Interview with Dolly Dagger: ‘The entire EP is a great palette of what we’re capable of – it’s seething at times and a little bit sexy!’

LA-based rock singer Dolly Dagger has released her post-grunge, punchy debut EP ‘Nightmare’.

Dagger (her stage name) is originally from Melbourne and was back visiting when we chatted: ‘I already had ‘Dolly’ as my nickname and my real last name starts with a “D”,’ she said. ‘I decided not to use my real name, it’s intrusive of family, and wanted a real stage name. The Jimi Hendrix lyrics (to the song of the same name) resonated with me. I feel like Dolly Dagger, the subject of the song, was a kickass, badass woman. I like the energy and it’s a homage to my late father that raised me on those records as a kid.’

‘Nightmare’ chronicles Dagger’s existential questioning, her views on life when it’s frustrating and how to swerve situations that are toxic to you: ‘The entire EP is a great palette of what we’re capable of – it’s seething at times and a little bit sexy! It was written about anger at being stuck in life and how things can feel repetitive or draining over time as well as being tempted by situations that you know aren’t good for you,’ she said. ‘This set of songs feels like a great reflection of the time in which they were written and they’re still relevant today. There’s a transition from everything feeling like a nightmare, to this feels like fiction, down to it making you sick until you get to the point when you say “I have to swerve away from here”. It’s the realisation that you need to make an adjustment to get out of this. It stands apart in a couple of ways, these songs were closer together as to when they were written, and they have similar themes because of that period of time.’

‘It was asking the question ‘Am I dead?” and “What am I going to do about it?”‘

‘Sick’ opens with the sound of crickets before erupting into a tour de force and turns out to have been written about her hometown for the past five years, LA: ‘I think the questioning, the existential questions you have, where you’re not where you wanted to be, and you ask yourself: “Did I die somewhere along the way?” Everything feels a bit out of reach, things should be closer than they are,’ she explained. ‘Life can be so repetitive, there are so many consistencies every day. You feel that it’s groundhog day. It was asking the question “Am I dead?” and “What am I going to do about it?” I had a holistic therapist once tell me I had a blockage with some new age lingo that I didn’t understand but she said I needed to scream to release, so for a while I’ve looked at singing and thrashing around with a guitar as therapy!’

That comes across in the lyrics: “I think I’m sick, maybe I’m twisted. I think I’m dead, maybe I wished it. You made me sick, poison and kisses. I think I’m dead, and I know you wished it.”

The track came together quickly, according to Dagger: ‘Our friend Bao was playing around with Jesse (Jesse McInturff on guitar) one day at home and he’s responsible for the reverse guitar on the intro. It came in late but I loved it when I first heard it. It kicks in, there’s a payoff (laughs). I remember that that came very quickly, especially the yells at the front on the intro. That was the first thing I ever heard in my head when I first played the track, so they’ve been there from the beginning. The chorus came really fast on that and I never changed it through tracking or writing because, to me, it said it all. The sentiment came out in the chorus, it’s a visceral song.’

It was also inspired by her own experiences that left her feeling both physically and emotionally sick: ‘It was a lot of little things and physically being sick,’ she said. ‘I let a lot of the pressures get to me. We can compromise our physical and mental health – I think a lot of people experienced that during the pandemic especially. It could be people making you feel that way – your boss, it could be self-inflicted, family or your partner. I’ve heard people say so many times “it makes me sick”.’

‘I love making music videos because they bring so much joy to me’

Dagger comes across as warm, open and funny, despite the darker themes that she writes about, and she has a myriad of ways of cheering herself up when life gets her down: ‘It’s movies that save me, always,’ she said. ‘That’s the one place I can check out, I can rest my mind from my own BS and stop worrying or thinking. I think that’s why I love making music videos because they bring so much joy to me. Also, when I feel like giving up, I always have the thought – who cares? Even if I’m not succeeding, do I need to sit around and worry about how to do that better? Or should I just carry on to have a really good time? I always come back to if this isn’t feeling fun, make it feel fun again and then take this seriousness out of it!’

McInturff will often send her a snippet of ‘whatever is in his head’ and the song typically starts from there: ‘Usually, the snippet of a song is quite short, whether it’s an intro/verse/chorus or maybe it’s just simply 16 bars of riff but we start working together on where it’s going to go from there. As soon as Jesse sends me something and I open it, if it’s vibing, I start writing to it right away,’ she said. ‘I love to grab the first melody that comes to mind because I think it’s such a great reflection of my mood in the moment. A lot of the time, those riffs already have their own feeling and then I attach that feeling to something on my end and connect them together, so it’s all rather emotional between the two of us experiencing life in parallel.’ Dagger admits that songwriting is incredibly cathartic: ‘It’s therapy, it feels incredible,’ she said enthusiastically. ‘When I’m writing, I try to be in a place like that, to catch the vibe.’

The artwork sends out equally strong vibes, depicting Dagger with her eyes rolled back as if she really is mid-nightmare: ‘It was done by the artist Get A Real Job, Kid on Instagram,’ she said. ‘He did the t-shirt design and we used parts of that for the EP cover. When I asked him to create the design for the t-shirt, I wanted it to be his idea but I provided a photo of me by my friend Kim Peterson and the alien head (laughs). I loved the moon and four-point stars he’d used on other artwork. His particular style of art really spoke to me and he was so lovely. I reached out and didn’t know if he’d even work with someone unknown like me but was so happy that he did.’

Aliens turn out to be a recurring theme for her: ‘A long time ago, I decided to go with what I love even if it’s a little odd, otherwise it’s not truly representing me,’ she said. ‘I latch onto things (laughs), the last couple of years, it’s been aliens. We don’t know what they really look like. What if there are aliens out there covered with diamonds (laughs)? I don’t even try to make sense of it!’

‘It’s dangerous and it stops women from taking risks’

‘Nightmare’ depicts something more familiar, the ageism women often experience in creative industries and the video also pays homage to her love of aliens and The X-Files: ‘It’s about feeling what the lyrics are saying “This life ain’t good enough for me, it’s a nightmare I’m looking for a dream” and feeling like you’re running in circles,’ she said. ‘It pisses me off every day, I’m always seeing a conversation about age and it baffles me as it’s evident that we can only get better as we age. We become more confident about what we want, we see what sort of predatory behaviour is out there preying on talent. It’s dangerous and it stops women from taking risks.’

As the track kicks off: “Fake diamonds on my wrist they’re a hit, yeah you like that. Aiming for a miss now, I wish I could take it back. I’ve been around the block, too old, not old enough, and I’m sick of being tired but I’m always pushing on.”

She says of the lyric “been around the block, too old, not old enough”: ‘It’s the feeling that you’ve been around the block and it’s the same stop, you’re not getting anywhere and you’ve really had enough of it,’ she said. ‘So it’s quite a literal interpretation of that experience, existing in this creative space as a woman and non-binary human; trying to figure that out and vowing to find better, to get out of this nightmare. We don’t stop discovering music, a great song is a great song – we shouldn’t care how old someone is.’

Her advice to other young women starting out in the industry would be to try to hang on to what makes them unique: ‘I would say to go for it as much as you can but don’t compromise yourself, there’s playing nice with others and then there’s totally losing yourself to fit in but if you do that, then we lose what is unique about you,’ she said. ‘It’s very easy to become consumed in what is going on around you but, in many ways, you just have to focus on you and being the best version of yourself as an artist.’

‘Garbage, I love their vibe; melodically, they’re so inspirational when I write but I also love to scream a little!’

Her own musical inspirations range from Deftones to Phantogram and Paramore: ‘I love them so much,’ she said. ‘Also, Garbage, I love their vibe; melodically, they’re so inspirational when I write but I also love to scream a little! I was raised on Jimi Hendrix, so there’s also that underlying rock and blues. Jesse is very sensible and musically inclined with influences of Queens of the Stone Age and I’m a pain in the neck (laughs) but we both love going down the rabbit hole!’

Dagger’s love of theatre and strong visuals comes across in her music videos, particularly in ‘Sick’, where she appears both as herself, a retro character from the 60’s and as a synchronized swimmer. It’s fun and dreamy but with a strong message, much like the EP itself: ‘Something I absolutely knew I wanted was wind in the hair and glitter flying at my face while I was being all moody,’ she said. ‘There’s such a core memory deep within me of music videos like that. Think Make Damn Sure, Taking Back Sunday, and all the great 90’s and 00’s glam rock bands that have me in a chokehold for aesthetics. That was 14-year-old Dolly in front of the mirror with her first guitar playing along to her favourite bands just in her feels – very gratuitous!’

I love the synchronized swimming element, not least because it’s so unexpected yet visually draws you in and she calls it ‘the most rogue thought I had’: I have no idea why it came up but I often just listen to the song for the video on repeat and let the visuals roll in my mind and that’s what came up! I saw the little vintage flower caps in my mind and the art direction in vintage films of the 50’s and 60’s always come up for me because they always have those dreamy elements, sets with painted backdrops and colours that don’t exist together in real places. I also live in Burbank, so I’m constantly surrounded by mid-century futurism – that look has a very special place in my heart and comes up in most of our visuals. The slightly unrealistic settings or landscapes fit the lyrical content of the EP.’

‘I arm wrestled Jesse into going down a heavier road for the ending, I wanted to let it rip!’

For me, the closer ‘Swerve’ about swerving toxic people or situations is the glue holding the EP together and when I tell her this, she is delighted: ‘That one could definitely be the called the ‘glue’, it represents what we do all round. It’s one of our quieter songs,’ she said. ‘I love it, it’s a standout for me, it represents our sonic landscape. It was one of the ones we worked on together and didn’t quite see eye to eye on at first. It had been sitting for a little while before we got back around to it and I arm wrestled Jesse into going down a heavier road for the ending (laughs), I wanted to let it rip! It landed and I thought: “That’s it, it’s a great representation of the both of us as writers”.’

As the track goes: “We lose the game that we play. We cannot hesitate. You could stop it now, feel it pouring down, enter in to my dream. I know, the shape that you like. I know, the dark of your mind.”

If she could go for a pint with any musician, she picks Placebo frontman Brian Molko: ‘He’s an incredible lyricist, I’d ask him: “How the hell do you play all that and sing at the same time (laughs)?” There are so many layers, melody, elements and talking – they’re a huge influence on me. He’s always been an interesting character. I love their androgyny and glam goth fashion, it was very pivotal and they always inspired me. I get the feeling we’d get along!’ 

(Photo credit: Alex Lang.)