Ever since he was a child, loud guitars and catchy melodies have fascinated Richmond, Virginia-based musician James Goodson, who information below the moniker Dazy. As he started taking place the rabbit gap of music discovery, he realized there was a typical thread between varied kinds of music, together with punk, rock and pop music.
“It’s all the time been the factor that is drawn me to a lot music,” Goodson says. “A lot of that music continues to be the principle stuff that basically hits me now due to that; these bands are all very loud and it is energetic, nevertheless it’s nonetheless very overtly catchy.”
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He recollects the pure pleasure of discovering punk music, which had these qualities in spades. Rising up, he’d take heed to bands equivalent to Inexperienced Day and Nirvana, who he says are “nice introductory bands as a result of when you like what they’re doing, you may observe that in so many various instructions.
“Inexperienced Day can take you to older punk, the Conflict and the Ramones and stuff like that,” he says. “Nirvana can take you into every kind of different cool different stuff like Pixies and grunge. These had been the rabbit holes that I used to be actually focused on exploring after I was a child.”
In his early 20s, he acquired into varied sorts of pop, together with Britpop and jangle pop. He began listening to a variety of U.Ok.-based bands, together with New Order, who “actually opened a variety of issues as a result of they seem to be a straight-up pop band.”
“They had been getting down to make their model of pop music, however as a result of they got here up by the scrappiness and that individual spirit and punk stuff, it actually informs what they’re doing,” he says. “It finally ends up making this ever so barely off-kilter model of pop music, which I simply actually love, and assume is actually interesting and sticks with me lots.”
Goodson’s eclectic style in music is instantly evident on Dazy’s debut album, OUTOFBODY, which is out now through Lame-O Information.
“I am positively by no means attempting to be too intelligent or run away from a hook,” he says. “I am attempting to make music that is catchy firstly, however I wish to weave in one thing slightly bizarre. A whole lot of occasions for me, it is simply being very loud or being very noisy or including some suggestions that is slightly little bit of one thing bitter for all of the candy that is taking place, too.”
Goodson began the undertaking in 2020 as a approach to write and launch his personal songs, which had piled up in earlier years. He had all the time been in bands since he was a child and was consistently writing songs. After spending a while considering what to do with the songs, he determined to launch them as Dazy (a reputation his spouse steered).
Initially, he began sharing the music as singles and EPs, because it was the quickest approach to launch music.
[Photo via Dazy]
“I simply began placing them on Bandcamp. It was like ripping the Band-Help off, remembering the right way to experience a motorcycle,” Goodson says. “Doing smaller releases is actually enjoyable, and I wish to make paintings and canopy artwork and issues like that. It was a chance to do all these enjoyable issues that I hadn’t actually been doing for some time.”
At first, Goodson was nervous going it alone, one thing he hadn’t performed earlier than. Nevertheless, as soon as he acquired on a roll, he remembered how a lot enjoyable it was creating and releasing music.
“As soon as I acquired again into it, I could not cease. I used to be so excited to simply preserve placing out songs and ended up placing out a ton in that first 12 months,” he says. “It positively was liberating to place issues out of my very own tempo and do no matter I felt like doing. It was enjoyable to simply go wherever my mind led me on any given tune or launch. There was a freewheeling freedom with shorter releases.”
That have and rising confidence from this abundance of creativity helped persuade Goodson to create Dazy’s debut full-length. He holds album creation in excessive regard and felt it was time to make his personal assertion musically.
“I believe I discovered my footing slightly bit extra and had a way of what I used to be attempting to do with Dazy and songwriting-wise,” he says. “I had discovered slightly bit extra of my very own voice in it.”
For Goodson, making a full album meant “switching gears in a giant means from the mentality” that he had earlier than, the place it was a extra advanced effort as an alternative of recording a tune and releasing it the next day.
“I used to be attempting to be slightly extra meticulous about it whereas nonetheless holding that home made [quality], making one thing that had my home power to it, too,” he says. “I wished to attempt to see what it might be like to vary my targets and do one thing slightly totally different and make that factor that was slightly longer and hung collectively in a specific means and attempt to make some choices about it that had been slightly extra thought out than I had been doing earlier than.”
To attain this, he recorded the songs at his Richmond dwelling. The small confines of his recording area gave the songs a scrappy and home made really feel. Whereas some may contemplate these limitations limiting, he discovered the boundaries of his home useful.
“I like there being some confines [while recording],” Goodson explains. “I haven’t got a variety of amps, mics or gear. I simply use GarageBand. It is simply having some limitations; it makes you stumble round and stumble onto issues that you simply like greater than when you had had something at your fingertips.
“And that cool unintentional stuff as a rule are issues that weren’t some genius notion,” he provides. “It was only a cool accident. Perhaps as a result of I do not know what I am doing, it is growing the chance for cool accidents.”
After recording the songs, Goodson despatched them to be blended and mastered by Justin Pizzoferrato (Dinosaur Jr., Pixies, Wild Pink), who maintained the album’s uncooked “home made scrappiness.”
Take, for instance, album opener “Out of Physique,” the place the drum machine is “fairly tinny sounding, and it is acquired this home made really feel to it, however the songwriting feels massive.”
On the flip aspect, songs equivalent to “Rollercoaster Trip” and “Immobile Parade,” are quieter. Goodson felt having a few quieter songs match the context of an album and helped create an incredible dynamic-sounding journey listening by that “went to some totally different locations and wasn’t only one factor the complete means by.”
“An enormous new problem for me [is] to make songs that really feel like they make sense inside the framework of Dazy, which is predominantly fairly loud whereas attempting to tug again, as an alternative of going larger, and greater, and greater. It’s [mostly] simply attempting to go as massive as you may.”
“I like the best way that there is these moments the place it comes down slightly bit and also you get to nearly take a breath from all of the loud.”
On “Rollercoaster Trip,” Goodson channels the altering dynamics of the favored theme park experience. He wished to problem himself to “write the largest, poppiest factor” he might think about, and he succeeds.
“That was slightly little bit of a brand new factor for me. There are different songs on the file which can be clearly actually poppy, however I often attempt to mood that with one thing noisy or slightly extra uncooked on the opposite aspect,” he says. “It would not actually have noisy guitars. That was one thing new and enjoyable for me that I used to be actually enthusiastic about.”
It additionally excited him to see there was a typical theme beginning to seem as he compiled the songs for the album. It refutes the “concept that the older you get, the extra you are going to settle into a specific lane.”
“I all the time have discovered that humorous the place it is this concept that as you become older, you magically have all of it discovered. After I assume in actuality, you become older, and extra issues are altering, extra issues are new. There’s all the time one thing new. You’ll be able to by no means have perspective past your years. You are all the time simply going to be attempting to vary together with it.”
