Q&A: Dum Dum
Girls
Dum Dum Girls, founded and fronted by Dee Dee Penny, is
known for its goth noir brand of pop-rock. Signed to Sub Pop in 2009, the band
released its third album in January. “Too True” is a hazy collection of tunes
that lyrically toy with poetry and the bad girl archetype. One of the album’s
singles, “Are You Okay”, was incorporated into a short film of the same name written
by Bret Easton Ellis and directed by Brewer. Penny also runs a small record
label, Zoo Music, with her husband Brandon Welchez.
Q: Sub Pop describes “Too True” as darker, more
production-heavy and a departure from the heartache and lo-fi aesthetic of your
past. Would you say that’s an accurate depiction of the album?
A: It’s been quite a few years since my first release
so the progression happened naturally over time. Sometimes it’s hard for press
to shed certain utopian descriptive terms. With this record, I tried to really
re-establish the parameters.
Q: You’ve said that the music of Dum Dum Girls has a
nighttime aesthetic. Does that affect your performances during the day at
outdoor festivals?
A: I don’t think it’s as big a deal as it needs to
be. It used to feel pretty wrong but a lot of that had to do with the level of
confidence and experience. Before when we weren’t at a club at night, it didn’t
work. Now we’re about a four-year-old band and we’re able to transition more
fluidly. It’s still my preference to play once the sun has set.
Q: Tell me about the other band members and how they
contribute to Dum Dum Girls.
A: At the root of things, it’s still very much a
writing and recording project for me. I still tend to do all of that stuff and
bring it to a group and translate it to a live set-up. The line-up that we have
now has probably been the longest running. The guitarist, Jules, has been with
me since the very beginning. I met her randomly through a friend, like a
blind-date for a guitar player. She’s a firecracker.
Next came Sandy, the drummer. She’s been with us since the
first record came out. I knew her peripherally because I’d seen her drum in her
band Midnight Movies and she’s amazing. I basically stalked her on the Internet
and she was into it. It was so nice to have a female drummer who could sing the
parts to the songs.
Leah is our bassist and she has been with us since the “End
of Days” EP. I’d seen her play without realizing it and she happened to share a
practice space with our drummer. I did something really “rockstar”: I flew her
to New York
and we rehearsed. I guess that’s what you do but it seemed so adult. She fit in
instantly. She’s a true bassist. The bassist we had before was very good as
well, but she was a guitar player. There’s definitely a different approach and
energy when you have someone who’s like, “That’s what I do: play bass.”
And then for “Too True” I brought on another guitar player,
Andrew. He’s a really old friend of mine. He played in a bunch of bands and
took about five years off of music and went back to school. I basically swooped
in after he graduated and was like, “Hey, do you want to skip all of the
bullshit of starting a band and just join us?” He had played on some Dum Dum
Girls recordings at the beginning, so he’s an original member in that sense as
well.
Q: You also have your own record label. What
qualities do you look for in a band before signing them?
A: It’s definitely more of a labor of love than
something that’s financially motivated, so it’s just music that we like that
doesn’t have a home or friends that we want to help out. We’ve put out bands
that don’t play shows and we’ve put out bands that tour 11 months out of the
year. It’s up to us to figure out with them what they want to do and we try to
provide the best support for that.
Q: You’ve said before that if you weren’t a musician,
you would have studied library science. What is it about literature that
fascinates you?
A: I was a big reader as a kid. I thought I was going
to be a writer and go into editing. I studied literature and theory in college
and it seemed like the next logical step. I come from a long line of readers
but I don’t think I have the gene. It felt safer and more enjoyable to buffer
myself with books.
Q: Do you ever experience writer’s block when working
on songs?
A: It’s never really a thing where I’m sitting down
with a blank page, trying to write. I usually have some kind of idea that I’m
trying to expand on. I just go for it, and if it feels good, I keep doing it.
If it seems like I’m forcing it, I leave it and come back to it later. There’s
nothing more helpful than putting some space between you and your work if you
need a different perspective.
Q: You did a short film with Bret Easton Ellis
featuring your song “Are You Okay.” How did that come together?
A: It was a really long process, so it’s hard to bullet-point
it. I had met Bret and the producer Braxton [Pope] in L.A. and they had used a song of mine in a
film of theirs. I was blonde and I guess I was aesthetically reminding Bret of
an older film called “Dressed to Kill.” I think he had a visual idea of
referencing that in an unnamed project in the future. He ended up working with
the directors and re-scripted things to be more of an homage. The basis was in
this surreal, hazy, sexy ‘80s movie.
Q: How did filming it compare to doing a more
traditional music video?
A: In the past, I’ve worked with one director for
most of my videos and she works abstractly so we would talk about how I wanted
it to look and she would come up with content. I’ve never wanted narrative
videos, so it was interesting in that sense because there was a script [with
the short film]. It was kind of cool, because I felt more like an actor than
like I was running the show. My song was absorbed into this other thing, and
not in a bad way.
Originally published on Vita.mn in Oct. 2014.
Originally published on Vita.mn in Oct. 2014.
