Dom Interview + EP Feature | d.b longing
How grief can be good thing when it comes to growing and healing
After burning out from all the bands Dom made the difficult decision to leave them all and start something new in d.b longing, a solo project to process the personal through the Good Grief EP that is being launched at Northcote Social Club on July 13.
Hello Dom, firstly, congratulations on the release of Good Grief, your debut EP! It’s a window into your intimate world of lo-fi indie sounds built around deeply personal lyrics and tasteful arrangements. How does it feel to have it out in the world?
Thank you! It’s exciting, relieving and daunting all at once. It’s weird to have held onto these songs for so long (I wrote ‘Sweet Boy’ in the 2020 COVID Lockdown 1.0) and for them to now be free of me. It’s amazing to receive messages from people who identify with the songs in a way that I don’t - especially because they are so personal to me. That’s such a weird and fantastic thing about releasing music – it becomes someone else’s as much as it is yours.
The singles Soft Light and Sweet Boy have been a nice prelude creating some cool buzz on community radio and even Double J and now with the other three tracks out we can sink into the experience as a whole. The themes you work explore the different kinds of grief and heartbreak that comes from the familial, the romantic, and societal systems which can break people before they bend. How hard was it to sing about such personal things, particularly grief and heartbreak?
Incredibly hard. Well, it wasn’t hard to write and sing these songs – that was easy. The hard part was deciding to put them out.
I had to get over all sorts of anxieties like my lyrics were too close to home, my voice was too raw out of tune, I wasn’t a ‘real producer’, the unbearable weight of being perceived, etc.
But I’ve used a mantra for playing shows for years, which is: If you aren’t nervous before the show, the show is not worth playing. So I figured being so scared about showing the world a truer version of myself was actually going to be really worth it.
You align yourself in the indie rock sphere with elements of alt-country/folk and trip-hop and when I listen to it, I can hear echoes of The National, but I could be way off, so I am intrigued to know what your main influences are that inspired you for this project?
Haha, yes, you are most correct. I wear my influences like my heart: firmly affixed to my sleeve. The National are easily my favourite band of all time, and I have spent many-a-day since childhood soaked in those gloomy, overcast records.
But I’ve been thinking a lot about what actually influences and inspires me to make music, and the answer is: everyone I have ever made music with.
Watching my friends and colleagues in the music community push against every societal, economic and political force making it harder to pursue a career in music, or to just simply live as an artist, is unbelievably inspiring.
Every time I feel dejected, rejected, or exhausted, all I have to do is look at my friends who are balancing two or three jobs to save enough to go and make a record in London, or friends starting a family and still writing and touring, or my beautiful partner who can make an album, crack the ARIA charts as a self-managed artist, and then take time to rest and recalibrate before getting back up to do it all again. I love that stubborn, romantic resistance –
a life that doesn’t involve making and playing music is not an option.
I’ll put on The National when it’s raining, but that’s what really inspires me.
Can you tell us about the process of making Good Grief? All the tracks were self-produced at your home I believe using early demo takes to preserve the immediacy and fragility of the performances. What’s your set up like? And how long did it take to make from your side of things?
Yeah, I wrote most of the EP during the post-lockdown anxiety of 2022. I was touring a lot with RAT!hammock and Porpoise Spit that year, playing all over the country and working my day job at a high school. I would be at the school from Monday to Friday, 8am - 4pm, then jump on a plane either Friday evening or early Saturday morning to fly somewhere, play a show/shows and then be back on Sunday night ready to do it all again. So the only time I had to write music was after work and before bed, usually coinciding with the sunset and twilight. That’s probably why there’s so many references to soft light and twilight and early hours across the EP.
I recorded the demos for the songs in my bedroom with a really simple set up: just a Focusrite interface and a SM57 mic. I would record them pretty much as I wrote them and would only do one or two takes. I tried to re-record them later in a bigger studio setting but it lost all the intimacy. So, most of the guitars and vocals you hear on the EP are taken from those demos and are the first and only takes.
Whether I did this for the vibe or because I was just tired, I’m not sure. But I was burning out hardcore from all the work and touring and had to make the very difficult decision to leave all the bands I was in (and my job) and start something new.
So, the EP became an exercise in letting go and I discovered that putting all my grief into these five songs helped me to understand, grow and heal. I liked the idea that grief can be good for you.
You have pretty much played everything on the EP except for guest vocals from Merpire, and additional guitars from Tom Dowling (Fan Girl/RAT!hammock). How important are these people to you on the recording?
Well, firstly, Rhi (Merpire) is my partner, and Tom is our housemate and dear friend, so naturally both of them are extremely important to me. And after years of playing in RAT!hammock together, musically, I trusted both of them. Tom is a brilliant guitarist, especially when it comes to working with effects, he’s almost more of a sound designer than a guitarist. I asked him to rework these very basic sounding Logic synths I had written for You Sold Me A High and played them live making his guitar sound like the synth part, but even better. It sounds really, really cool. And Rhi is a phenomenal singer. She brought so much to the vocal parts, particularly because I think my vocals are quite abraded and gentle, and her contribution really added another layer of colour and range to the songs.
Even though this EP was a very isolated and introspective project, getting these two on board at the end reminded me just how much magic comes from collaboration. I think the next EP will be a bit more like that. Life’s too short to not play music with your friends.
The EP was co-mixed by Luke Thomas (Fan Girl/The Velvet Club) and mastered by Guy Faletolu (Way Dynamic/Amyl and the Sniffers). Can you tell us about working with them and how they complemented what you do?
Ah, these two are so clever! Because a lot of my demo stems were recorded through a SM57 with a faulty lead in my room, I needed someone to help me with the sciencey part of mixing, and Luke did a fantastic job of keeping the hissy, grainy feel but cleaning it up so weird frequencies didn’t pierce the listeners’ eardrums.
Guy is a wizard. A master, if you will. I’ve worked with Guy for many years now - we’ve been on tour all over the country and he’s mastered a lot of my bands’ music - and he’s just the most loveable, professional and brilliantly talented engineer and musician. I am so lucky to have had my songs spruced up by these two.
You are launching the EP at The Northcote Social Club in full band mode for a free show as part of the Social Sanctuary series on Monday July 13 with Postures and Grace Turner. Do you have a special connection to the venue and series, and can you tell us about the support acts?
The Northcote Social Club band room is easily my favourite venue to play and see artists. I love that they do these free Monday nights. The line ups are always amazing and there’s always a great turn out.
It really shows the impact that the cost of living is having on the arts – it turns out that people really do want to come to see live music (and on a Monday, no less), we just have to find ways to make it accessible for everyone.
It’s unfair that the burden falls on artists and venues to make that kind of financial sacrifice – especially since COVID – but kudos to the Northcote Social Club for doing it, free events like this are so important for people’s access to community and culture.
Speaking of amazing line ups, I’m so excited to play with Postures and Grace Turner. I‘ve been obsessed with Posture’s latest track Hung Up In Lines the last month, it’s a gorgeous song, and Grace is such a beautiful singer and songwriter. I can’t wait to see them both live for the first time.
Finally, who are your favourite local Melb/Naarm bands right now and who would you like to see interviewed for Tempo?
Oooh. So many. Postures and Grace Turner are top of mind. But also, Fan Girl, Porpoise Spit, Merpire, Obscura Hail, Tommy and Roy, Hannah Cameron, Darcy Forever, Lewis Coleman, Body Tax.
I know they’re all my friends, but I’m not biased, I swear.
‘Social Sanctuary’ with d.b.longing, Postures + Grace Turner
FREE ENTRY | $20 PARMAS | $10 PINTS
Northcote Social Club
Monday, 13 July 7pm