Jessica Dobson’s Beagle, Henry, made a cameo when we spoke on Zoom last month. You can also see him wandering around in the low-production, home-shot video for “What Do I Know,” a track on the fourth record of Dobson’s Deep Sea Diver project, a band in which her partner Peter Mansen plays drums. The Deep Sea Diver album Billboard Heart was released this January on Sub Pop Records — a storied indie label that shares with the band a home base of Seattle — and “What Do I Know” is one of the songs that Dobson realized midway through the album production process was actually best in its original, home-recorded demo form.
“I rented microphones, I tracked all the drums, I did all this stuff and I was like, ‘Oh, no, this is actually the thing‘” — the thing the already partially polished record was missing — “and this record’s going to have more of a punk spirit in terms of how it feels alive and multi-layered.”
So Dobson salvaged some of those first, inspired chunks of Billboard Heart, unafraid to deconstruct and then build back up from there. “That’s the story of this record, is what is the thing?” she said. “And it wasn’t by trying to wrangle it that we figured it out, it showed itself to us. I know that sounds kind of mystical and weird, but we followed that energy.”
“No ego. It’s like full-on letting go.”
Celia Gregory: How would you define the spirit of the song that you found in some of those demos, that you didn’t when you’d had all the tools and the fancy recordings?
Jessica Dobson: I think it’s a combination of being reconnected with my own instincts and my own spirit. That very like childlike thing where when you’re a kid and making music and writing, there’s literally no ego. It’s like full-on letting go. I feel like kids aren’t even really aware of the future or what something will get them. They’re just making the thing. And the older we get, the more conscientious we are of how it will, you know, what will come of things or what people think. And I had to really get down back into the dirt and just be like, “I’m just gonna throw paint on the wall.” And with all the people that are involved, making sure we’re all in that kind of very like liminal space of letting go, being loose with the thing. And so that’s part of the spirit is I got connected with that very small voice that’s just like, “Follow art, Jessica, screw the rest of it. Just don’t think about the future. Let’s go.”
CG: Egoless creative expression. It feels like it’s harder as you age instead of easier because, like you said, you have to tap into sort of the childlike spirit. You’re almost unlearning these adult adaptations to life. And that’s what’s so backwards. Do you think instead of completely giving up and starting over sort of refashioning it, is that like a muscle you can build? As an artist, you get better at it every time, you forgive yourself faster. Is that a thing?
JD: I do actually believe that wholeheartedly. I think that the better you can get about being reckless and un-precious with your art, the faster you’re gonna get to the thing. Because if you try to control it and mangle it, that’s where songs start sounding dead in the water and kind of overthought. But there was a couple of songs on here that we had on the first sessions where, when I took them in with my co -producer Andy, who I finished the record with — we did the last record, Impossible Weight, with him, too. And he’s just such a fantastic producer and partner. And he was like, “I like this part of the song, but I’m not connecting with the rest.” And I was like, “Well, let’s cut it all out. And let me see if I can write something in the studio right now. And let’s keep this little section.” And it was just like chop, chop, snip, snip, throw more paint at the wall. And then a few songs came out. “Always Waving Goodbye” was one of them. I don’t think I’ve ever had so much fun finishing a record. It didn’t start that way, but it surely ended that way.
Making music that’s “anthemic”
CG: When we got the title track, “Billboard Heart,” in the fall, my friend Drew, who’s also a listener to our station, texted me when I played it one morning and said, “Hell yes, another anthemic Deep Sea Diver track right when we need it.” I thought you would appreciate that snap judgment. I don’t know if you connect with that when your music’s described as anthemic, and triumphant is something I just used. I wonder the type of music that you respond to in that way, where you’re like, “Thank you, I needed that. It met me where I am right now in my heart and not just sonically I’m enjoying it.”
JD: Oh, wow, that’s so beautiful. I know that a lot of our songs, they carry on journeys, there’s peaks and valleys and it’s like a wide swath of human emotion. And sometimes I get a little insecure about it where it’s like, “Uh, is this too vulnerably ambitious?” or or whatever it is. I think about when I used to listen to like Arcade Fire or things like that, where it just moves you and that’s cool. Not every song is like that on the record, anthemic, but I guess like even some of my favorite Radiohead songs are like that, they take you to different places, too…I’m not setting out to write anthemic songs, but it’s amazing that they can translate like that to people, to infuse their lives and their spirits.
“Happiness Is Not A Given”
CG: “I’ll be the door you can open up into the arms of an ocean.” I don’t know what that means, but I know I’m moved by it. So similarly, you took me somewhere [in the album closer, “Happiness Is Not a Given”]. Do you care to share any sort of meaning behind that song?
JD: We had this chorus kicking around for a couple of years. We had toured with Wilco and I liked a lot of the chordal arrangements that they had for certain songs on their latest album and I was just messing around with it. I couldn’t find a verse for it. And then finally, in the studio, I got to this place.
We picked up the practice of meditation this last couple of years, which has been really amazing for me because I was pretty scatterbrained. Part of reconnecting with my instincts was getting as quiet as possible and having that practice of every morning, just like, don’t look at your phone, sit down, be quiet for 20 minutes, shut your eyes and see what happens. And that led me to some pretty wild places of letting go. And so I think that that song is born out of that practice. I think that there is an ocean of creativity and spirit inside of all of us, every human being. It takes some work to connect with it if you get disconnected. There’s a lot I could say about this song. I just think that we take a lot of things for granted. Happiness is one of them. You have to fight for it. You have to fight to keep the cynical spirit away, the critical spirit away, especially in these times.
Everyone has connected with that song, which makes me extraordinarily happy. It’s the song I’ve been wanting to write my whole career and like as a closer of a record where it just feels like the finality of it.
Sliding into the DMs of Madison Cunningham
CG: Teaming up with Madison Cunningham was like, “Oh, brilliant, this makes so much sense to me,” because you’re both strong vocalists and guitarists. Can you sort of retell the story of how that came to pass?
JD: Absolutely. I reached out like fangirling on her when she was playing a show, maybe three years ago in Seattle. I was like, “Hey, I feel like we should know each other. And I really love what you do. Let’s just go get some coffee.” And she was like, “Absolutely. And I feel the same. Let’s do it.” So we just became fast friends. One thing I love about Madison is she’s constantly creating, very open and is such an incredible guitar player. It’s so fun to. spar with her on guitar and we have such different ways of approaching it. I feel like I’m extremely percussive and she’s more of like a wave, like a slur — sorry, slur is like a music theory expression — but I’m percussive and she’s more balanced in the way that she she plays riffs. And so it just created this beautiful quilted pattern when we finally did write this song, which came very unexpectedly in the 11th hour in the recording studio.
We tried to write all weekend and it was like, oh, there’s some good things, but I’m not totally sure. And then like, this is how a lot of songs come around, I was just messing around playing a riff that I’d had since high school. And she instantly perked up and started playing to it. And then my co-producer was in the room and very sneakily starts pressing record, brings out a drum machine. and that song was written in like an hour. We wrote the lyrics the very next day. I love it because really, truly nothing was changed. And then we got to sing, I got to sing sing with her on that song. It’s very like PJ Harvey, a little gothy, like driving ballad rock song, which I hadn’t had anything like that before. Nine Inch Nails was a big influence for the ending of that song, like early Nine Inch Nails that just felt like extraordinarily raw and driving.
CG What a rocker. I’m so glad that you did the like cold DM, “Can we be friends?”
JD :It works! I think that if one good thing came out of the pandemic is that just, like, slide into the DM, say, “What’s up, hi, this is all we have, let’s connect.” I honestly did that with Sharon [Van Etten], too, on the last record. I was like, “Hey, I went to your show, it was incredible. Would you ever be interested in collaborating?” And [“Impossible Weight”] came from that.
“Tiny Threads”
JD: One of my favorite songs on the record is “Tiny Threads,” and that one was almost entirely written in the studio. We had a pretty basic arrangement for it, but it’s the most minimalistic song on the record, I think. There’s a strange energy in that one that was captured. I think it’s the first time where I got to lean into — at the end of the song, it’s like a wall of feedback — where I got to lean more into my Sonic Youth or Yo La Tengo influences. There’s something that I love about when feedback feels like someone’s still singing and still expressing in that way. There’s just like intense, more raucous feedback that’s kind of gut-punching. And then there’s the kind of feedback that happens in dissonance where it still feels like a very strong emotion is being communicated or it almost feels like its own lyric. That’s how I feel about that song. There’s a lot of strange , mystical things happening on that track and I’m proud of the lyrics. It has this Peter Gabriel almost eternal-feeling chorus of, “We’re always held together by tiny little threads, I think I love you the most when you’re unraveling.” It’s very gushy for me. but it’s tempered by the strangeness of the production.
Lessons from touring since early adulthood
Dobson played guitar on Beck’s Modern Guilt tour in 2008 and has spoken of the giant shift from road-dogging as a young indie artist then suddenly getting to stay in nice hotels.
JD: That was such a shock to go from a van and sleeping on couches to then touring Beck style and playing late night and doing all this stuff. And I think it taught me — when I came off that tour and then also The Shins tour was similar, I got to hang out with them for a summer and play bass…so fun — it taught me how to further and more deeply respect your crew around you and those at venues and just like be really cognizant that this is family that you’re bringing out and you’ve got to protect that space. Sometimes people act out and you got to call stuff out. You know, like it’s a sensitive spot because you’re not getting the things you normally get at home. It’s hard, you’re tired. You’re all the things, no matter if you’re on a bus or a van. There are pros and cons to both, mostly pros on a bus though, which we’re trying to get. I swear to you, like that’s what I’m trying to manifest is like, can we just jump like one more room up so we can be like secure tour bus level. I would really love to just wake up in the next city and be like have slept the whole night. Yeah, so shooting for that.
But anyways, I think that by osmosis, I carried so many things with me, especially I would say from Karen O, like her stage presence and going further than you think you should. The element of surprise, figuring out how to put that in our show. But mostly how to be a better band leader. You have all these people that you’re playing with and like, you want to capitalize on their strengths and lift it all up with you. Not just like say, “This is what I want you to be.” It’s like, no, “I like what you do. And now let’s figure out how to elevate it within the context of these songs.” I was a solo artist for so long, so I had to figure out further on down the line of how to be a better collaborator.
CG :What you said about Karen O is interesting, she taught you to “go further than you think you should,” say more about that. Is that more of a, “You’re not being too much. You’re not bombastic. This is just right. Keep going”?
JD: I was such a fan before I ever played with [The Yeah Yeah Yeahs]. You’re not getting the same stage presence [when] in-person with her. She really like busts out of a shell when she’s on stage…just like being bloody, getting hit by a microphone, smashing things to bits. All these things you would feel in everyday life, like, that’s too much, but it’s not for her. And that’s a true expression of the spirit that she needed to enter. And so I had to figure out, “What is my version of that?”