Hot Gig Alert (09.20): Will Dailey heads west to Groton (Interview in Post)
If you’ve recently been to a Will Dailey show or follow the singer/songwriter online, you may already have a physical copy of his latest album, Boys Talking. He sells CDs, vinyl and even cassette tapes at his shows. Apparently CDs are popular with the under 25 crowd and vinyl appeals to those 35-65. You know vinyl has had a resurgence. And tapes? Those are just nostalgic or a fun thing for people to buy. Fans can also download the album off indie platform Bandcamp or via Dailey’s website. If you’re looking for the entire album on mainstream streaming platforms like Spotify or Apple, you’ll have to wait a bit longer. The indie darling has decided to follow a unique fan-focused route. Dailey has released five singles on the mainstream platforms since last October. It’s been a slow rollout. Fans vote on which single they want released next.
Dailey combines Americana, folk and indie rock with a rootsy, soulful vibe throughout his music. He writes thoughtful, layered songs evoking plenty of feelings. I’ve known Dailey for a few years around the music scene and through mutual friends. We always have intriguing conversations whenever I run into him and he gives great hugs. He’s a genuine, caring and creative individual. He’s very involved and supportive of the local music scene. I first met him and became quite enthralled after seeing him play a powerful set on a 90 degree day on Boston Common at a music event thrown by WERS, a radio station that has supported Dailey from early days. I spoke with him before the Hot Stove Cool Music show back in April. On Saturday night, Dailey’s summer tour concludes at Groton Hill Music Center in Groton, Mass. Dailey will be performing with a full band: Dave Brophy (drums); James Rohr (keys); Joe McMahon (bass); Rich Hinman (pedal steel). A few tickets remain.
We recently spoke by phone about the new music and unique rollout.
Can you explain your fan-focused model to release the music for Boys Talking?
It’s almost backwards. There’s one more song coming out in November. The entire album will be released online at major platforms like Spotify in February. People who have bought it since October are helping choose songs. They vote on what gets released.
We live in the tyranny of content. I’m slowing it down. It’s inhumane what we’re doing to ourselves and each other. If all artists are only communicating through platforms that don’t respect listener’s time then we’re all failing. There’s a better way to share new music.
It’s a lot more work to explain things and to prep a new song to come out every few months but the results are better. The single factor of how we are discussing music now emotionally and as a business is that we’ve removed the metric of time of how we measure it in our lives. Music takes time. Art takes time. So much of the 20th century of music that won’t go away is because they had all the time. All that 20th century time. Digitization spreads time out everywhere. This design allows for time and I’m seeing it firsthand from people who are new to me and longtime fans.
What’s so bad about Spotify?
You can’t go online without people airing their grievances about Spotify or the state of art and music and consumption. In my experience as an artist for 20 years, the delivery systems have always gone away. If you look at history, whether it be MTV, radio controlling the narrative, power brokers in a community controlling the narrative, kings and queens controlling the narrative, all those things go away and the art remains. I decided to make it about people before platforms. There’s so many reasons why I’m doing it this way. I’m making it up as I go. When I’m done with this record I’ll know how to do it this way.
As far as my role goes as artist, you take out the capitalistic response to success and what that means, if you choose to be an artist, that role in society is to reflect and also bring us together and none of those platforms are doing that. I think they’re a great resource, a utility, like a reference library. But they’re not a musical experience to me.
The whole thing is pro-people. If we’d operate in most facets of life that way, we’d probably get better results. It’s been a lot of work doing something like this where you have to describe what it is, you have to explain it and it’s been really difficult to find people to work with me or write about it. You’re not competing in the capitalism of art. I just wanted to put the music and the people first. And myself…
The platforms come last, the music and the experience comes first. Spotify isn’t where it begins, it’s where it goes once it’s had its turn in people’s hearts and minds. It has better roots this way. It’s out for people. It’s just not on YouTube, Apple, Spotify in its totality.
Why do it this way?
It was the result of my last record. I thought something was just not right and it wasn’t just what we’re being paid per stream. But tell me the time in history that artists were paid correctly. That’s the first thing to address in how we heal some of these things.
How did you come up with the album title, Boys Talking?
I had the songs and my friend (drummer/producer Dave Brophy) was over listening to them and we said what’s the theme of this record? It’s about grief. I’d lost some friends over the Covid period, not from Covid, but from other things and figuring what it would mean going forward
All these songs are just boys talking, trying to talk, struggling to talk, learning how to talk. The whole thing’s just boys talking. Me and my male friends are the opposite of the dominant male voices in our culture, this administration, this fascist regime, the dumbest most evil people in charge. I just imagine there are a lot of men carrying around their inner child and just as lonely but they don’t have the microphone.
Do you have a favorite song on the album?
What’s beautiful about this process is I get to sit in each one. “After Your Love” just came out. I found this video of Patrick Swayze from 1979 rollerskating and I cut it up to short video to “After your Love.” I got emotional watching it. When you can just sit for three minutes. When you’re making a record, the process is where the joy is. The constraints of not only the toxic capitalist system but the music business itself will rob you of that truth and tell you the joys and the result and the measurements after you let it go. With “After Your Love” about a year after I’m making that Patrick Swayze video, watching this man who was beautiful and I get to really enjoy the song, removed from process, and trying to get it out to the world. I already know people like it and I’ve let go and I can enjoy it. “After Your Love” is my favorite right now. I love playing “hell of a drug” live and “My Old Ride” I get to play every night. It’s connecting me in a whole different way.
I also really like “Make Another Me” (with Juliana Hatfield)
That song and the lyrics and the loneliness.
Juliana is my hero— someone I look up to so much artistically. When you’re listening to her most recent album, probably my favorite of hers, I think what does it take to have your 19th album affect someone? I sent a demo to Juliana and she loved it and said she’d do it. I kept freezing on it. Two months of doing that thing that we all do where you just don’t do the thing because you’re afraid. I emailed her again and she comes down to the studio and as soon as that first chorus comes in and she opens her mouth, I just collapsed to the floor because it’s so perfect.
I’ve been lucky in this town. I’ve talked to you about it before. I’ve done a duet with Tanya (Donnely). Those are my friends but my mentors too, my inspirations.
What about the song “One at a Time?”
“One at a Time” is a mini opera for me. I’ve grown up on movies where men fight 100 men and save the day by fighting them all, but one at a time. We’re sold this lie that we can do it all on our own and defeat everyone if the game is rigged . That’s what boys are sold from a young age.
What does being an independent artist mean to you?
Being an independent artist is a calling centering your art around humanity first.
You’re from the Boston area. How has Boston been for you as an artist?
Boston has made me original. The most unique me I can be. I wouldn’t get that in LA or NY or Nashville. In the aughts a lot of my peers left. I lived in LA for a year and a half and was on a label there for about 5 years. I’ve had many experiences that reinforced my choice.
How did you become a solo artist?
I didn’t have to think about it. I was in a band from high school for a long time. In ’04 I recorded songs that the band might not have liked. I sent out some CDs and one of the stations on XM Radio started playing it. I got stuck being solo artist Will Dailey making something I had to make which changed the course of things for me. I’ve always tried to make the things I need to make and when I have it’s been fulfilling.
What do you like about performing at Groton Hill?
It’s a magical room. Technically it’s magical. It was built by the best sonic artists out there. Those people who come to a lot of shows said it was one of the best-sounding shows. We felt unstoppable sonically. It’s primed for beauty. Even driving up there.
// Will Dailey performs at Groton Hill Music Center (122 Old Ayer Rd, Groton, MA 01450) on Saturday, September 20th at 8pm. Tickets are $39 and are available HERE. //
Featured image: Pat Piasecki
