Q&A: Dawson Gool’s ‘Bark Mulch’ Looks Back With Love
INTERVIEW
INTERVIEW
☆ BY GIGI KANG ☆
VANCOUVER-BASED DAWSON GOOL—released his latest EP Bark Mulch on February 20. It includes five inward-looking songs that probe Gool’s relationship with his hometown that has become appreciative over the years. Fans of Adrianne Lenker, Matt Maltese, and hey, nothing will appreciate Gool’s vivid imagery, stripped back production, and thoughtful encapsulation of one’s nostalgic memories.
It’s the type of EP that would make a perfect companion on a walk. It’s lulling and bittersweet—the type of sound to make you stop and appreciate the little things like Gool does throughout the tracks. He sings about “after summer jobs and chores” and “kickin’ rocks” and “walking back early from the bus stop.”
It’s all brought together by Gool’s guitar that sounds fond through his gentle playing. We also hear pedal steel which adds a small-town feel to the EP, complementing the muse.
Luna spoke with Gool about the EP, some of the specific moments at the center of Bark Mulch, and how he approaches songwriting. Read our full conversation below.
LUNA: Tell me a little bit about your journey. How long have you been doing music?
GOOL: I started doing music when I was probably 12. My aunt had this hard drive that she dumped a bunch of The Beatles onto my home computer. So I sifted through that in middle school and high school, listening pretty much exclusively to that. Then I moved out of my small town into a dorm room in Boston where I went to school. It was a pretty cool experience meeting a bunch of people and figuring out how to write songs more and be focused on that.
LUNA: I read that you didn’t really have a specific reason for going into music other than pure curiosity, and that included an interest in The Beatles, like you mentioned. Are there any other artists that lured you into music?
GOOL: Honestly, until I graduated high school, I would go on my iPod Touch and just go for The Beatles or Paul McCartney. It was kind of a one note for sure until I thought about going to school and listening to more music for that. But my mom’s music was really cool when I was growing up. Looking back on it, she’d listen to Norah Jones and stuff like that which I really liked and really like now. Close friends in high school were into indie music that was big at the time, like Tame Impala and Mac DeMarco. I went through a love-hate relationship with it, like, “This isn’t some grand production.” And I didn’t like it for that reason, but then came around to it because of that exact reason—because it’s pretty stripped back.
LUNA: You’re a very introspective writer. The things you’re observing, the things you’re feeling—that’s mostly what you’re writing about. I wanted to ask you about part of music, the introspection. How would you say your relationship to that has evolved from the start of your music journey to now?
GOOL: It has gotten simpler. When I was starting to write music, [it felt like] trying to fish for things to write about and making a mountain out of a molehill. Now I just like the mundane nature of writing about small things. It’s more fulfilling. There’s a lot to dig into with that as well. It’s definitely easier to focus on those small things now than it was when I started. It felt like I needed to paint this grand picture. Maybe just getting a bit older and having more to reflect on is nice. It creates a nice well of information to grab from.
LUNA: In your lyrics, a lot of the imagery is quite simple, like “peeling skin off your nose,” and “dents in the hardwood.” They stand out because the little things usually end up not being so little when you look back at them.
GOOL: Yeah, looking back, those are what I remember. It’s not some grand childhood memory. I just remember the gravel driveway or something like that. Something pretty simple is what sticks in my mind.
LUNA: A major theme in the project is reflection on your hometown and looking back at it in a more appreciative way. Could you expand a bit on that and why that part of your life felt like it needed to be written about?
GOOL: I moved out of that town when I was 18. I felt like I didn’t really ever want to go back. I was okay to leave it all behind. Not that I hated it, but I just felt like there was nothing for me there. I think a lot of people feel like that about a rural town, if they grew up in one. Going to a few different cities and having lived in bigger cities, it felt like, as time went by, I wanted to see those places again without the negative feelings that I felt were attached to them. It’s nice to dive back and find positive memories and find these tiny nuggets of peaceful memories in that town that I wanted to get away from. I actually kind of love it in certain ways now and have way more appreciation than I did back then.
LUNA: Have you gone back a lot since starting to look at it that way?
GOOL: I definitely started going back more in the past two years. Maybe living on the East Coast before, it was harder to get back. I’d come back maybe once or twice a year. You’re seeing everyone that you haven’t seen. You’re recapping the same stories over and over. But now I like going back and not planning to see anyone. Just going and enjoying the scenery.
LUNA: A lyric that I really like is, “This is lost downtown / All the one ways downtown / This is crying downtown.” I think “This” is my favorite song on the EP.
GOOL: I like that one too. I think it’s one of the first ones that I wrote for the EP. I remember finishing it and playing it at a show that same day. Some of my friends liked that exact line too. I got really into Patti Smith and, on her Instagram, she starts every caption with “This is” and then a description of the picture. So I thought it’d be a funny song form to do. It was almost like a free-write where you just put out a stream of consciousness onto a page starting with “This.”
It started out as reflecting on an old relationship and the moments after a breakup. Then I started to cherry-pick little memories that I thought were concise, like being lost downtown, or driving on a road and seeing some crosses, or not sharing your favorite music because you’re embarrassed by it. I thought it was a fun exercise of a song that turned out pretty good.
LUNA: After you finish a first draft like that, are you much of an editor? Or do you tend to go with how it came out? Some people are very word-by-word, while others go with the flow.
GOOL: I’ll usually change it a little bit. I’ll maybe change a word here or there, like scratch one out and replace it with something that fits better, and continue writing and keep the flow going. Then after I write maybe ten verses, I’ll choose five verses or whatever is in that song. I won’t edit it so much, but I’ll edit it in a sense of paring down a larger group of verses into a more concise feel. I’ll try to keep the essence.
LUNA: And would you say the lyrics tend to come to you first? Or do you start with guitar and melody?
GOOL: I’ll usually start with messing around on the guitar and then a vocal melody. I’ll work through that until I have something that I can repeat, then I’ll try to find some lyrics. Whether it’s one verse [or a few] verses of lyrics, I’ll just put a pin in it [rather than] try to do all the lyrics. I find that I can go down rabbit holes if I try to write an entire song with the guitar in my hands. It’s nice to find the first idea, then finish the lyrics because that’s usually the hardest part.
LUNA: You’re also going on tour when the EP releases. How is prep coming along and what can people look forward to?
GOOL: Prep is really good. It’s coming along slowly. I made some t-shirts for a single that I put out a while ago and I’m making more for this tour. I’m really excited. I haven’t done this many shows for myself on a tour before, so I’m really looking forward to that. I think it’s going to be pretty much the full EP and a good chunk of the last one. It might be a little different every night, kind of loose. I’m gonna try to weave some effects and stuff in there as well. It should be like a stripped down version of the EP with a bit of ambience going on throughout the set.
I’ve played these songs a handful of times. It’s going to be nice to play the songs and actually have them be out there so people can listen and connect with them after the shows.
