🌼 No. 31 - Interview with Dazy aka James Goodson edition 🌼
The Richmond, VA songwriter embraces his base musical impulses: Nirvana, Green Day, and the Jesus and Mary Chain
Photo by Amanda Pitts
James Goodson has worn many musical hats since he moved to Richmond, VA at 18. He’s perhaps best known for his work in Teen Death, but in more recent year’s he’s branched out into publicity and even podcasting, co-hosting the Best Good Band pod, the “definitive exploration into what makes a band good, and what good band is the best.” Early in the pandemic, Goodson began dipping into a well of song demoes he’d amassed that were ill-suited to other musical projects, releasing them under the name Dazy. Embracing his most elemental musical impulses, the songs — which were compliled as the 24-track MAXIMUMBLASTSUPERLOUD last fall — are chock-a-block with big, crunchy 90s guitars and UK alt rock drum machine grooves. “Maybe it doesn't need to be too clever,” he says. “Maybe it just needs to rock.”
You’d previously played in bands like Teen Death but then took a detour into music publicity. How did Dazy come about?
I've always been in bands, always playing music. There are a million people who work in music, who fell into it from playing music. I always kept writing songs and being in bands. With Dazy, in particular, I had been writing all these songs that didn't really fit with the other bands that I was in and I didn't know what I wanted to do with them. But I liked them a lot. They were kind of in the ballpark of my ideal version of a band, at least in terms of what I want to play. But I got stuck not putting them out. I was really in my head about it. I couldn't decide what the right way to put out music nowadays was. I had fallen out of practice — I was getting plenty of practice with writing it but not putting it out. This was mid-2020, so I don't know if it was that the pandemic suddenly makes waiting on things seem very silly, but I finally was sort of like, “I like two-song singles. I like when people just put stuff out there. Why not just do that?” And so I started putting stuff out for the heck of it. I ripped the band-aid off, and it was like, “Oh, now I like really have the bug again.” It's so fun to be able to put stuff out on a whim again.
I had all these songs that I'd like written and I'd used drum machines and stuff like that recorded things at home. I had it in my head that that wasn't allowed or like this will eventually be recorded properly. Something clicked at some point where I was just like, “Yeah, but I like the drum machines. I like when things sound kind of scrappy, and home-recorded.” Maybe this is just the thing you like, and these are not decisions being made purely out of circumstance. These are choices that you've made because you actually like them. After that the line between demo and finished songs [was gone]. I don't need to polish these things up. Maybe they're good to go. I just started putting out stuff, letting it be out there, and seeing what people think. It's been really, really crazy for people to find it. It’s definitely been wild.
So the songs on MAXIMUMBLASTSUPERLOUD, that's basically like a batch of songs you've been sitting on for a couple of years?
Sort of. It's like a portion of the batch of songs. There's even more than that. I just like writing songs so I write a lot of them. I ended up picking and choosing what made sense together, or what I'm currently infatuated with. So it'll always end up being a mix of older songs that have managed to stand the test of time and newer songs that I'm really excited about. So that compilation especially was like, kind of a mix of that, because it was like the older stuff that I'd already put out — older in quotes. It was less than a year old. Some of that stuff dated back years and some of it was from the past few months. There were songs that I put on that collection that were new that hadn't been released yet, ones I'd written recently that I was excited about. It really is a little bit of a grab bag in that way. It's just a matter of me being like, “here's what's available, and here's what I'm currently excited about,” and then kind of trying to run it.
Once you had released some of the “older” material and decided what it was you wanted Dazy to be, did you find yourself writing material more specifically for that sound and aesthetic?
That's a good question. I had a pretty decent idea from the jump of what I wanted it to be like. I love super loud guitars, like noisy stuff mixed with just overtly poppy melodies. I knew that was the core formula that I was interested in. That’s the kind of thing that I just don't think I'll ever get tired of. It's just a sound that I love, a combination that I think never gets old. Once I started putting out stuff, I kind of got this itch to throw in some quieter songs or some different moods to show that I also like quieter music. It’s a 24 song collection and maybe three of those songs would qualify as quieter. I’m pretty sure they all have noisy guitars. So I don't know! Maybe I didn't fully accomplish that, I guess. But I think I just sort of started to feel like, “Oh, I wonder what other cool things I can start incorporating into this and what else I can try to mess with?” while still kind of staying true to the loud/poppy combo thing that I'll probably always be stuck with.
Earlier you said that you had written these songs for the ideal band that exists in your head. Is there an example of this, some Northstar that you were working towards?
Everybody says that the music that you got into when you were like a kid, that's the stuff that really sticks with you and makes the biggest impression. I don't even know if that's debatable at this point. We can all agree on that probably. The first bands that I ever like “Oh, I like music, I’m into these bands,” were Nirvana and Green Day. So those are impossibly linked to anything that I make. I fell in love with punk really early. You hear that first Ramones record, it's really loud, noisy guitars and really overtly pop melodies. As I'm concerned, they achieved the best band thing. But, I also love a ton of 90s alternative: Teenage Fanclub, the Jesus and Mary Chain is obviously a huge part of Dazy because of the drum machines.
The goal was, all these bands that have been important to me throughout my life, what if I could find a way to kind of jam them all into one? It's really easy to end up trying to do too many things at once with music and I'm definitely guilty of trying to do that sometimes. But maybe there was just something about that particular combination of bands that I landed on. Hopefully, I found some version of it that sounds like me. To circle back to your earlier question, I do think that to some small degree I figured out a little bit more of this is what I sound like. Now I'm hopefully trying to lean more into that side of it rather than obsessively influenced type stuff. I'm not trying to like reinvent rock music, I'm trying to do the version of it that I like the best.
It sounds like you essentially embraced your most base musical impulses.
Totally. There have been so many times when I would have some idea for a song. Maybe I'd show some close friends or I'd show my wife and I'd say, “What do you think about this? Is this too much of a cornball, rock thing to do on a song?” My wife would always be like, “If you like it, who cares?” and I'd be like, “Well, that's pretty great.” You can't argue with that. It sounds cool. I like it. Forget it. Maybe it doesn't need to be too clever. Maybe it just needs to rock.
How did the song “Pressure Cooker” that you did with Militarie Gun come together?
Me and Ian [Shelton, Militarie Gun’s lead singer] have known each other a while. Our old bands played together. We always kind of hit it off and always stayed in touch. When I started doing the Dazy stuff he was really, really supportive from the jump, one of the first people to turn other people on to it. So I will always be super grateful to him for that. He would say, “We should try to do a song together sometime,” and I don't know why, but I just assumed it was just a nice thing to say. I didn't think I he like really meant that. I don't know why thought that because he is not a guy who says things he doesn't mean. But he kept bringing it up. I finally was like okay, well maybe he's for real and we ended up bouncing the song back and forth. I'm so psyched it out came out. I love all the music he makes so much and I think he's so talented and interesting. He has a huge personality that comes out in the music. That's always the thing that I love when you're listening to something and just immediately get this sense of the person who made it. To see him do that in real-time was something. Both of us love the stuff that was happening in the UK in the late 80s and 90s where it was a lot of like rock music meets like big beats.
Like the band Curve?
Yeah, Curve or Primal Scream or Happy Mondays. It was just happening with a ton of bands during that time where they were all sort of like, “Oh cool electronic music is pretty awesome. Let's throw some of that in there.” I love that stuff. Obviously, the Jesus and Mary Chain had plenty of times where they incorporated dance beats. It's something that I've always like really liked. I’ve put some of that into what Dazy does and I think with this song it was really fun to just lean further into that. Really lean into the idea of letting the beat drive the song while still trying to have a big guitar chorus.
Ian and a ton of the folks who are in the Militarie Gun orbit — other members of the band and Ian's partner Audrey — they are all filmmakers and make music videos. So getting to work with them on that music video was nuts, especially because I don't know anything about making movies. It still has this kind of magic to me and getting to see them put this thing together was cool.
Separately we're both going to be playing “Pressure Cooker,” live. But anytime we're in the same place, we'll do it together. I did it with them in DC on like the first part of that tour. I like the idea of these two bands having this shared song that we get to take with us wherever we go.
So are you already playing gigs as Dazy?
Our first show is next week here in Richmond and then we have another show coming up this there in April. We had our first show canceled or changed I think three or four times. I've been looking forward to the first show since before October of last year, and now, finally, it seems like it's actually going to happen. I got the live lineup going. Turning it into a proper band has been really fun. It's cool to have the recorded version that's a little scrappier. That’s drum machines and then, live we have a real drummer and it sounds like a big rock band.
What are the plans for the foreseeable future? Are you going to continue putting out music as Dazy?
I'm still figuring it all out. I’m sure at some point, I'll want to do a band in the room together kind of record. But I also really love the drum machines and the more at-home thing too. I'll probably try to have some element of both, to have my cake and eat it too. Speaking of rock cliches, the whole group of people together in the room, banging it out live thing, you get a certain spark from that. But I also love the idea of the lone weirdo putting it all together in the bedroom. Both approaches are really cool so I hope to kind of do a little bit of everything.
Kool Kids Music Recommendation Club
Speaking of Militarie Gun, the Los Angeles crew recently stopped in Toronto as part of a tour with Vein.fm and Touche Amore, performing “Pressure Cooker,” their single with Dazy with Toronto’s own Pretty Matty filling in for Goodson (Shelton and Matty previously did a three-track EP together). Though they’ve yet to release a proper full-lenght, Militarie Gun released a pair of EP last year: All Roads Lead to the Gun Part I & II. True to the group’s name, there’s a precision to their hardcore fury; the guitars lock into a groover over which Ian Shelton spits venom. “April Flowers” comes from Part 1.
Philadelphia’s Soul Glo have been kicking around in hardcore circles since 2014, but a recent jump to mega-indie Epitaph Records should broaden their audience without compromising the band’s mission. As a glowing Best New Music review of their new album Diaspora Problems puts it, the record is “a ticking time bomb hurled by a band tired of waiting on solutions and taking power into its own hands.” The clip for “Jump!! (Or Get Jumped!!!) ((by the future))” captures the band’s aesthetic to a T, mocking the lazy, tokenizing questions and framing that I have no doubt they’ve encountered throughout their career.
San Diego’s Caroline Loveglow makes music that sits at the mid-point between hazy guitars of dream-pop and hazy electronics of vaporwave, the slippery, very online microgenre that been taking up space in music’s fringes for about a decade now. Fittingly she found a welcoming home with the 100% Electronica label run by vaporwave godhead Georgre Clanton. Fans of everything from Cocteau Twins to Chvrches should find something to love in the crunchy, dreamy groove of “Zenosyne,” tfrom her debut album, Strawberry which dropped earlier this year.
My knowledge of French house music is pretty much limited to the Daft Punk Musical Universe — the Ed Banger Records roster, the song “Music Sounds Better with You”, the movie Eden, etc. So it’s not a surprise that I was unfamiliar with the duo Braxe and Falcon, though both DJs have been in the orbit of the robotic duo for decades. I am pretty familiar with the work of Animal Collective’s Panda Bear, who delivered the penultimate guest performance on Daft Punk’s swan song. Now the pair — who are cousins — have dropped their own collab with the singer on the new track “Step by Step.” Gabriel Szatan recently wrote a nice profile on the two for Pitchfork which doubles as a primer on their work and influence. You can check out the mid-tempo jam with Lennox below.
Ian Gormely is a freelance music journalist based in Toronto.
Hit up koolkidsmusicclub@gmail.com for questions, criticisms and submissions.