Latest / Ghost Cult Magazine Podcast / PODCAST: Episode 853 - Don de Leaumont Talks About "Dancing On My Father's Grave and Other Stories"

Transcript

PODCAST: Episode 853 - Don de Leaumont Talks About "Dancing On My Father's Grave and Other Stories" · Ghost Cult Magazine Podcast

0:00
Hey, this is Derek Verduren from Megadeth, and you're listening
0:02
to ghostcokemag.com. What's up everybody?
0:17
It's Kefi at ghostcultman.com. I am stoked to be joined by my
0:21
friend and colleague, Don Delamont.
0:23
You know him from Ghost Cult interviews and reviews as well
0:26
as the Glacial Musical podcast and Don's own website, Southeast
0:30
of Heaven, named for his book, as well as talking to Talk with
0:33
Don podcast. Today we are talking about Don's
0:36
brand new album, Dancing on My Father's Grave and other stories
0:40
coming out on Dark Waters Records.
0:42
Don, how are you tonight, my friend?
0:44
Dude, I'm doing good. It's kind of weird to be on on
0:48
this side of the of the of the field if you know what.
0:51
I know you've done thousands of these in my chair.
0:55
Exactly. Yeah, It's like, so I should.
0:58
Yeah. I've interviewed you, you know
1:00
so. We've interviewed you, we've
1:01
been on each other's shows, we have a podcast together.
1:05
We also both make music. Mine is going a little slow
1:07
right now. Yours is percolating this new
1:10
album you've been working on for a long time.
1:12
Anybody who's watched our channel is that you know, has
1:15
watched this and knows what a fan I was of you to begin with
1:18
in the 1st place. And it's a mutual admiration
1:20
society now. But if I didn't love this
1:23
record, we wouldn't be here talking about it today.
1:26
I do love this record. You know, Melissa and I gave it
1:29
a whole listen through and it's fucking amazing.
1:33
I pre pre-ordered it on Band camp.
1:36
It's on Amp wall, it'll be on all the streaming things.
1:39
I'm really proud of you for making this record and kind of
1:43
following through on your vision for it.
1:44
Because I would say coming back to music after a very long break
1:47
myself, not that you and I have similar routes there, but it was
1:53
hard for me to kind of get back in a headspace where I could
1:56
just do it. Not just be creative and believe
1:59
in myself and be artistic to whatever level I want to be, but
2:03
just to kind of just really put 1 foot in front of the other.
2:07
How to relearn, how to be a dude in a band, how to make music
2:10
again, how to be artistic again. So like, I know that these
2:13
things are probably compartmentalized, but you love
2:16
music. Your you know, you know, your
2:19
music critique and and and you know, reviewer and interviewer
2:24
and an ace one at that. And your book is amazing.
2:27
I'm a huge fan of it still. But, you know, just briefly take
2:31
us to the genesis of this record, because it's been a
2:34
while in the making, right? Yeah.
2:36
Well, so well, yeah. Well, so First off, you're
2:39
awesome dude about to make me teary here.
2:45
So it was really interesting how how this actually all kind of
2:49
came to like fruition, I guess was, you know, before lockdown
2:54
and COVID and all that stuff. Like out, you know, I was I was
2:56
fronting a band, a roots rock band in Atlanta called Collins
3:00
Drive. And it was the first time I'd
3:03
ever fronted a band where I was like, you know, yeah, I was
3:07
playing electric guitar. You know, we were actually
3:10
playing legit venues around Atlanta and, and Raleigh.
3:16
And so, yeah, things were moving great.
3:18
And then we were kind of getting to the point where I was like,
3:21
all right, you know, we should start working on some new
3:24
material. I've got some ideas.
3:26
And they were, we were all kind of gung ho about it.
3:29
They were hoping to keep playing live.
3:31
And the next thing we know, lockdown happened and it just
3:35
wasn't going to be possible to be a band in, in that period.
3:38
Yeah, we weren't going to be playing shows.
3:40
We couldn't rehearse. They were getting together and
3:44
playing. I didn't feel comfortable
3:45
because they were giving each other COVID, you know, you know,
3:49
getting it from other people. And I was like, I can't, I'm
3:52
just going to lay low. And then what happened was I
3:56
started writing. And so this is around 2020 I
4:00
when I started writing some material and the material I was
4:04
writing at the time was like it, it wasn't going to work with the
4:12
band I was in, you know, I mean, even though the stuff we had,
4:15
you know, we had some kind of serious songs, but we were very
4:17
kind of light hearted live, you know, we were, we had a good
4:20
time. We played fun, we had fun on
4:22
stage. We made sure the crowd had fun.
4:25
This didn't sound like fun material at all, you know, And I
4:28
was like, I don't know what to do with this.
4:31
And so I messaged the folks in my band and we had a Zoom call
4:35
and I was telling him about it. Why don't we just why don't we
4:39
just kind of put this on hiatus, you know, for a while until we
4:43
can see what happens with COVID and all this stuff.
4:46
And yeah. And in actuality, I, I kind of
4:50
just, I kind of wanted to check out, but I didn't want to be the
4:53
one to break up a band or to leave my own band because I've
4:57
done both. And it's not pretty, you know?
5:00
And so we talked about it and they were, they were cool with
5:03
it. And then sure enough, and they
5:06
started jamming with other people and they were like, oh,
5:08
do you mind if we're playing? I was like, no, you guys just
5:10
keep going. And so I just kept writing.
5:15
And just like the stuff that I was writing was this kind of
5:18
coming from a place I had never written from before and I didn't
5:22
quite know what to do with it. And, you know, I kind of started
5:27
kind of going into a lot of emotions and these feelings that
5:30
I had kind of stifled for so long that I kind of wanted to
5:37
start tapping into it because I was OK.
5:38
This is me now. I have no idea.
5:40
We might be in lockdown forever. I can't keep running from the
5:44
things that are in my mind that that I feel like deserve to have
5:49
music, you know, process started coming.
5:51
And because I, I started out with no songs at all.
5:55
I was literally just writing song by song.
5:58
So it's like the equivalent of writing in the studio that some
6:02
bands do that a lot. Whereas like I was doing the
6:04
same thing, only my studio was my home studio.
6:08
So the first year, year and a half of it was really just
6:12
writing the songs, tweaking them, learning how to use my
6:16
software, all this crap that was just new to me again.
6:21
And, and then it just started to kind of flow.
6:24
And then the narrative unintentionally kind of started
6:29
to develop somewhat of a loose concept.
6:32
I guess it's not a concept album, but it's the songs are
6:36
all kind of tied together by a narrative of myself being from
6:39
New Orleans and my kind of love, hate, love relationship with the
6:45
with the city. And then, you know, my kind of
6:48
tumultuous relationship with my family and just a lot of stuff
6:53
that eternalize and push down and then would write more kind
6:57
of jovial stuff to kind of compensate for it.
7:00
Whereas now is just like, fuck it, just let it out, dude.
7:04
It's like exorcising a demon or something.
7:06
I feel like clearing it out. And and then the process was it
7:12
took about five years. I wanted keyboards and organ
7:15
and, you know, piano and so I could have had friends do it for
7:19
me. But you know what, you know, I
7:20
went and bought a MIDI keyboard, got on YouTube and learned how
7:24
to play Oregon and piano just enough, you know, to kind of
7:28
make it through the songs and whatnot.
7:30
But yeah, so there there is a sense of pride now that it's
7:34
done, you know that all, you know, five years later, I can
7:39
like, look back on the process and I I wouldn't have changed
7:43
anything. But what I got out of it this
7:46
time, like the next album, might take a year because like, I'm
7:50
not going to be spending the bulk of that time trying to.
7:52
Work. Well you did like the training
7:54
you did the The Bride and Kill Bill.
7:56
You did all the training in the 1st place.
7:59
So then you are a complete, you know, mystical badass warrior.
8:03
Thanks for unpacking all that and I have some other places
8:06
that I like to take this, but I do want to call back for a
8:09
second to your book Southeast of Heaven.
8:10
So you grew up a heavy metal kid and you love all music, but you
8:14
grew up a heavy metal fan and you've kind of gravitate detour
8:17
into the Grateful Dead and jam bands.
8:19
And I would characterize this music as dark folk and
8:23
Americana. And like this Southeastern
8:26
Gothic Americana specifically that I think is obviously comes
8:30
to you because it's in your blood and is a lot of your life
8:33
stories. But also, like, I think there
8:35
are other artists that you know, this this will make a very
8:39
compelling case for you can be who you are from where you're
8:43
from. Metal heads love this music.
8:45
By the way. We are drawn to the darkness.
8:48
I don't I there's a lot of similarities between the lyrics
8:52
of the death metal band Macabre and Amigo the devil, who I'm a
8:55
huge fan of. And there's a lot of, you know,
8:58
positivity and PMA punk rock that you can also find in The
9:01
Avett Brothers music. So some of this stuff is, you
9:05
know, really rewarding to listen to.
9:07
And both me and my partner listen to it and we got
9:11
different things out of it, different.
9:13
We heard different influences. We were affected differently by
9:16
it, sometimes the same, sometimes different, which I
9:19
really loved. And so I like that you follow
9:23
this kind of solo auteur kind of theory literally for the
9:27
fullest. The art, the photography, the
9:30
music, the the upcoming lyric videos, things like that.
9:33
You've really had your fingerprints are all over the
9:36
process, which really is exciting to me.
9:38
Yeah, I mean, that was kind of the goal behind doing it.
9:42
You know, I like, I really wanted to just kind of challenge
9:45
myself in a way. I, I mean, you know, in the
9:47
past, I mean, I've probably, God, I can't even tell you how
9:50
many albums I've, I've made two albums with my band Collins
9:53
Drive. I've probably put, made 7 or 8
9:56
EPS, you know, I, I think I put out three, three full length
10:02
CDs, maybe 4. So obviously I've had a, I've
10:05
got a pretty big catalog, but you're talking, I was recording
10:08
on recording software, doing vocal and guitar and that's it,
10:12
you know, and then I do a, a, you know, a rough mix of it and
10:15
then make sure one thing wasn't louder than the other and then
10:18
put it out just so I can get out and play shows for with new
10:21
songs. And I'd write while I was
10:23
playing and I'd go back and do the same thing.
10:25
Even looking back on it now, like the stuff that I put out
10:27
with like I, I kind of wish I would have taken the time and
10:30
the care that I put into this album because it makes me
10:33
realize that there's something about it's kind of like carrying
10:37
a child full term, I guess. You know, like, I mean, I'm
10:40
never going to equate this to being pregnant, but you know,
10:43
like to carry this album for this long, you know, allowed me
10:48
to nurture it, you know, and to make sure that it was the best
10:52
that I felt like it could be. And then before it was released
10:57
and, you know, now that's now that it's out and ready to go,
11:02
it's it's pretty heavy. You know, it's pretty heavy to
11:06
to look back on and, you know, and and to kind of just echo
11:11
about what you're talking about with the metal heads and stuff.
11:13
You know, I mean, that was I mean, that was me to a tee.
11:16
You know, I mean, I grew up in New Orleans and New Orleans is a
11:18
hot is just a melting pot of cultures.
11:23
So it wasn't weird for me at home to hear my dad listening
11:27
to, you know, Buffy Sainte Marie and Joan Baez and Melanie, you
11:32
know, But then at the same then he turned around and put on like
11:35
Burt Bacharach and then, you know, Al Hurt.
11:38
But then he'd put on Neil Young, you know, so it's like my
11:44
parents tastes were all over the map.
11:46
And so as I got older into high school, I was metal or die.
11:50
There's nothing but metal, you know, and then you kind of get
11:53
older and then you start discovering other genres of
11:56
music and you know, wait, I don't hate this.
11:58
This is kind of cool. You know, it kind of connects
12:01
with me. And I think that once I kind of
12:03
dove into the folk thing, that was really when it came to head
12:07
because, you know, I was listening to my dad's folk
12:09
records and stuff after I'd left my metal band and 94 man, it was
12:14
a weird fucking time for metal man.
12:16
And so it was like a sink or swim thing for me.
12:19
It was like, OK, stay in my band and play Offspring covers and
12:22
die or like jump ship and hope for the best that I make it to
12:27
shore. I wanted as far away from it as
12:29
possible. And so folk music was like the
12:32
antithesis of it all for me. But then I was listening to
12:35
these songs and I'm going, God, this shit is heavy.
12:38
You know, it was also the first time I learned that, you know,
12:40
the diamonds and Rust was a folk cover.
12:43
Like I couldn't believe it. And then I heard Joan Bisons.
12:46
I was like, it was every bit as heavy and intense as priests
12:48
version, you know, And so there was some similarities there As
12:52
for, you know, some parallels to it.
12:54
And you know, I never sat well with the traditional like folk
12:58
singers for some reason. Like it just didn't click with
13:01
me and I didn't feel like I was writing like that.
13:04
But it wasn't until way later, like probably, Oh my God, 2000,
13:09
2003 when I started going to see a bunch of Kevin Kenny shows and
13:13
he was the singer for driving and crying.
13:15
And I'd always been a driving and crying fan but never saw him
13:18
solo. I probably have seen him solo
13:20
probably 2530 Times Now, you know, And that was where I felt
13:25
I found, I found some direction. I was like, I found something
13:29
here, you know? It's a Southern storyteller who
13:32
roots himself in kind of the the dark kind of seedy underbelly
13:37
sometimes of living in the South culturally.
13:40
And But then it was also much later on, after my band had had
13:46
split up and I start, I'd say about 8 years ago, discovering
13:49
Marissa Nadler for the first time in the same week I
13:51
discovered Marissa Nadler, Dorothea Cottrell's debut folk
13:55
record, and Emma Ruth Rundle in the same fucking week that.
13:59
Is like the modern Holy Trinity to me.
14:02
And there's a few in a Von Hausa wolf and her sister.
14:04
There's so many great artists and Amigo and quite a few
14:08
others. It's really, and again, they all
14:11
kind of have this thread, even if they came from different
14:14
places. Chelsea Wolf's more chill stuff
14:16
that's not industrial metal or whatever sort of throbbing
14:20
industrial stuff, when she does just the pure folky stuff, it's
14:24
incredible. And there's other artists like
14:26
Muerker and some of the sort of world music Y Norris Pagan folk
14:31
artists also have like a through line to dark folk in Americana.
14:34
So yeah, Marissa's incredible. You know what a huge fan I am.
14:37
And you got to duet with her. She's actually done very few
14:40
duets. You know, she had a solo project
14:42
with Stephen Brodsky of Cave In and she incredible.
14:49
I saw it live and I think I have the vinyl somewhere.
14:53
I would have loved to have seen that, but.
14:54
Yeah, so good. They that was one of the Saint
14:56
Vitus top that was in my top. Like we did a thing when St.
15:00
Vitus closed. Like what were the top things
15:01
ever at Saint Vitus? And that's in the honorable
15:03
mentions. It was, it was out there for me
15:06
and it was just very simple. It was beautifully simply done,
15:08
you know, just them two and just lights and fog.
15:13
But yeah, Marissa's on this record and I'd like you to talk
15:15
a little bit. She kind of had a a real role in
15:18
helping you shepherd this through.
15:20
So I wanted you to talk a little bit about that because I think
15:22
it's very special. It speaks highly of highly of
15:25
her that she took an interest in you.
15:27
But talk a little bit about her role on this record, not just on
15:30
the song the Hearst they wrote in on, which is one of the
15:32
singles. Also, it again, perks of what we
15:36
do outside of playing music, you know, as you know, being
15:40
interviewers and journalists, you know, and I had the pleasure
15:43
of interviewing her the first time right around the time.
15:47
What was it? I think it was Pat the path of
15:49
the clouds had was come. No, it's for my crimes.
15:51
It was when for my crimes had come out.
15:53
And I at that point I was already fan for, you know, a
15:55
couple of years. And so I out of the blue
15:58
messaged her on Instagram and I was like, hey, I'm a huge fan.
16:01
I have a podcast. Would you be interested in doing
16:03
an interview? She hit me right back and was
16:05
like, yeah, absolutely. But can you send me links so I
16:09
can kind of check it out? And I was like, yeah.
16:10
And so she did. We had a great interview, and
16:13
something just clicked between the two of us.
16:15
And she was like, well, you know, let's keep in touch.
16:18
You know, I'd like to hear your music.
16:19
And I was like, I'd love that. And then we stayed very.
16:23
Yeah, we stayed in contact with each other all this time.
16:25
And then when I started working on this album, I had sent her a
16:29
couple of demos because she was like, I want to hear what you're
16:31
doing. And I sent her some demos.
16:34
And her first reaction was like, she's like, these are really,
16:37
these are really good songs. She was, but she was like, they
16:40
could be better. And I was like, oh, like, OK,
16:45
all of a sudden I had some real criticism, you know, and I'm
16:47
just like, I'm like, well, what do you have in mind?
16:50
And so she's actually an art teacher.
16:52
And she also is a is a brilliant writer, as anyone who listens to
16:56
her music knows. And so she knows all of these
16:59
different techniques of writing, you know, And so she was like,
17:03
why don't you let me kind of work with you and kind of see if
17:06
I can help you kind of shape some of your songs.
17:09
And kind of like, and coming from someone like her, who I was
17:14
like, yeah, I'm, I'm still kind of taken back sometimes that,
17:17
you know, that she actually wanted to even take an interest
17:20
in this. And so I started meeting up,
17:22
meeting with her on Zoom, you know, probably like, you know,
17:26
once a month or so. And she would give me various
17:29
writing exercises, you know, and like show me different
17:33
techniques. And then, you know, she, she
17:34
would critique my lyrics. But then she would say, you
17:37
know, you should probably not say this or you should maybe
17:42
change this. This could use a change here.
17:44
So she very much became a mentor to me, you know, And when it
17:49
came, when I had finished the song, well, it was before I
17:55
started writing it, I was hung up.
17:56
And she, she had me do this thing called the cut up method,
17:59
which is where you just take up random pages from old books,
18:03
magazines or whatever, and you don't pay attention and you just
18:06
start cutting it up. And whatever words you have, you
18:09
just kind of scatter them. And so I ended up finding the
18:12
most ridiculous lines that made absolute sense together at all.
18:17
And I showed her what I had. And she was like, now, now,
18:20
create a, create a story from it.
18:22
And so that ended up being the hearse they wrote in on.
18:25
And when I sent her the demo to that song, she was like, this is
18:30
probably the Best Song I've heard you write yet.
18:33
And I was like, yeah, I'm like, really?
18:35
And she was like, yeah. And I was like, you want to be
18:37
on it? And she was like, absolutely,
18:40
let's do this. You know, and I, and I really
18:42
originally just thought maybe she would just do some harmony
18:45
vocals, but she was pretty much like, no, let's, let's really do
18:50
this, right. And so we kind of knocked it
18:52
back and forth over which verses she thought was, was more
18:56
interesting for her to sing versus whatever.
18:58
And she sent me the files in like a week.
19:01
And I was just blown away. And then once I started to put
19:04
it all together, there's a duet with Marissa Nadler.
19:07
Like, like, I'm even talking about it now.
19:09
When I go back and listen to it, I'm like, how did that happen?
19:12
Like, you know, that totally downgraded her career.
19:16
No, come on, I know you. You're just kidding.
19:18
Cut UPS comes from William Burroughs.
19:21
And now that I think about it, her lyricism is very much like
19:24
beat poetry, like a female's take on the beats, a feminist
19:27
even take on the beats in a little bit ways that doesn't
19:30
surprise me. She's brilliant.
19:31
I would be in I'm awe, in awe of her in general.
19:36
And I'm really appreciative that she, you know, went to the
19:39
lengths she did to go work with you and and really get the best
19:42
out of you because it seems like, you know, she did and it
19:45
and it is a centerpiece song. There's no way around it.
19:48
She's, you know, it's a magnetic track.
19:50
We both immediately, Melissa was not familiar with her work at
19:53
all and was like, Oh my God, she's great.
19:55
What the hell? I was like, yeah, we'll be
19:56
listening to much more of her in the future because I guess.
20:00
Her records and I love her and her new album New Radiations is
20:04
definitely one of my tops for the album of the year stuff.
20:07
It's at least in the top 20. I'm not sure where it'll end up.
20:10
I haven't kind of finalized my thing yet, but my list.
20:14
But back to some of her earlier shit where it was just very,
20:18
very like organic folk kind of stuff, you know?
20:22
And she does it so well, you know?
20:26
But the whole record is really strong, man.
20:28
And you know, there's a lot of stuff to to pull from.
20:31
I know being a fellow traveller like yourself in terms of
20:35
emotional stuff, that some of this stuff is very hard for you.
20:39
And in, you know, it's not too wordy and obtuse.
20:42
I think it's probably of, of the other material I've heard from
20:47
you. I think this is probably like
20:49
it's it's poetic. There's also like the messages
20:51
are not too, you know, cloudy. They're pretty clear what you're
20:56
getting at. And, you know, maybe there's
20:57
illusions and maybe there's some storytelling that's really great
21:00
here. But you know, overall the whole
21:02
record kind of holds up to me. And yes, that song is great and
21:07
it's great to have a feature that's amazing for you.
21:09
But I think actually the whole record is pretty strong.
21:11
Oh, dude. Well, thank you, man.
21:13
Thank you. I appreciate that.
21:15
Was there anything like the finished products of the songs
21:18
after the original sketches of them after Marissa helped work
21:22
with you or stuff you did on yourself after that that
21:26
surprised you with the final, you know, finished product?
21:30
I hate to say products, but it's.
21:32
Just sorry. It is what it is, man.
21:34
It's a product. I mean, something was made, you
21:37
know. But yeah, there were some.
21:39
I think that at the end of it, once I had everything done and
21:43
was compiling everything and putting out all the tracks and
21:46
getting them ready for mixing, and that's when I really had to
21:49
sit and listen to a lot of this stuff for the first time, you
21:53
know? And so I've probably been mixing
21:55
for a year and a half off and on with, you know, you know,
21:59
between family things and moving from Atlanta to here in South
22:02
Carolina. But in that time of really going
22:06
and listening back to what I was doing, I think that what I got
22:09
out of it that surprised me was how similar.
22:13
It didn't feel totally different than it did when I'd written
22:18
before, but what it did feel, it made me feel like, like I I'd
22:23
kind of gone into a new area that I didn't think I was going
22:26
to be able to go to. And so when I'm listening to
22:28
these songs and the lyrics, and my first thought was like, I
22:31
can't believe I wrote some of these songs.
22:33
Like, this is so not how I'd written before.
22:36
And not only that, they were also significantly different at
22:39
times from the original versions.
22:41
You know, musically, a lot of them stayed the same.
22:43
Some of them had some changes added to it.
22:45
But there were certain, yeah. Things where, you know, a good
22:49
example is the song the the, the Lady Graver, which is you know,
22:57
it, I had written that song, you know, probably one of the first
23:01
ones I wrote for the album. And when I was writing it, you
23:05
know, I, I had this concept based on, you know, this, this
23:08
thing, you know, my wife had seen, you know, a young woman
23:12
sitting in a cemetery in suburb in Georgia.
23:14
You know, we're like, oh, that's kind of hilarious.
23:16
You know, it was like a night, you know, And so I had I had
23:18
written a couple of lyrics trying to tie it in to Georgia
23:21
and I had made a, you know, a line about that.
23:24
She had a dress from Goodwill or whatever, you know, and Marissa
23:27
was looking over the lyrics and she kind of looked at me.
23:29
She was like, this is a good lyric.
23:31
She goes, but it could be kind of insulting.
23:33
And I was like, I don't understand why, but of course,
23:37
because I don't think about things from that perspective.
23:40
And she kind of showed me that. And I was like, oh, yeah, I can
23:43
kind of see that's like a unfair assumption of say, like, what
23:47
she, what this particular woman was as far as, you know, you
23:50
know, class or whatever. So little things like that made
23:54
me start to look at my songs a lot differently and how I was
23:58
writing them. To be not cautious, but to take
24:01
myself out of it and to think about how it would sound to
24:03
someone who did not know me. And then all of a sudden that
24:06
changed my whole perspective. So listening to the songs after
24:09
they were complete, it sounded like a whole new me that I
24:13
didn't know was there, and I actually liked it.
24:15
For the first time I could actually listen to my own shit
24:18
and not cringe, you know? Yeah, but I think everybody goes
24:21
through that, man. I do too.
24:23
Like, you know, I listen to like first cell phone recordings of
24:26
my jam room stuff for the first time in like 20, five years.
24:30
I hadn't been making music or 24 years and I was like, Oh my God,
24:33
like who is this guy? What happened to the 27 year old
24:38
me is a lot different than 53 year old me.
24:40
And I'm sure you can relate. Are you too close to it to have
24:43
kind of a top track or like the most satisfying song beside the
24:48
Marissa song? Or is it just too close to it to
24:50
have a favorite? You know, it's funny because
24:53
somebody just asked me that yesterday.
24:54
My a good buddy of mine, He said, he said, what would you
24:57
say your favorite song is? And I always used to roll my
25:00
eyes when people when musicians would say, oh, it's kind of
25:03
being like to ask what, who your favorite child is, you know?
25:06
Well, you know, if I had a favorite kid, I would say so I
25:10
don't care, you know, But so like there are songs on the
25:13
album that I do prefer over the others.
25:16
But I think that probably, if I had to pick my, it'd probably be
25:19
a two way tie between her, say Red and on and I'll follow the
25:24
moon, I think. Or the ones that I kind of
25:27
gravitate to that, you know, if I was listening to someone's
25:31
album, someone else's album, it would be those kinds of song
25:33
that would be like, oh those, that's the so like if I had to
25:38
only play 2 songs off this album live, this would be the two.
25:40
Yeah, I really love Off All That was a really good choice as a
25:43
single. I think it kind of sums up the
25:45
whole album a little bit, besides obviously the title
25:48
track, for what it's worth. But yeah, I really love that
25:51
song. And you had a really great
25:54
explanation. I do feel like most songwriters
25:57
like, for you, your topics are not, you know, a lot of song
26:00
topics have been done, been there, done that, bought the
26:03
T-shirt, very banal, very droll. And you're not.
26:06
So at least when you were talking about love, it's, you
26:09
know, there's something about it.
26:10
If you're talking about loss, there's something unique to you
26:13
about how you express loss. I think I'll follow the moon,
26:16
you know, for all the different directions it could take you in.
26:19
I think it's uniquely your story.
26:21
And I think that's relief. That's actually actually the
26:23
best compliment I can give it. Oh, no, that's a huge compliment
26:27
because, you know, I mean, kind of going back to what you're
26:30
saying about this, you know, the style of writing, you know, I
26:34
read a really interesting interview one time with Ryan
26:36
Adams, who's one of my favorite, you know, singer songwriters
26:39
And, and I think he's incredible folk singer, but kind of like
26:43
how you were talking about he doesn't sing just the average
26:46
typical folk song. It's all kind of rooted in
26:49
something, you know, dark story from, you know, internalized or
26:54
whatever. But I kind of put it all
26:57
together. I think being, being from the
26:59
South is kind of what does that generally.
27:02
I hate being in the South, you know?
27:04
But if I had to embrace any of my roots, especially coming from
27:07
New Orleans, it's storytelling, you know, Because I mean, I grew
27:10
up hearing the most insane stories, you know, everything
27:14
from, you know, drunk ghosts to my grandfather sleeping in a
27:19
casket at the casket factory he worked.
27:21
So it's like all these stories and Southern storytelling is you
27:27
can embellish, but it's all still very easy to understand.
27:31
It's very rootsy. It's not meant to be, you know,
27:35
overly wordy or ironic. It's very much what it is.
27:39
So it's cut and dry. So if you hear one of the songs
27:42
on this album and you're listening to the lyrics, there's
27:44
a damn good chance that I experienced all of those things,
27:47
but maybe not to the degree that the song takes it, if that makes
27:52
sense. Yeah, man, I really appreciate
27:54
that. Thank you.
27:55
And again, you know, I hope, you know, I hope this is doing
27:59
something for you. New Orleans.
28:00
My, my personal knowledge of, of the city and, and history,
28:04
unfortunately is limited. But after this experience of
28:10
really going into your, you know, your own psyche part
28:14
partly formed by this place that you grew up in, you know, do you
28:20
feel better or worse about your roots as a result of this making
28:23
this music? Do you think you'll return to
28:25
this? So you think it's just part of
28:26
you? Or do you think this is like,
28:28
I'm going to move on, whatever I do next will be a departure?
28:34
So honestly, if anything came from this, it kind of rekindled
28:39
a a love that I have for New Orleans, you know, because it
28:43
allowed me to, you know, because of this album and being able to
28:46
write from the perspective of someone who is from there, but
28:49
also someone who struggles with being from there.
28:51
It's it's like that troublesome girl you had when you were
28:54
younger where you know, it's absolutely toxic, but you just
28:56
can't stay away from her because it's so good.
28:59
It's so New Orleans is one of those kind of cities for me
29:02
where it's so. Yeah, it's so bogged down with
29:06
not great experiences for me in my life or my youth, but, you
29:11
know, and of course then, you know, you had Katrina and, you
29:14
know, it's always hot. Yeah.
29:16
I mean, there's a reason why bands like Crowbar and I hate
29:18
God, all that, like, sound the way they do because it's so
29:21
fucking oppressive. Like, the heat, like, the air is
29:24
so thick, you know, like I always say, like, I love New
29:27
Orleans. I just would never live there.
29:29
And I think before making this album, I was still kind of
29:33
struggling because, you know, I'd also, you know, some new
29:35
revelations had come up about my family and things like that.
29:39
That kind of didn't help with that.
29:41
But now that I'm finished with the album, like I want to go
29:44
back, you know, to the city and kind of take it in and revisit
29:49
it from the perspective I am from here.
29:52
But as far as like moving forward, you know, I mean, I
29:55
feel like this is kind of a concept or a narrative that you
29:57
can only do so long before you're just going to run out of
30:01
ideas or that it's going to be it's going to sound contrived,
30:04
you know, So, but what it did, if anything, it kind of inspired
30:08
me moving forward to to dip a little more into some of those
30:12
life experiences I've had. But maybe even, you know, like,
30:16
I went to New York for the first time last year and fell in love,
30:20
hung out in Chelsea, went to the Chelsea Hotel.
30:22
Yeah. So I'm feeling all these
30:23
experiences. And I'm like, well, what if I
30:25
can take some of those and kind of the way I did with the
30:28
concept of New Orleans, kind of attach myself to some of these
30:32
other places I've been to and kind of work that into a
30:35
narrative of whatever connection I had with this area.
30:39
So if anything, you know, that's, that was the long answer
30:43
is that, you know, moving forward, I want to kind of, I
30:46
feel like I've influenced myself, if that makes sense.
30:49
Fired myself, you know. Well, that sounds a very Tom
30:52
Waits and Nick Cave and Nick Drake answer that.
30:55
I also thought there was a common ground with all three of
30:58
those on this record. And I love all of them.
31:01
Which is. Yeah, Melissa said Nick Drake.
31:04
And you know, we both love Nick Cave and Tom Waits also.
31:07
I know would factor in for you somewhere in there too.
31:11
He's such a especially his early stuff, his 70s and 80s stuff is
31:15
so Titanic to me in terms of like a body of work.
31:18
Yeah, man, I get, I guess you could almost say the Atlanta
31:22
Dawn, the the Atlanta Dawn records was the previous work.
31:26
But maybe there will be an Atlanta, an older, wiser Atlanta
31:29
Dawn at some point. I could because you spent a lot
31:32
of time there. I mean, your book talks a lot
31:33
about, you know, obviously the the early years and you had that
31:36
kind of like a coming of age story is Southeast is Atlanta
31:40
quite a bit. Yeah.
31:41
Atlanta was Atlanta was like, you know, from 88 to 99, you
31:47
know, until I met my that's. When you become a man.
31:49
From that life, yeah. And that was those are pretty
31:53
crucial time, you know. I mean, I was, you know, I was,
31:55
I was 16 when we moved to to Atlanta and I stayed there, you
32:01
know, So the life I LED in that in that town, you know, which is
32:06
so funny because it wasn't like nearly as tumultuous or like
32:09
gritty or dark as it was being from New Orleans, but that it's
32:14
typical, you know, typical things.
32:17
But I was also exposed to a lot of things I'd never been exposed
32:20
to before after moving to Atlanta.
32:22
And some of those things I think are because of where I'm at now
32:26
and how I felt like I was able to express and write on this, I
32:29
might be able to find myself dipping somewhat into some of
32:32
the things that I might not have wanted to sing about because I
32:35
was like, that's a little, that's a little too dark, you
32:38
know, should lighten that up a little bit.
32:40
Whereas like now I'm just like, yeah, yeah, bring me the fucking
32:44
dark. Yeah, I want the dark.
32:47
You dancing and Peter Steele. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
32:50
I mean, you know, give me a dark room, an acoustic guitar, an
32:52
edible and a stick of incense and I'm totally good to go.
32:56
This work. Do you have a favorite incense
32:57
scent? Fresh rain, Fresh rain.
33:00
Nice I think. I think fresh rain has existed
33:02
since the dawn of incense history.
33:07
Nice. I love Atlanta, I almost moved
33:09
there. I was very close to moving to
33:11
either Atlanta or Raleigh. I feel like we would have
33:13
crossed paths a lot sooner in life.
33:15
Maybe we became friends at the right time.
33:16
This is pretty been a pretty magical year.
33:19
I really love this record. It does feel like a present.
33:21
This is just like right into my psyche as well.
33:24
A lot of stuff comes up for me and well, the same topic,
33:27
similar, not exactly the same parallel life, but like similar,
33:31
same, same, different as they say.
33:33
And I really appreciate and love this record.
33:36
I'm really proud of you. I'm proud to know that you made
33:38
this record at this time in your life.
33:40
I hope more people get to hear it.
33:42
You know, selfishly, I wanted to do this interview to get you
33:45
talking about this, but it's also for me to satisfy my own
33:48
curiosity about to fill in the blanks of of what I've been
33:51
hearing for a while now. And you know, I always end these
33:54
interviews with wild card questions.
33:56
So I thought very carefully about what to ask you.
33:58
And we interview each other and ask each other questions all the
34:01
time on our other podcast. So here's a question I have
34:04
never asked you, which is if you were going to invite five people
34:07
to dinner, living or dead, famous or not, who would you
34:10
invite and what would you serve them?
34:12
And I'm sure they'll be weed. Oh, there's there's actually,
34:16
this could be a big bowl of nugs, like right at the door,
34:19
kind of like grandma candy, and you could have nugs in the dish.
34:22
But instead of a Werther's the Starlights.
34:26
She used to carry those in her coat pocket.
34:28
On her mother's pits, get abyss in the purse.
34:31
And there's the ones that were wrapped that look like
34:33
strawberries. You know what I'm talking about.
34:34
And then they've got like the strawberry goo in the middle is,
34:38
I don't know, let me see. That's a, that's a hard guide.
34:42
You really fucked me up on that one.
34:44
That's the that's the goal of the question 5.
34:47
People, Jesus and. You're the 6th.
34:49
OK, so I would definitely have to say one of them would be
34:52
probably Robert Hunter would be one of them who was the lyricist
34:55
for the for the Grateful Dead. He wrote all those all those
34:58
lyrics and Jerry and all those guys always get a ton of credit.
35:01
And I love the Dead as you know. I mean, like, you know, I've got
35:03
my death metal Dead shirt on. But I think Robert Hunter is the
35:06
guy, you know, being a lyric writer.
35:08
Like, I think I'd love to just sit down with him and just be
35:11
like, so how the fuck did you write three of their most iconic
35:14
songs after drinking a bottle of wine in one sitting?
35:16
How did that, you know, like, so these kind of conversations and
35:19
I'd love to have Ronnie James Dio over, you know, just because
35:26
I know he'd probably have way better weed than me, you know,
35:29
and and he's just such a fascinating character.
35:32
Also, you know, he always was just so well read and just, you
35:37
know, the kind of if you ever listened to that guy interview,
35:40
like he was just class all the way from top to bottom, you
35:44
know, and Oh my God, who else would have to be there?
35:46
I'm trying to think Dora Pesh I think would be awesome.
35:50
I've talked to Dora a few times and she's lovely, but I would
35:54
love to have like one-on-one time just to kind of learn about
35:58
her heyday, you know, in the German metal scene and what that
36:01
was like as a teenage, you know, because you're so limited with
36:04
time can talk to them in interviews.
36:06
I thought she'd be fascinating. And I'd say probably David
36:09
Crosby would be another one because he's, he's one of my
36:12
biggest influences. And I've also heard that he was
36:15
a raging Dick, you know, in person, though.
36:17
But for some reason, I'm drawn to people like that, as you and
36:20
I both know. But like, I want to be like, I
36:24
can save him. I can save Crosby, I can undick
36:28
him. Yeah, yeah, I needed, I needed
36:31
to rephrase that. Punctuation, my man.
36:36
But yeah, yeah, he was always just a fascinating dude.
36:39
And like, again, just one of those people that just because
36:43
of how he wrote, you know, and like, I'd love to hear stories
36:46
from these people, you know, and this is interesting because
36:49
there's so many dead people too that that I don't want to rule
36:52
out because I feel like I'm leaving them in the the ether.
36:55
Robert Hunter I brought back because, you know, he passed
36:57
away. But.
36:58
And Crosby and Crosby both did, Yeah.
37:00
But he'd be, but he'd be like resurrected as a weed cloud.
37:03
Like do you know the operation? But before he died on his
37:08
Twitter account, he was raiding people's rolled joints.
37:12
Like, people would roll a joint, they'd post a picture.
37:14
They'd be like, hey, how's this one?
37:16
He'd be like, man, I give that one a four out of 10.
37:19
Edgar Allan Poe. There's something about people
37:21
like that that have such a vast history of, like, work and
37:24
everything, But like, you know, there's no interviews with Edgar
37:27
Allan Poe. Like, it didn't exist.
37:28
You know, we didn't have audio or visual, you know.
37:31
Probably a shut in. You know, and if we and if it
37:34
did exist by that, at that point, he was so foregone, you
37:38
know that. But that's the kind of, but
37:39
that's the kind of person I would totally like think would
37:42
be like, you know, with all those people, Like he'd be the
37:44
weird one, the other people. Would be the I mean he would be
37:47
classically like office nut What?
37:50
What food are you serving this collection of folks?
37:53
Oh my gosh, you know, so build your own tacos bar, all right?
37:57
Tortillas. Taco meat Edgar Allan Poe We
38:01
need some help with this. Vegetarian meat.
38:04
I'd have beans. I'd have that vegetarian meat.
38:06
What is it called? Impossible.
38:08
Yeah, like that Morning Star crumbles kind of thing, you
38:11
know, because I try to take care of all my friends, you know?
38:14
So I just have like a Belgian Taco bar and then have a tub of
38:17
beer at the end. Taco tacos are the best weed
38:21
food. If I'm high, I want meat and
38:24
cheese and a little bit of something else.
38:27
And now that I think about it, probably everybody would be high
38:30
except for Doro and. Doro has been sober the longest
38:34
of. Anyone.
38:35
And then PO would just be nodding off all the whole time.
38:39
Well, I think he'd be kind of like feeling it out first.
38:41
It would be like, freaked out, right?
38:43
He'd be freaked out, but like, who knows what was going on in
38:45
his head? I like the idea of you calling
38:47
Doro and asking her to come to this dinner, and she's like, Oh
38:51
yes, done. I love you so much.
38:55
Extremely happy to come to South Carolina and have tacos with
39:00
you. And it's all very interesting to
39:03
come back from the dead. Crosby Pole and Robert Hunter,
39:07
very interesting group of people.
39:10
I bring you a part. I made you a Cologne just for
39:13
your body match to your pheromones.
39:18
Yeah, I mean like. She is.
39:20
She is probably that you actually nailed that I have
39:23
talked to her. Quite a few times and you know,
39:25
I have many Doro stories. These one of the single
39:28
sweetest. Is the metal Dolly Parton and
39:30
maybe right the night right next to Dolly Parton in terms of like
39:34
we need to protect her with a popemobile and armor.
39:37
Seriously, germ fighting everything.
39:40
I always say. Protect Dora.
39:41
Protect Dora at all costs. Seriously.
39:44
At all. Costs, you know, but The funny
39:45
thing is too is like thinking about this cast of characters is
39:48
that there's so much, you know, common between all of them that
39:52
I think it would just be super interesting to hear so many
39:56
people of different, you know, backgrounds, especially, you
39:59
know, creative artistic backgrounds, that it would be
40:02
interesting to see how that kind of stuff would mix in a, you
40:06
know. Kind of like in a cauldron of
40:09
stuff, you know? And of course I'd have to have
40:12
acoustic guitars so everybody would get a guitar.
40:16
And I would do Robert and Paul could do some writing, and Dora
40:18
could. Sing like, do some jamming, you
40:21
know? In session, Crosby can do
40:22
harmony. I wonder if David Crosby's like
40:24
weed weed smoke apparition is haunting his child with Melissa
40:29
Etheridge and her partner. It'd be pretty funny.
40:31
I don't know. This is going wild on Dancing on
40:33
My Father's Grave and Other Stories from Don de Lamont is
40:36
coming out on Dark Waters Records on November 14th.
40:39
It has been a sincere pleasure to hang out with you and talk
40:43
shop with you my brother and Congrats on this record, it
40:45
means a lot to me. I have a feeling it's going to
40:47
find a home with a lot of people like you, a traveller looking
40:51
for some connection. I think a lot of people are
40:53
going to find that. Man, dude, I appreciate you
40:56
doing this. And people can also find me on
40:59
the socials. They can find me at Don on
41:01
theweb.com, which is easier to remember than all the socials,
41:05
but there's links from all this to all the socials from that
41:07
site as well as some other stuff.
41:09
But dude, thank you for doing this.
41:10
This is awesome. You know, it's my pleasure,
41:12
brother. This has been another episode of
41:15
the Ghost Quote Magazine podcast.
41:17
Check us out at ghostquotemag.com and follow our
41:20
socials at Ghost Quote Mag and tell the next time.
41:23
Peace.