Deep Sea Diver

00:00:08 Speaker 1: Pushkin. Just a quick note here. You can listen to all of the music mentioned in this episode on our playlist, which you can find a link to in the show notes for licensing reasons, each time a song is referenced in this episode, you'll hear this sound effect all right. Enjoy the episode. There's no playbook for successfully releasing music during a pandemic, especially if you're an indie artist. The stakes really couldn't be higher, but Deep Sea Diver has managed to put all that aside to drop a thrilling and relevant new album. That's the lead singer Jessica Dobson singing the title track of Deep Sea Diver's third album, Impossible Wait. While the Seattle based band only recently started their assent in to indie rock stardom, Jessica Dobson has played in some the genre's most defining bands. She toured the world as lead guitarists for Beck and the Shins and played keyboard and bass for the Yeah Yeah Yaz. In twenty fifteen, Jessica formed Deep Sea Diver with her husband and drummer Peter Manson, and the wake of their new album, Broken Record producer Leah Rose talked to Jessica about how I Stay at Home livestream series inspired her to write a pandemic anthem and record time. Jessica also talks about how volunteering at a shelter for homeless sex workers helped her overcome a vicious bout of depression and write what she considers to be the best album of her career. This is broken record liner notes for the digital Age. I'm justin Richmondson. Here's Leah Rose with Jessica Dobson of Deep Sea Diver. Let's talk a little bit about your new album. Yeah, so, how has the pandemic changed the release and the marketing? Well, you know, most dramatically, no touring for everybody, that's you know, the most foreign thing. Usually this is the time you're getting ready to hit the road and like, if there's any momentum, keep pushing that momentum forward, you know. And that's always been how we've gained new new fans and follows. Is just like with the live show and meeting other bands on the road, and it really is devastating, but we've tried to pivot and be as scrappy as possible and you know, try to figure out what it looks like for us to I guess the only presence you can have now is online, and so just like figuring out how we want to do that and be creative with that that medium, and then have you had to sort of reimagine how you present the live show or even the new music now that everything's just kind of like on zoom or you're live streaming. Absolutely for a while we were doing like a weekly live stream when this first hit and Stop Pretending came out of the stay home tours like live streams that we were doing on Sunday nights, and Peter had this like crazy idea, like I think it was the first live stream we did. At the end of the live stream, he played a drum beat We recorded it live as we were showing people it on like Instagram, and he said, Okay, this drum beat that I just played, we recorded it and we're going to upload it to dropbox. Whoever wants to download it, take it and write your own song to it. At the end of that week, like people's submissions were due, because I was so interested to see, like, Okay, obviously everyone has a different brain, different melotic sensibilities. There's going to be so many different submission. I actually didn't know how many people were going to participate, and we ended up getting like seventy people sent in songs with this one looped drum beat, and towards the end of the week when it was due, I hadn't even started writing on that drum beat yet, and I was like, that's kind of lame if I asked people to write, like write a song, but I don't even do it. Yeah. So I sat in the studio and I tried to write to the drum beat, and whatever was coming out was kind of lifeless. And I ended up going on a walk and I came back and then stop pretending just came out. So it was written in a day, it was mixed the next day by me in the home studio, and then it was released the next day after that. Never done anything like that. And it has the line everything's falling apart. Yeah, honey, I can't pretend to understand why everything's falling apart. Yeah. Yeah, I've been singing that around the house my little two year old sweet yea, so good, thank you. Yeah. I definitely was, you know, a song very much influenced, you know, by the times. It's just like it's so yeah, everything was just so unsure and still is. There's no end date to what's going on right now, and it's just like almost like, Okay, I could write like a terror filled song or just something I just kind of like, all right, call Spada spade. The situation is totally messed up, and I don't know what's going on, and I can't pretend to understand. But just like I don't know the resilience of the human spirit and relating on that meant a lot to me. And so for some reason, yeah, the song came out. Stop pretending. So your sound classically is sort of really warm and poppy, fuzzy, sort of dreamy. How would you say that your sound has evolved over the course of the three albums. I think that the first album was kind of leaning more into like jangly pop songs like you Go Running kind of you know, at the time, was influenced more by like Phoenix and the Smiths, and but then also total contrast, like a lot of ballads that were darker. I love Nick Cave and and so I was kind of just like finding my footing in in the first record and then the second one, and I think I I really tried to step out more with like leading with guitar, and so there was a lot more jammy moments and guitar solos and heaviness. And then this record I kind of feel like I I came home again to like some of my my like earlier influences a lot more like narrative storytelling and songwriting. It's something that I had kind of dismissed for a while or didn't think I was good enough at. And so I think a lot these songs breathed really well, and they maybe are not as heavy in terms of like the rock world that maybe Secrets lived in. They are a lot more vulnerable, so I don't And then musically there's still like a lot of those stabby guitar and moments that I think I tried to write a lot of like what I perceived as that sounded almost like I'm singing a lyric melody, but through guitar there's a lot of those moments. So it's an extension of my voice instead of just like heaviness and loudness and jamminess and feedback and all that. So, yeah, it's a lot more melodic. Yeah it's super catchy. You know, I've listened to the album a lot over the last week, and it's like by the second or third listen, it's like I feel like I'm right there and I know the melodies and they're totally synking in. That's awesome. How do you not play a melody that you've already heard from another song, or how do you even know if you're yeah, you know, like recreating something unconsciously. That seems like the hardest part of songwriting. I just feel like I would sit down and you know, play like something like something very obvious and well known totally. There have been moments where I literally have I mean I know I have it on voice memos where somewhere of just like being so excited to show Peter he's my partner in the band or the whole band, just like check out this new song, and then someone goes like, yeah, that's like a feist song, like that melody right there or whatever, like and you know, something that I'll be so excited about, and I'll just have I just yeah, be wrapped up in the moment not even realize that it's like a total rip off. And then other times I write songs by ripping off melodies, so then I can get into the mindset of that artist or like literally just like pretending and trying to get out of, you know, my headspace and then from there having the freedom to make it my own. Yeah. Kevin Parker from Tam and Paulo was talking about the same thing, and he was saying, when he writes, he often tries to make a continuation of a song, right, like He'll listen. He was like talking about a beach House song that he was obsessed with, and then he tried to write like the next volume of that song. Yeah, that's a great idea. Anything that helps. Like, we just get in our heads all the time, and there's so many reasons, you know, why not to push forward on a song, and so all of the little tools are so necessary and helpful. So you produced this album, right, co produced? Yeah, my first one. I think I've been producing my whole life without knowing it and without giving it the official title, but like or attempting to produce things. But this was the first official one. Yeah. Did you come to it with an overall vision for the project? I first came to it actually in a very scared place. I at the time when we were going to record this this record that that's coming out now. We had already attempted twice to make a record coming right off the heels of Like Secrets, and it didn't go well. And I was in a pretty low, dark place and questioning a lot. And I had finally, like I had a couple of songs that I saw some sparks in, but I was still in a pretty pretty low place. And Peter came downstairs remember one day, and he was like, I think you're going to produce this record. You need to produce this record, And I just instantly started crying. I don't know why, but I just was in such a fucked up place and just like didn't even have the self confidence to think that, like, yeah, that's a good idea. So was that more pressure? Did that feel like oh no, no, I have two jobs to do? Yeah? I know it felt like, oh no, if I step into that role, like this record will never get made or I'll overthink it. Then if it doesn't do well, it will really be all on me because I produced it. And so there's so much fear wrapped up in that and for a number of reasons, but like basically in the end, I was just like, you know what I need to do this, and I think I'm prepared to do it, and I'm ready to jump up over that cliff. And I basically sought out like a co producer for the things that I knew that I was not, like I needed a right hand man of just like I'm not good at time management. I will press record a thousand times and then not even use it. And Andy, So, Andy Park was my co producer for this, and there's so many wonderful things he brought to the table and really challenged me to like sharpen the tip on all of the songs and the lyrics. And yeah, it was such a fun, joyful experience. That's amazing. Also, it sounds like exactly what you needed to do. I think so too. Yeah, I think a lot of things had been preparing me for this record. I lived in records when I was a kid, just I didn't realize that it was like kind of a producer mindset. But I would pick apart different frequencies and Okay, these are the highs and these are the lows of the song, and I would try to imagine how they would get those sounds. And so, yeah, it feels like I was preparing myself my whole life, but just didn't know it. Well, yeah, maybe you didn't have the language for it yet exactly the intention and you had the interest really Yeah, totally. On Lights Out the song, I was just curious from a producers standpoint, there's a little what sounds like a little vocal sample at the beginning of the song, and then the whole you know, the beat drops and it sort of disappears from that moment. What was the thinking behind that? The one that says hot Mike? Oh, is that what it says? Yeah, And I don't know why I said hot Mike, but there's we're always trying to like keep spirits light in the studio. But that's actually interesting that you asked me this question, because I wanted moments on this record that brought you into a different world and then also back, and then I wanted you to be able to feel like you're in the studio with us too. Yeah, it's cool. It's almost like you're there right before the song starts totally and hearing you know, two or three seconds before the band starts playing, you feel the power of the band in a new way. Yeah. Absolutely, I think there's a lot of moments like that on like Broken Social Scene records. You hear that and a lot of hip hop records actually too. I mean I'm sure you know, yes, yeah, that's what it reminded me of. Yeah, I specially love kind of especially those reprises like that Kendrick Lamar does and they're thematic and like it feels like he's talking directly to you, and so yeah, I'm a big fan of that. Very cool. That song is just undeniable. I mean, that's one of the real one of the songs that really like hooked its claws and to me quick it always kind of amazes me how short it is because it seems like there's a lot packed into it. But the songs on this record in general are shorter, and I didn't try to do that, but somehow it came out that way. But these little ones a little fireball that's lights out from Deep Sea Diver's new album, Impossible Way. We'll hear more from Leah Rose and Jessica Dobson after a break. Here's more of Leo Rose's conversation with Jessica Dobson. So, I'm curious about your thoughts about the music industry because you've been in the music industry for a really long time. Yeah, you were signed at nineteen with Atlantic. What type of music were you making back then, and how did that happen At that time? That was kind of like like right before the Atlantic Records deal happened, I was playing coffee shops around like I grew up in Lahabra Fullerton area and was just kind of like just starting to come onto the scene and meet new people. And one of the first people I met was this guy Eli Thompson, and he played with Richard Swift, who has since passed and rest in peace, Richard. We played together in the Shins. That's when I started buying a ton of records and going omiba like every Sunday, and they were expanding my little eighteen nineteen year old brain and they kind of took me under their wing and we recorded my first demos. So out of those demos, there was a song called most Sundays that I kind of had this very like I guess you could say rich just Swift an Elliott Smith kind of swung beat, and that was the song that kind of, I guess, put me on the map in front of these major labeled types. My manager at the time, I media showcases. I didn't know what I was doing. I just showed up and played the songs in my band, and then it seemed pretty crazy. All of a sudden, there was a deal on the table and I was super young, and I was like, oh, if I don't take this, then I guess nothing will like this will come again, so I should probably take this deal. So once I signed the deal and kind of felt like I was in this weird, faceless system, like I think that's where I started getting anxiety, but didn't know what that was either at the time. I ended up like losing my voice for I think my actual speaking voice and singing voice for five months. It was the craziest experience that seems very and bolic, honestly, like I wasn't lost on me. I know, it's super crazy. I think you know, since that time, like as I've reflected a lot more on it, I think I've been searching for that for I'm always searching for like musical community and more connection. Because that took me out of it right away and control totally. Yeah. I heard Katy Perry talking about this, and she because she was trying to like make it and break through for so long, and she was at it, and she was in that Christian realm too, like Christian music realm, I think beginning started out, yeah, which is a totally different scene, but yeah, and I think she was at it for like ten years. And then she made the most Unchristian song ever, right right, it's a girl, and she like totally blew up. Yeah, but I think even she was like totally surprised. But I think that's the key, though. You never know when something's gonna quote unquote work, whatever that means. And I think I think that's a good example because she put in the work like it didn't come out of nothing, and whatever she thought was a failure like set her up for that moment. And then you know, you could flash forward today and you know, like it's like nobody can recreate their successes, and you go through these valleys and peaks of what success looks like to you as an artist, and I don't know, it's just kind of so much as right place, right time, and this weird alchemy of a ton of things. Yeah, and then what ended up happening to the deal, I was just so sad. Music, the joy of it was absolutely squeezed out of it for me, and just having experienced like different kinds of rejection amidst what looked like a big quote unquote success, it was a failure for me, and like I was embarrassed. I didn't know what to do, and I ended up just kind of putting my head in the sand and stopped playing z for like a year and ran a coffee shop, like I was like a partial investor and just like totally doing Like Peter, who's now I'm married to him and he's in the band, he plays drums. He at the time, we were just best friends and he came down and he was like, what the fuck are you doing? Why are you running a coffee shop? You should be playing music, And like totally helped me out of and back into just playing again and find being able to find joy in it. So that was pretty sweet. You're like, I'm marrying you. Thank you, Yeah, thank you? Yeah, good choice. Yeah totally. And what's it like collaborating with your husband? How does that change the dynamic of your relationship? Are you always talking about music at home or are you able to sort of like compartmentalize those conversations it's tricky to compartmentalize the conversations. We definitely both have the brains that don't know how to shut things we're passionate about off. But I am so grateful for Peter. I mean just personally as my partner, but then in a musical setting we couldn't be any different. Um. He is, like I love how just kind of eighty with his ideas and he doesn't give a shit about looking foolish. He'll throw like a thousand ideas out into the room and you know, he himself will say like, yeah, like nine nine of these are probably not good or not good, and but the one that makes it's like he's like this burst of energy and these little sports and he's the sparker in the band. Totally. Yeah. I was gonna say, sometimes you need that to get just the ideas flowing and the energy going. Someone just needs to say something and then it'll turn into something totally And I think that like he got that a lot from like, uh like improv kind of yeah, improv. Yes, So he's a yes n a person. There's no like, hey, I don't want to do this thing that you just started us on the path. It's just like, Okay, I'm taking what you just said and then I have to end it. Yes, And and so he's constantly getting on me when I like am not being open to like, let's say, he'll presents something like an idea, musical or creative whatever, and if I like kind of rejected or don't want to get into it, he gets upset. And I totally get that. And that's where I need to be pushed in is just being freer and not as precious about things. So he's just wonderful like in that arena and obviously fantastic drummer and just yeah, he's crazy. He's just like so much energy, yeah, and live like he's it's like so and it's really fun to see like him in and Garrett who plays in the band. He plays bass in the band. Like the way they play off of each other, you know, Peter tends to kind of be like slightly on top of the beat and Gary tends to be just slightly behind, and it's like it's perfect. I love it. And you guys really jam out when you play live. Is that orchestrated ahead of time or does that happen naturally? Is it like a really an authentic jam or is that sort of more pre planned typically. I don't know. It's just one of those magic moments when we go into longer jams and really stretch it out. There's a song on the record called Eisa Red that has like a three minute guitar solo on it, and it gets into this kind of LCD sound system hypnotic groove for like three minutes, and sometimes live we'll tease that out for like ten minutes, and it just depends on what the mood is and it's fun to, I don't know, feel the freedom in terms of like guitar playing, of when you start finding that you're playing things. What you're hearing in your head at that moment in the middle of a live show but you've not necessarily played is coming out on guitar and that's just years of playing. But like, yeah, it's kind of thrilling, and so it's one of my most favorite moments when as a band you can get to those places. We'll be back soon after a break. Before we get into the rest of Leah's conversation with Jessica Dobson. Here's some of the title track off Deep Sea Diver's new album, which features Sharon Vannett. When this song was first written, it was the last song the album was done, and then I asked, like my managers one day, I was like, do you think this record needs another song? And they're like, it wouldn't I mean, it wouldn't hurt to try. Do you want to try to co write? And I was like yeah, And so I went down to California with this woman named Jendas Silvio and Peter came with me too, and I try to show up to this session without any preconceived melodic, lyrical anything, just try to keep my head super clear. But then my personality really came out, like of just like the poh shit, I don't have a plant B and so the without me trying, this lyric just came out in my head. I was like in the shower before we got there, and I was like, but that was then and this is now. And I just kept hearing that lyric over and over. And then when I got to the Jen's studio, we hopped into it pretty pretty much right away, and she was playing this thing on piano, and I think, out of nervousness, I started playing my guitar and that's where the dun in it, d do do da And she looked at me and she pointed, and she was like, get there, just because she was writing something totally different. And then I mean, that's the gifting of a songwriter. I guess when you're in that world is just you know where to point the energy. And she just totally hound in and she's like, what is that? And I was like, I don't know, I've never played this before ever. Also the gift of collaboration, because if you were alone, you might not have that could have been totally a throwaway one hundred percent. I just was. So it was one of those just magic moments of like being in the room seeing this song come out in like two hours, not a thing was changed after the fact. And then how did Sharon Vanetton get on it? Oh? I love Shan. Yeah, she's one of my favorites. She really is. And so Okay, So her brothers were fans of Deep Sea Diver for like the last three or four years, I think, And I remember, like a long time ago, being tagged by one of her brothers and seeing this thing on Facebook as I'm like, hey, Sharon, this is the band I was telling you about, and I was like, is that Sharon van Etton, Like holy shit, Okay, And then then, you know, I didn't think about that for a while, and then she had this record coming out which was to remind me tomorrow, and I heard the first I think it was the first single, Jupiter four, and I was just like, holy shit, I love this song. And I don't know what compelled me. I just wrote her on Instagram and I just told her how much I respected I so kind of like in the same vein of like Feist, Patti Smith, Cat Power, Nico Case. There's so many like women that I love in respect that create their own timelines for how they want to do things, and there is a total similar thread between all of them, and they're they're people of like great substance. She's one of those women. Yeah, And I said thank you, like, you know, because she stepped away for a second to go to school, she had a kid. It's like all these things that are like in terms of industry standards and how you do things and really sur record every two years and come back, okay, write, start writing and do it again. Like that's a huge finger in the face and I want to be that example too, of just like, now you don't have to follow those rules. And so I saw that in her and I just said thank you. So then a couple months later, she was coming through to the Neptune in Seattle, and I went to that show and then I think I like tagged her on Instagram and in a story and I was just like, there's nowhere else I'd rather be besides here. The night before we finished our record and then the next day we went to the studio to record Impossible Wait. And as we were recording it, I was I asked myself. I think it was internally At first I was like, man, it would be so cool if Sharon sang on this. And then I was in the bathroom and Peter, you just yelled, it's like Sharon messaged you. I was like what, and so I I just went out there and she said the most the most kind words, and eventually I asked, I was like, hey, like, I have this song, do you want to hear it? If you wanted to sing on it, let me know, like here, like I'm totally totally up for whatever. Just like and if it doesn't speak to you, forget, I asked. I find it was like midnight like one night months like a few months later, and a little message came through and it was like, I can do this, and I'm super stoked, and I was just so excited that it worked out. All right, let's talk about Switchblade a little bit. Yeah, it's written in third person. Who who are you talking about? I think it's kind of like a mixture of a lot of stories that I heard firsthand at the Commons with the women I was spending time with. So this organization that I started volunteering at, it's called the Aurora Commons, and it's a safe place for our unhoused neighbors, those that are drug dependent, involved in sex based work on the street, and it's a place where you can come. You don't have to be free of drugs, and there's your treaty with dignity and respect. And I was so drawn to this place because I hadn't found anything like it. And I live off of Aurora, which is like a highway kind of that runs parallel to the five Freeway in Seattle, and a lot of the women, you know, work on the streets by where I live, and you walk I walk by them every day, and you know, we're constantly passing people every day and we have no idea what their stories are, and we make a sumptions and put labels on people, and it's just it's such a disservice to to ourselves and others. But we do have that kind of commentary like that it's harder than you think line, like it's hard to receive. It's hard to receive other people's help. I need other people's help. Like we're all in the same boat. We all carry, like I said, like these little traumas around with us or large traumas, and that can feel so suffocating. And I wanted to write a song just like I hear you and you are important and you belong here. At the beginning of the record, it seems like you are in a really low place. Yes, and then you must be able to build up your confidence. If this is the first time you're producing an album, you have to write all these songs, I imaginetally you write a lot of the instrumental parts as well. Yeah, so that's a huge accomplishment, thank you. And so I'm just wondering, like coming out the other side of that, has that actually helped how you're feeling? Yeah? It did, And like it's just that, you know, the paradox of like you think if you dismantle things and kind of like strip everything away, that it's going to be this naked, crazy place where you might not push through and then you're left looking kind of foolish. But I think that by kind of dismantling, meaning like getting lower, getting into the dirt, like allowing myself to be more compassionate to myself and others and vulnerable, like in that process, like it felt really joyous instead of scary as it was happening. And I think right now I'm just like reveling in the joy of what we created and just being thankful for that. Well, thank you for being so gracious with your time, and thank you for sitting down and talking so much fun. Oh my gosh, the feeling is mutual, and I really appreciate you asking me to be on the show. Thanks to Jessica Dobson for opening up about her creative process with Leah. You can hear Deepsea divers new album Impossible Wait, along with some of our other favorite Deep Sea Diver tracks, on a playlist at Broken record podcast dot com, and be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel at YouTube dot com slash Broken Record podcast. There you can find extended cuts of new and old episodes. Broken Record is produced with helpful Leah Rose, Jason Gambrel, Martin Gonzalez, Eric Sandler, and its executive produced by Mio Lovell. Broken Record is a production of Pushkin Industries and if you like Broken Record, please remember to share, rate, and review our show on your podcast. Act A theme music is by Kenny Beats. I'm Justin Richard bass