Maus and Azy interview Ozarks genre fluid band Dover Lights! This duo of Daniel Brinker and Andy Moore share their inspirations and challenges when writing their self titled debut album ‘Dover Lights’.
Watch the full interview here, or you can read it down below if you don’t have YouTube.
Daniel Brinker (DB)
Andy Moore (AM)
Azy: So just to start it off I'm going to lob the first question at you in my notes. I have this as a softball because it's totally a softball. So Daniel gave me a bit of background on you both and you're both pretty seasoned musicians, so can you introduce yourselves and give a little background about your life in music up to this point?
DB: Yeah, we are from Arkansas, from right here in the Arkansas River Valley, and I've played in Punk bands and noise rock bands in the past and helped other people with their projects, and Dover Lights is my first thing I've done on my own with my best friend here, Andy so it's kind of the maiden voyage of Dover Lights. It's the debut album. I started out when I was a kid about 13 playing acoustic guitar doing finger picking and learning Beatles songs. All my friends played in punk rock bands and that was kinda the thing to do and we had a pretty big punk rock scene here in my hometown of Russellville and it kind of devolved from there. I was always into 80s music and goth music and I was the kid who always got made fun of for that.. but I think the influence came out a little bit on this record
AM: So I was one of the guys who made fun of Daniel. I don't know if that's really true but I don't know if I was into the same kind of music when we first started hanging out. He kind of showed me some stuff that I'd never really heard of or sort of never considered listening to so it was really cool. I guess we've been friends for like 20 years now, so it's sort of crazy... Since we were 3 years old, so yeah...
Yeah, so I grew up in a musical family, and everyone in my family played bluegrass, except me and I really tried to hang with them and I was terrible at it. So, I guess I just realized I was more into Rock and roll, but I was mostly into mainstream rock.. yeah I got into alternative stuff in college and actually started pushing myself to learn some more intricate stuff and anyway I joined a band in college which kind of lead me into another band after college that I ended up touring with for 6 years and that was really exciting and kind of an adventure and we were signed to a label and all the kind of indie rock world.. so it was really fun and I started writing my own stuff and slowly put together a studio at home. In 2019 I released a solo album and Daniel helped me with it and I was kind of reclusive about it. I wrote everything on my own and showed it to Daniel and he would go, 'Oh it's crap' and we would go back to the writing board.
DB: Brutal honesty right?
AM: Yeah, That was the whole reason I wanted Daniel to listen because I knew I would get some straight answers.
So I put the album out in 2019 and Daniel was credited as a creative consultant which I don't know .. that might be kind of a lame term. Maybe I could have called him co-producer or something..
DB: I'll take it.
AM: That was the early stages of Dover Lights. So anyway, last summer was when we started recording and finally pounded out history here.
DB: I'm smoking a cigar, the courtesy of Andy here. Tonight we are celebrating the release of the record. We didn't get a chance the other night - it's been a busy time. So, we're celebrating with you guys!
DB: I've got a scotch in hand, an open scotch.
Maus: I know you had inspirations in punk and rock. What inspired your shift from that to post-punk with a wide ethereal wave and almost folk streak?
DB: I think it was always there. You know when I was a teenager my brother got me into This Mortal Coil and all the old 4AD stuff, you know Bauhaus, the Birthday Party, Cocteau Twins. Especially Dead Can Dance - it was a really big one for me. I love all their albums but that first one was great. So, It's always been there. And I just couldn't find anybody else to play it with and honestly when I started writing this record I thought it was going to be a stripped down acoustic type thing. And the more equipment you get over the years and the better equipment you get.. microphones and things like that you realize 'Hey I'm going to just pull out all the stops' and that's what we did. I didn't really just make a conscious decision to make a darkwave spectrum album...you know Darkwave post punk gothic, it just kind of happened.
I don't know if every song is in that genre, I think some of them are almost industrial. Like Prisoners is kind of like a mixture of Tears for Fears meets Depeche Mode and Trent Reznor or something. That's the way I see it anyways. Then there's a really heavy folk slant. Kind of a Tim Buckley sort of Nick Drake realm. I love that kind of music. I don't know, I kind of go back to the old school goth, you know This Mortal Coil, I used to have the original version CDs that came with the big box sets. And the original version had songs from you know Gene Clarke from the Byrds and Chris Bell and Alex Chilton so to me it's like one big continuum. It's not just one genre but I do love me some goth. So I guess it was always there it just kind of came out. It just kind of happened.
AM: I remember when we were recording music, a few times you said 'This is kind of on the goth spectrum'. And I just kind of took your word for it. I listened to Tears for Fears a lot and the Cure and that was as far as I got into it until we started recording. I guess my background kind of turned into post rock and I was really into Explosions in the Sky and Sigur Ros.. which I guess everybody these days like them. Anyway I really like that kind of ethereal version of rock and I just started getting cooler and cooler reverb pedals and tried to do stripped down so that what I was doing was a lot more atmosphere and a lot less noodling. That was what I guess I leant to the melting pot.
DB: He kind of brought a heavy Mogwai kind of vibe on certain songs. Like the song Carrauntoohil I ...to me it's just straight up post-rock. I mean there's some This Mortal Coil thrown in there. It's just an instrumental. I would come up with an idea and Andy would make it better. For instance on that Carrauntoohil I, it starts out hi-fi and then it disintegrates into lo-fi sound like he put some filters on and made it sound like it was turned into old tape and that led into that Blue fox song and that is almost Neil Young, Tim Buckley kind of in that range. Just ideas like that..those are Andy's ideas. Like on the song Prisoners - the guitar, the sustained kind of sound; I did the ending solo that has the weird sustained guitar, Andy did the sort of clean rushing guitars. But I hit a few clankers and Andy liked it. He liked the dissonance. Reminded him of Brian Eno. But what he did was he took a pitch correct and hard corrected it and it sort of gave it a robotic kind of - and we use digital delay on that solo - so it kind of had a real biting sort of sound. But anyway that was his idea. Things like that like panning hard left, hard right. He's a genius kind of producer.
Azy: Mhmm. Aside from the way the music sounds and is produced, one thing that is immediately obvious is the storytelling style of your lyrics and we likened it to a lot of folk rock bands that Maus and I enjoyed. I think I compared it to Bob Seger at one point.
AM: Oh nice.. [laughs]
DB: Oh god.. [laughs]
Azy: It's not the way it sounds it's the way it comes out
DB: I'll take it he had some hit's
Maus: We love him!
Azy: There seems to be two stories you're telling. One is your places and your experience in the Ozarks which by the way makes it kind of easy to triangulate where you guys are... just googling...sorry.
So you find that on tracks like Memory Dissolves and Carrauntoohil?
DB: It's an irish word - Carrauntoohil. It's the highest mountain in Ireland
Azy: yeah! And then you have other stories on the album that conjure images like the rise of nuclear age and the end of the cold war and I'm specifically thinking Prisoners and Three Women. So, These are two very different stories to tell.. is there something that interlinks them? You are obviously story tellers, what story are you trying to tell?
DB: It's interesting that you bring all those things up. Yeah, this is sort of a cinematic kind of thing. It's autobiographical but it's also kind of telling the stories of other people. I think the album has a lot of where identity gets blurred. Like when you have a close relationship with your family and close friends and significant others where their stories become your stories. And the travels and the people you meet on your travels and even if it's just for a few hours the stories can have a profound effect on you. And the record is really cathartic, getting stuff out. It's a first record kind of thing, existential kind of stuff. A darker sort of sound. But yeah, it's like documenting my life without straight up telling you about my life. Because it would probably be fairly boring.
I like to read poetry like William Blake, WB Yates, that kind of stuff. So it kind of came out. A friend of mine told me a long time ago. He said that 'Memory is the shape of identity'. And I think that is what the album is doing. It's autobiographical and it tells the story of travels, dreams, that sort of thing. But it puts it in a way that can be reinterpreted by anybody.
Azy: I'm unsurprised to hear that you read poetry. Because there is a very poetic lyricism in the way that you write and that's why Maus and I were talking about And Also the Trees because it reminded us a lot about how that is lyrically as well not romantic in the kissy-kissy sense but romantic in the literary sense
DB: impressionistic kind of thing
AM: I was really impressed with Daniel's lyrical style. it's much more poetic than a lot of people settle for. I'm not so much a lyricist. The songs that I tend to write lyrically almost feel like factual instead of poetic but I just really like the way that Daniel like on Three Women he will tell you something like he's sitting next to a girl with red hair and he would write it in this really beautiful fluid way. There's really beautiful and romantic ways of saying things. but it's not like gushy romantic it's like a romantic like a classic book would be written. That's been kind of challenging to me even as a musician. I want to rise to that level because it's really inspiring to listen to and it makes the songs a lot stronger. I think people could settle for a lot less lyrically these days, but Daniel didn't and that will stand out hopefully to people that enjoy wordplay and wordsmithing
DB: It's kind of like one of those things where you get a side of yourself out that you can't do in real life. No one is going to listen to you if you talk like that they're going to think you're talking to someone in the 1800s or something. Generally when we get together we watch Saturday Night live in the 90s and South Park or something. Constantly hamming it up you know, making ridiculous jokes. You know it's just a way to get a side of you out that you can't always, you know.
Azy: I agree with Andy that the lyrics are something that is going to resonate with a lot of people because that's what resonated with me first about the music when I watched the video you sent me for Memory Dissolves. So the video at first was like 'Wow'. What hit me first was the lyrics. It's very evocative.
DB: Cool!
AM: I know that Daniel can really drum up the nice response but he just says 'Cool!'
DB: I don't know what to say, I don't do these interviews a lot. This is like the 3rd interview! We just did a radio interview in Fayetteville a couple hours from where we live last weekend and they played the record and I'm a lot more laid back on this one. I was really nervous on the radio.. it's funny I'm a lot more relaxed on the video. It's probably the scotch.
AM: Yeah we should probably bring a flask wherever we go.
DB: Good idea. good idea
Maus: So your band name: Dover Lights! It seems to be in reference to where you grew up and events of World War II. Was this deliberate?
Azy: I had recently watched the movie Dunkirk-
Maus: And you're like it's about THAT! And I'm like.. it's about the ALIEN LIGHTS!
Azy: We found out later after this question was written-
Maus: Alien Lights. There's not really an explanation about those orbs right?
DB: Yeah the Dover Lights.. 15 minutes from this house up north. You go up in the mountains a little further and there're some lights that appear in a valley on a piney river and no one knows what the heck they are. Sometimes they move at high speeds, sometimes a lot of them pop up, some people say they are the ghosts of the conquistadors, people say they're luminescent fumes or something.
Maus: Algae..
DB: That's what we like the best, that's our favorite.
AM: I hadn't heard about the Dover Lights of World War II?
Azy: No, so In operation Dynamo in Dunkirk they evacuated to Dover and saved like a quarter of a million lives.
DB: Wow, it's a plus. We're gonna use that from now on.
Azy: That's what I was wondering because it's a very famous event and some of what you reference is World War II so I was curious if there was some kind of overarching mastermind...
DB: Mmm No.
AM: Shouldn't have said anything, we could just take credit for it.
DB: We'll say that in the next interview. Thanks for bringing that up!
Azy: I have a question about the actual Dover lights. Are they like Northern Lights? Like Aurora Borealis..
Maus: they're like orbs right?
AM: They're down in the valley, you have to know where to look and my neighbor actually took pictures of them. They're hard to take pictures of because they're kind of sporadic.
DB: Yeah he took the best photos of them and I think we're going to use them for the next record because they're pretty cool
Maus: That's amazing.. I'm all about UFOs. There's all these different words for it now. Unidentified flying…. Phenomena....
Azy: That's not as catchy.
Maus: it's not ever going to catch on. ….They're probably just fireflies..
Azy: ...really big fireflies!
DB: Sounded cool so we went with that.
Azy: So shifting back to your music, your sound, No two tracks are the same and you kind of flow freely from this more electronic and synth laden tracks to these more pared down acoustic ones and it really is such a range and you were talking before about how you have all of these neat production things that Andy does so then why have the pared down acoustic tracks along side that kind of really interesting experimentation. Not that the acoustic tracks aren't interesting.. they are too. It's just a lot going on in a single album.
AM: I think it's kind of a relief sometimes like if we were to do that kind of heavy electronics the whole time it might get tiring as a listener, but I think part of it was what serves this song and where is this song going and that is where we started and it almost all started acoustic and we started adding things and taking out the acoustic parts on a lot of it and that's kind of how each song evolved and I think we're just trying to keep our expectations loose and see how the song feels.
For instance Carrauntoohil II the last song on the album.. at one point it sounded like it could have been on U2's War album, just a really driving punk rock song and it had a little bit of atmosphere, a little bit of delay and reverb going and I remember coming back to the studio the next day and Daniel was like 'This isn't it. this isn't what this song is supposed to feel like'. We went back to the drawing board and we changed the chord structure and lyrics and we changed a lot of it and we came up with a new sound. And to me it's one of my favorite songs on the album and I don't know if it's because we rewrote it together or if it's because.. I do like what it's about so it could be that to. The vision for the album as a whole was to just have it loaded with a bunch of really strong songs and not necessarily to have one distinct sound the whole time.
Azy: I hope you guys keep doing that going forward because it makes it really interesting to listen to and it comes out exactly how you describe.. what you put into it, which doesn't always happen. That's really interesting that we do get a true half of the picture for it.
DB: We sat on this album for a year before we released it. We had it mastered.. what? last February? I sent it out to some musicians that I respect like the band The The. I got a hold of James Owen the bass player. The Church, Got a hold of Marty Wilson-Piper. And Marty gave me a private review and some feedback. He said that Three Women was his favorite song and he said 'I want more of that', and then he stopped himself and said that would be like telling Led Zeppelin that they couldn't have any acoustic songs.
AM: Well even Robert Smith in some interview I heard, someone asked 'What it's like to be such a big Hard Rock band' and he said 'I don't see where people are getting this term from, we're an acoustic band with a few electric songs'. That's crazy.. But it’s true.
DB: I read a really cool interview with And Also the Trees. I didn't hear of them until we were working on this album. And I got into them really heavily. They're really acoustic. I remember reading that the lead singer Simon went to a goth festival and played there and said that goths were freaked out.
DB: With all the acoustics and the weird instrumentation.. Maybe we could do that.
Maus: So if you each had to pick one track on the album, which one is most personally meaningful to you?
AM: Well my favorite one is Carountoohil II, the last song on the album. That song means a lot to me. That's one I wish it could be a 25 minute long sonic experience you know, because I like the sounds alot and it's kind of got three sections: There's the intro, and the lyrical section and it has its own eerie vibe to it and then there's the ending. The whole thing is like a movement you know. I'm proud of that song and I really enjoy listening to it. To me it's like dessert at the end of the album.
Maus: I'm glad it's at the end of the album, because it's so epic, like it has that section where it stops and then comes back in. You can probably even put out a single, like a version of that song expanding and going on. You could have the original version of that song and the current version of that song all together.. and have a 25 minute song and put it on Bandcamp!
DB: It's almost that long as it stands right? That's probably my favorite song on the album as well. That one and Prisoners are tied. I think they kind of gather both sides of the sound, Prisoners more of that kind of industrial arena rock sound with a lot of goth Dead Can Dance thrown in there and Carrauntoohil is like straight up Nick Drake or Tim Buckley or something. That outtro that Andy was talking about at the very end, he's playing the chromatic scale and it's ascending then it rises up and comes down again, descending. Remember you trying to play that after I wrote it.. what was it you said about it?
AM: You had asked me to write something instrumental like a melody over it, then I finally realized that this is not in any key that it’s constantly changing into a new key. Overall it feels really interesting but it's hard to write to it. It was a fun challenge.
DB: It's like a french film where you think it's over but it's not over, it keeps going! But that song is really special. My friend.. who we used to live in a town not to far away from here, we lost him to self-harm 2 years ago on New Years Eve. And that song is dedicated to him. Actually the whole album is for him, but that song in particular. You were asking about the album, what its about.. The underlying theme in all of the songs is don't give up, there's someone else out there. Kind of like you're crying out to outer space, kind of like a twilight zone, sci-fi kind of feel but you know there's someone out there. Its very anti-suicide. You know it sounds dark, but when you're talking to someone going through this, some of the things they don't want to hear is that 'Oh the world is beautiful, the world is perfect, let's all pretend'. It's not pretend, it's like facing whatever you're facing head on and trying to figure out a way around it head on. So I'd say Carrauntoohil II is my favorite one.
Azy: I get the impression from speaking to people that you're two sides of the same coin in how you create music like on one end leaning heavily into the feel and heart of something and then on the other end the more technical aspects of how to make that a reality. Would you say that's true?
DB: Yeah.
Azy: But it's really nice listening to the way you both talk about each other and meet in the middle, that's really cool.
DB: There was a phrase that I kept telling Andy, he thought it was funny at first and then it probably got annoying. While we were doing the record, he would come over and I would 'push him to the limit' and I kept saying it over and over and it was dorky. Batman and Batman.. [laughs]
AM: A couple of dark knights just hanging out. I do remember you pushed me alot like you saying 'I want you to make it sound like this' and you telling me in colors like 'This sounds brown and I want it to sound purple'. And I was like, 'I know what you mean.'
DB: Yeah I could tell him what I want and he could just do it. Andy is like a master guitar player, aand we both play guitar on the album like 50-50. But like whatever I had in mind he could interpret it immediately, he could just pull it out.
AM: It was a really challenging process. Challenging in a good way, not challenging in a frustrating way. I feel like I grew a lot, because I feel like I see things kind of like a grid in my life and it's really boring. And especially musically, like I wrote my own album and in the end I thought well that's all I know how to do so that's all I'm going to do and I don't know if I would ever write another record. And working with Daniel it's like 'Wow, I'm totally missing all these elements' which is really cool and pushing a more synth sound. Like trying to create more sound effects and feelings, not just working on the chorus.
The previous ten years we would write a song that goes intro, verse, chorus, verse, chorus, verse, outro and every now and then we would change up the order. Because it was a pop rock kind of band. Working in the studio and even songwriting, I thought that this was just the formula. And so it was refreshing [working with Daniel on this album] and it helped me grow a lot I think. It was rewarding.
DB: It came out like with more than musical influences, you know, literary, film, television.. all that stuff came out. On Bandcamp I think I took it down and put up a quote. It said originally 'Sounds like Bladerunner if it was made in the 60's' [Laughs]
AM: We did watch a lot of movies while we recorded, which was pretty cool. Movies and clips of movies just trying to find inspiration for sounds and feelings and stuff from other places besides music that we love.
Maus: Any particular movies that inspired the sounds that we hear on the album?
AM: Well, Bladerunner. Since you just mentioned that.
Maus: We actually said in our review that some of the sci-fi elements it sounds like you're driving through space. So I was actually picturing driving in some kind of a space car.
DB: [Laughs] it's a night driving album.
Azy: This definitely is going to be on my 'I have to drive for a long distance because I need to unwind sort of album'.
DB: Right on. I mentioned some french films like 'Blue Samurai'. I watched a documentary on World War II. That one kind of inspired the lyrics in the first verse of Prisoners. But yeah you gotta pick up what's around you.
Maus: Lastly, Anything else you want to touch on?
DB: Yeah! The record if you get it on vinyl or if you buy the digital copy on the website: www.doverlights.com. If you pick it up all the profits go to help survivors of sex-trafficking, forced prostitution. Both of our wives are involved in an organization called New Hope here in Russellville where we're from so all of the profits will go to that. So we thought it would be a cool way to help out with that since they're doing all this work and we thought, Let's help in some way. So if you buy it that's where your money goes.
Maus: Wow, that's huge! Thank you!
Azy: So thank you for joining us, All the way from the Ozarks.
AM: Thank you for having us.
DB: Yeah, we loved doing it.
Azy: Thank you for joining us, This is Daniel and Andy of Dover Lights. You can find them at Doverlights.bandcamp.com and also your site is doverlights.com! So bye!