Dearest is a one-man creative project which uses a variety of textures to paint ambient portraits that guide you along your journey, yet still allow enough freedom for you to choose your own path within their world. He is a multi-instrumentalist that offers a unique take on how creating music can be approached, and he released his first original music at the end of October 2021 as a six song ambient EP entitled A Dream About Being A Person that is available to purchase on Bandcamp, or to stream on Spotify, Apple Music, etc. He is also a very good friend of mine, so I took the opportunity to ask him a few questions about himself, his music, and how he arrived to this point in his creative journey.
1. The Circle of Fifths: To give a little background on yourself, your journey as a musician, and how you arrived at this point with your first original music release, I’d like to ask what got you started playing music? What made you want to try to do it yourself? Was it a certain band, concert, relative, etc. that got you into it?
Dearest: I’d say the biggest start to me being a musician was coming from parents who are both avid music fans as well as there being numerous musicians on my dad’s side, my dad himself being a phenomenal multi-instrumentalist. There was always music playing at home whether on the radio or my old man singing and playing something so I think it was just a matter of time until i picked up something. My dad would try to sit me down to try drums or guitar as a younger kid but the interest wasn’t really there in a serious capacity until around the time I was almost a pre-teen.
I remember I’d gotten a burned copy of the My Chemical Romance record “Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge” and it hit me in a way that I think was this sudden realization of “oh shit, the way these songs sound moves me like nothing ever has.” It’s like at ten or so years old I realized that “feelings“ were a thing and that music was a great avenue to express the more difficult ones, so to speak.
So, over the years I’ve gravitated from one instrument to the next, largely influenced by being a fan of listening to music as much as i love making it.
I’ve been in a number of bands over the years, none of which were necessarily playing “my” music and so at this point in my life I felt it was finally time to share that part of myself in a way that’s tangible (and hopefully listenable, haha). Quite frankly, it’s terrifying but i’m looking at this as a first step in baring more of myself in a way that i find difficult to do when it isn’t in music. Leaving the comfort zone.
2. The Circle of Fifths: When did this idea for A Dream About Being A Person originate?
Dearest: The funny thing about it is that despite every piece of music i’ve ever written or recorded since i was like sixteen, this actually started out significantly less deliberate than I would’ve expected from myself, haha.
Not long before I really sat down with an idea of what to focus on, each song on the EP was more or less an unfinished file kicking around in my computer, or not even actually recorded yet. I had rediscovered these ideas and listening back to them after some time, there was this disconnect that gave a perspective shift into “wow, these work together to tell different parts of the same story.” Once the wheels started turning, I suddenly had this concept and everything just “fit.” The skeleton of a narrative or theme became clear to me and the gaps filled themselves in.
What makes me excited is that the EP draws inspiration from some of my favorite video games, movies, and shows that all share commonalities with each other. The title is a direct quote from True Detective. A couple tracks are named after characters and quotes from video games and tv shows. In a sense it feels like a love-letter to movie scores/video game soundtracks that also tells a story that’s personal to me, at least in what feeling each song evokes.
3. The Circle of Fifths: Being that you are a multi-instrumentalist, what is it that drove you to these instruments and textures you used for this EP?
Dearest: Throughout the pandemic I’ve spent most of my free time really exploring sound on a more granular level versus trying to compose a song. I’d say these songs were largely born from the removal of the boundary that I find myself restricted by when it comes to the limited knowledge I have of “traditional” instruments like playing chords on a guitar, a drum beat, etc.
Everything on this EP was made with synthesizers with effects added afterward, which is territory I’ve only really been in for about the past year. The fact that I don’t really know what i’m doing actually works wonders for creativity, haha.
I think what draws me into synths is that any sound or concept that speaks to me is usually something I do on accident and run with. They’re such expressive instruments and to me there’s almost this relationship where with enough input they tell you what emotion it is you should run with or explore more.
4. The Circle of Fifths: You mentioned these ideas kind of coming together on their own. Do you think you’ll be able to translate this kind of creative process into the more “traditional” instruments you started on (drums, guitar) if/when you ever want to? Or do you think that this all began to form itself because of the nature of the synths themselves? Curious if this has given you a different perspective on guitar playing or drumming.
Dearest: I’d almost say it worked in the opposite order, actually. Somewhere in the past few years I had this shift where I started to see instruments more as song-writing tools than I’d previously been able to and so my guitar playing and even drumming changed stylistically to be less “look what I can do” and more “x instrument will contribute this to the song.”
I think when I happened upon the synths they were just another way that I could explore that same expressive thing that I’d been seeking out for inspiration or motivation to make songs. I’d built my whole guitar rig around this idea of making it sound as far removed from a guitar as possible to the point where I was playing the pedalboard more than the actual instrument, and using it to create textures or soundscapes that synths also do pretty well. So, I guess that it’s more expanded my horizons and help me better realize a perspective I had already started to dabble in with the instruments I started out on.
5. The Circle of Fifths: What are some of the biggest “lessons” you’ve learned through this process that you believe will make creating music, or at least translating the emotions you mentioned, easier on you going forward?
Dearest: Less is more. When I sat at my desk and started making the arrangements to turn the ideas into a cohesive body of work it was easy to feel the urge to get carried away and make a lot of post-changes to ideas that were pretty much already exactly where they needed to be. It started to get over-complicated. I took a step back and stripped all of that away again and it came out in a way I’m really proud of. I’ve always done this thing where I’ll fucking torture myself and listen back to my same idea so many times that I want to change everything about it, and then I’m so unhappy with it that I never release it, haha.
Through making this I’ve realized that a more minimal approach works better for me in that it helps me to filter out a lot of not-so-good ideas. Just because I can add something doesn’t mean I should. I also typically enjoy art with a really loose or abstract vibe so that whoever is engaged with it has a more open canvas to draw their own interpretation on.
Overall I think I’d have to say that this has really made me realize that if an idea is already to a point where I felt like I could call it done, then it probably is.
6. The Circle of Fifths: With that in mind, do you think more ambient music is in your immediate future, or do you plan on going down a different path?
Dearest: When it comes to making stuff I’m always bouncing from one stylistic idea to the next and I think the ambient elements will always be an aspect of the music but probably won’t always be so front and center, or the primary focal point. To me it kinda represents a bigger framework that, going forward, will allow me to have creative freedom while still having signature elements that make it the “Dearest” sound even if from one release to the next the overall genre tags or whatever change. My hope is that I can keep throwing curveballs to anyone who listens because that, to me is what keeps an artist interesting as a fan, as well as keeps me personally from feeling bored with writing the same style of music over and over.
7. The Circle of Fifths: Do you think being in a band setting where you have to compromise and only have a fraction of the creative control will ever be something you’ll find fulfilling again? I ask this because personally, I don’t get the same pleasure from playing with other people as I used to. Collaborating on a project is still interesting, but “jamming” and improvising, especially with people I’m not that close with, has lost its luster.
Dearest: I ask myself this question a lot because, holy shit is it hard to be in a band. On the other hand it’s very difficult at times to be the only one working on an idea and it can start to feel insurmountable or like “man I wish I had somebody else to just tell me what this needs.” I think that being close and having a common creative goal with whoever you’re working with is critical so the only way I’d ever see myself being in a “band” is if it were like that. Nine Inch Nails essentially being one guy with a touring band for something like thirty years before it became two guys with a touring band really speaks to me, haha.
I do hold live music very dear to my heart though so if Dearest were to start down that route I’d have to find some way to make that work because frankly, I don’t know what I’m doing enough to be the only guy onstage, nor do I want to be.
8. The Circle of Fifths: Getting back to your new release, A Dream About Being A Person, would you care to shed any light on the meaning behind the title? What made these sounds a fit for the theme in your mind? I’m personally curious, but I also understand if you’d like to leave the mystery for the listener to interpret themselves…
Dearest: I definitely started out wanting to reveal nothing about the theme but I figure that my own interpretation is loose enough that others can probably draw their own conclusions from it. So, the title is a quote from True Detective where Rust Cohle is talking about how “time is a flat circle,” in reference Nietzsche’s theory of eternal recurrence. I’ve always had this tendency to ruminate or fixate on certain periods or chapters of my life and compare or find likeness in certain events from past to present. Once I listened to the whole body of work through, it spoke to me as a framework for that as it sounded dream-like which fit almost too perfectly with that theme of cycles to not roll with it.
“In Medias Res” was the perfect bookend and eventually became named accordingly as it’s technically the beginning, but is actually the end looking back or ruminating on the cycle. To me, each song is a certain phase within the cycle, the title track being the sudden consciousness or self-awareness around the start, which at times can feel like a dream. “A Dream About Being A Person” really just spoke perfectly to me about that whole existential aspect of pondering “was it all just a dream? Did I really live through that? Am I even really a person?”
9. The Circle of Fifths: Since the projects release, what has been the biggest surprise for you? Either in the reception it has gotten, your emotions surrounding it, or something else?
Dearest: Like I’ve said, the biggest surprise has definitely been just how warm of a response I’ve managed to receive for something like a self-produced body of work on the internet, let alone melancholy weird ambient music. I’ve had a lot of people reach out to me about it with kind words which already is a lot more than the like, five instagram likes that I was expecting, haha. I’ve got a lot of gratitude for anyone and everyone who’s checked it out and especially supported me by paying for it.
10. The Circle of Fifths: Lastly, how would you describe the feeling you got when you first saw your own original music up for purchase and across streaming platforms?
Dearest: Surreal. Easily the most crazy thing is to have started writing music when I was around 15 or 16 and finally put out my first actual piece of original completed work at 26. I’ve had a computer or two and notebooks full of songs written and just hanging out for the better part of that time period so to finally see some of that be done and go beyond my own listening is such a great feeling. Not only is it cool to finally be able to say “this is something I made, give it a listen” but it’s also greatly motivating to push that and expand and pursue whatever comes next.
A Dream About Being A Person is available to purchase on Bandcamp, and is streaming on Spotify, Apple Music, etc.
The Circle of Fifths 