I find it quite interesting. That became the ethos: how to further the character of the people behind the music. It reiterated how I hate the way most music sounds.

I’m being a little cheeky. I was obsessed with music. The first CD I ever asked for was Q-Tip’s Amplified. Dilla produced all of it; it had that song, “Vivrant Thing.” Just whatever R&B, like SWV. My mom had [D’Angelo’s] Brown Sugar when I was a kid, and I remember listening to that a lot.

My mom tried to get me into clarinet once, but I could never really apply myself. It all happened on accident. I got an allowance, and I asked for a drum machine. I didn’t realize that you need other things in conjunction with the drum machine, I was always feeling around in the dark. I got my music on the bus or on the radio. We had a cassette [recorder], and late at night I would try to tape some stuff. I remember taping Alicia Keys’s “Diary” because I loved the end of it.

I’m getting older, so some of the detachment that I thought was very cool, I realize doesn’t do service to the music anymore. I have a very difficult time placing how it works or what it does. I feel the responsibility now, which isn’t mine to feel, but I can’t help it, to try as hard as possible so other people who are consuming it find something that they can connect to.

I want there to be a displacement of time and space. I have the tendency to not consciously start my songs mid-conversation or mid-scenario because I don’t like exposition, and I don’t like there being any sort of crumb trail to where it might source from. I’m trying to weave more humor into it. I think to be a truly successful and significant songwriter, it has to be playful. I want a true distance from the narrator. But, you know, have your jokes.

I just got engaged, and my life is a great source of inspiration sometimes. The truest song on the record is “Big Mike’s.” That’s specifically about my fiancée. Otherwise, sometimes it’s making some sort of potentially irresponsible assumption about what a person might feel in a specific time or space. How do you do your best to try to channel some sort of empathy for a thing that may or may not ever happen, or hasn’t happened, or could happen? I’m influenced very distinctly by Raymond Carver, and his short stories are pretty intense and heavy. I could be totally wrong, but the way I’ve always interpreted it is: I don’t necessarily know if this person even came close to living some of these things. He’s bird- watching, almost. Making assumptions about human nature.

I’m a very big Terrence Malick fan, which might be super obvious. The sheer power of editing is subconsciously how I try to write. Yeah, some sort of love [story] is a great basis. I’ve been trying to explore the underlying things that may be attached to it—toxicity, codependency, shame.

The interesting thing is when you think about words generally, they’re pretty meaningless. But you can create pops of color and images based on how you combine two of them or how you stretch out a vowel. With “Rodeo Clown,” [I] was obsessed with this idea of performing as desperately and perversely as possible. And then, trying to shape the language around that. Which words would you use? Which ones sound more guttural? Which ones have more plosives? It’s all syllabic for me when I write. Which consonants can then interact with the feeling that you want to portray?

That’s what I’ve been trying to kind of get towards for a long time. I listen to Mama’s Gun all the time. I talk about Mama’s Gun all the time. I think a lot of it’s very true, or I would assume true to Erykah Badu. But some of it feels like some sort of tale being told from a chair somewhere.

There is power to that. If I had to simplify it, I would attribute it to an ability to take observations from her life and reform which perspective she’s telling it from without ever having to explain what it is. “Bag Lady” is pretty severe, and it’s really tragic. It has to come from some sort of experience, but it also comes from a detachment, like a true survey of the situation.

I’m so uncomfortable on tour that I would just naturally allow myself to assume a more cartoonish role. I would sing certain songs in a very specific way. I would hunch down. I would try to further my discomfort to some pretty bad effect. I blew my voice out many times because I would try to become a new monster or a very timid person, and it was very harsh on my throat. But that informed the music a lot. Once I got more comfortable with how uncomfortable I was, I was trying new things out with my voice. Even just how I angle my mouth.

I don’t think I’m going to be the kind of person that radicalizes the production side of things, but I think there might be some room to influence the way the performances happen, and maybe the space in which some of the music is created. But the goal is also in conjunction [with], trying to figure out how to write the next record. Hopefully take some big swings at some other collaboration from maybe other people that could maybe recontextualize that person’s work, if they’re willing. Maybe you can tangibly hear that something’s different even if you can’t put your finger on it. That’s the thing that I’m chasing.

My only interests are to write affecting songs. They have to fit within some sort of parameter —even just the simplest phrase. Is it memorable? Is it singable? Does it hook you? I have no interest in just flexing around. I’m obsessed with [Whitney Houston’s] “I Wanna Dance with Somebody.” I wanna make that affecting of an arrangement. I don't also want it to be necessarily fixed all the time on some sort of historical sonic template. I feel a responsibility now. My life could have been very different. I waited tables for like seven years. This is a crazy world; it’s all in service of song.