Q&A: Dottie Da Talks ‘sydney said,’ Musical Origins & Making Music With Emotion
☆ PHOTOS & INTERVIEW BY MAYA GORMAN
STORY BY CARSON HUFFER ☆
Photos By Maya Gorman for The Luna Collective
CONNECTING TO HIS YOUTH — Dottie Da takes hold of the fun of childlike wonder and infuses it into each song he releases.
Born Donovan Wildfong, the world was first introduced to the artistry of Dottie Da with last year’s “in lieu of flowers - demo” and “moving on with you - demo” from dottie da (demo singles) lol. Since then, Da has released two albums, Chapter 5 and the footnotes, as well as a litany of singles, including his most recent release, “sydney said.” Featuring vibrating modulated vocals and breezy guitar lines, the track is the pinnacle of the sound innovations that make Da a musical mastermind.
Read below to get to know Dottie Da, from his music to his expansive physical media collection.
LUNA: Do you want to introduce yourself?
DOTTIE DA: Hi, I am Donovan, also known as Dottie Da. I think my name is pretty cool being Donovan Wildfong, aka Dottie Da.
LUNA: Tell me about your upbringing.
DOTTIE DA: I was born and raised in San Clemente, California. I am one of seven siblings. I grew up very into music and skate and [very] beach-oriented.
LUNA: Would you say that art has always been part of your life?
DOTTIE DA: Yeah. My dad's been making music since I was a kid, and then my brother has been making music forever as well. It almost just seemed like a given because my dad was in a band with my uncle and my grandpa when they were in high school. They made a whole bunch of records all growing up. So I always just heard music that they were making. I was like, “Oh, people can just make it out of nothing,” which I always thought was interesting. So skating filled most of my time, when I was younger, but the moment I started to have ideas was the moment that I picked up an instrument
LUNA: Do you have a memory of when you started making music?
DOTTIE DA: I remember when my dad taught me how to play guitar. He sat down with me and my older sister and was like, “Alright, you guys. It's time — you guys are old enough. It's time to pick it up.” So he taught us three chords. My sister is sitting there struggling, cramping fingers trying to press down the strings. We started at the same time and then after a week went by, Annabelle fully gave up and was like, “No, my fingers are too small, I can't do it,” and I was like, “Well, shit, you know, dad’s gonna be bummed if somebody doesn't pick it up.” I really liked that I could make noise out of a random piece of wood. I started trying to play guitar, but it hurt really bad. So my dad said I could try the bass instead. I learned how to play the bass, and that's where it started. That's because [bass] only needs one finger, kind of.
LUNA: How do you feel your music — or maybe even your life — has changed since you started making music?
DOTTIE DA: I'd say that every decision I've made, every article of clothing I put on, every single thing I've done with or adjacent to my body or my way of life has been 100% influenced by something musical. I would dress like people who I liked their music. I would get certain things like verbiage and vocabulary from people that I liked as well. It's all coming from music — music is fully in charge of my life.
LUNA: Let's talk music.
DOTTIE DA: The first album I put out under Dottie Da is Chapter 5, and the footnotes is actually part of Chapter 5. It was every song that I recorded when I was like, “Oh, I should probably put out my own music” because I had so much left over. I selected a small amount of the songs that I thought were really strong... There were probably, like, 30 extra songs. So I picked, however many [that are on] the footnotes album, I picked those out of the rest of them and was like, “I'll just put these out as well, just so I can move on to the next thing.” I'd say Chapter 5 was the first thing that Dottie Da as a whole put out.
LUNA: How did Dottie Da come about?
DOTTIE DA: I have been playing live since I was a kid. I was in so many bands growing up with all my friends and playing the show circuit since I was 14 or 15. For the off times that I wasn't recording with one of my bands, I would sit in my room and just demo stuff and make songs in my room, but with no intention to put them anywhere. Then COVID happened, and I was like, “Well, I can't be playing live with all these other people.” So I just started vomiting up songs, I guess. I was a little hesitant about it at first because it's fully up for judgment, because it's just me. It's very personal. So if somebody shits on it, it hurts a lot more than if somebody was to shit on an album I made with a bunch of people. But once I started putting it out, it was a little scary. So that's why I didn't use my name. I also made the name because I always wished my name was Dottie growing up, because A League of Their Own is my favorite movie. My name is kind of close to that, so I kind of adapted the name and I thought it sounded similar to the music. It's very, like… “Neener neener neener” is how I describe my music. So Dottie Da sounds stupid and a little dorky-ish.
LUNA: I would love to know a little bit more about your creative life these days. You skate and you model too. How does that work balancing those things?
DOTTIE DA: To put it very basically, I model to pay the bills, but I hate modeling. It is a very awful zone to be in. As much as this sounds like “Oh man, poor me” … it's basically getting objectified for a living. When people see you, they're not like, like, “Oh, this guy is, like, blah, blah, blah,” like I could I could be in a shoot with somebody that straight-up bullied me and … just called me all these names growing up and is like a jock football guy. But when we have the same clothes on, nobody cares to know what's actually behind each person. So it's just like … oh, well, that's that person. They look cool. People don't actually care what you are and what you stand for and what your background is. Nobody gives a shit about that. They just care if you're pretty. That's why I don't like modeling, but I do it to pay the bills until something else pays the bills. Skating is where I get all of my exercise. It's also what I've been doing the longest. I'm not an angry person at all, but I feel like skating really helps any spot of tension or aggression, and it's also instant dopamine. You do a trick, you land the trick, and boom, you're happy. It's like instant gratification. So I do that for most free time during the day.
And then everything else is still music all of the time. Writing, thinking, and recording fills the gaps. It's pretty well-balanced, but I would like it to just be music and skating. Maybe start acting one day. That'd be fun because acting shows a different sense of talent and the culture is different, too.
LUNA: Do you have any musical or artistic inspirations?
DOTTIE DA: My artistic inspiration is the way that I see everything. Visually, it is all specifically derived from liminal space and cartoons and, like, arcade carpet? Everything that is visually pleasing to me is this sort of … really saturated, McDonald's play place kind of feel. I feel like that's my artistic inspiration — just liminal space in general. My musical inspiration is just bands. My musical inspirations would be like The Apples in Stereo and Built to Spill for that crunchy, fun little sound. I love when things feel like musical theater but it's just pulled out of context. I think that that's really cool, and I really, really love lyrically where Liz Phair stands on her early stuff. She has this album called Girly Sounds and it's this long, basically a journal of stuff, and she sings about these very near and dear topics about this stream of consciousness point of view on the way that people have fucked her over in her life, and the lyric style is just so real and it made me like realize that that's what I look for in writing. Same with David Berman — he was my favorite writer. He has really good poetry but he also fronts the Silver Jews and Purple Mountains. His lyrical style is just off the rails … it is just so well put and so funny and so dark at the same time. I really love his work.
LUNA: Are there any inspirational people in your daily life?
DOTTIE DA: Frickin’, Sam, my roommate — Sam Dameshek. He's a fantastic photographer and also my best friend. And just, like, the best person ever … so inspirational. He basically helped turn me into the person that I am by taking me out of my comfort zone and giving me space to do what I want to do. He is everything, and then my parents, I would be nothing without them. They are my biggest inspirations. Top to bottom. And then newfound other bestie. Jesse Rutherford is who I've been making music with recently. He's just so similar to me, and the other greatest person ever. I love him. He stands for the musical inspirations, but seeing what he's done and seeing how he talks about things and seeing what he's going to do is really inspiring as well. That's really cool.
LUNA: If you gave your music a color — or colors — what would it be?
DOTTIE DA: I'd say kinda like a photo negative version of the Wonder Bread polka dot white. It'd be a black background and primary color polka dots. Like an arcade carpet. I'd say an arcade carpet is genuinely what feels like everything to me. It's such a weird way to put it.
LUNA: What role do you see music playing in your future?
DOTTIE DA: I want it to be everything I want. Even if nobody cares about my music in the future or I never get where I wanted with making music. I always want to be in music, be it behind the scenes writing for people or running a venue. I think what I eventually want to get to is [putting] all of my stuff out through my own record label. I haven't talked to people to try to get people on it, but one day I want to turn it into an actual record label and have that be my legacy. I always want music to stand in my life. All of those jobs I've worked in the past, I don't want to have to go back to where i have my frickin’ credentials and stuff, that sounds so boring.
LUNA: What do you find yourself writing about the most?
DOTTIE DA: It seems like the key focus of what I do write about is somewhat childish observations on adult activities, I guess. It's like looking at life through the lens where everything is so washed with color in my head. I romanticize everything and compare everything to nostalgic moments that sit in my brain. I almost write like if a fifth grader was put through what I was put through. And so it's like, I almost feel like you just have an underdeveloped way that I write, but I like it. That's how I like my words to come off. Because it feels relatable and personal, and it's very easily comprehended because it's beneath everybody's vocabulary. It's very, very digestible. I just write about my life.
LUNA: Tell us about your music process.
DOTTIE DA: It varies depending on how strongly I feel about an idea. But for the most part, I will be laying in bed and then a word will come into my head and I'll jot it down. That's always like the starting point and then I'm like, “Okay, where can I take this?” And so I'll write a couple lines around that word, almost like… Remember those brainstorming circles, and then all those called Brainstorm? Then I get the feel of where the lyrics are going and I'm like, alright, I'll write the song. I go through riffs that I've popped in here and there or write something new depending on how it feels. The structure of the song is usually on guitar, and then I'll voice memo that and then write the lyrics. Once that whole thing is set apart, I either have a Tascam 44, like MK three-, four-track, which is everything goes straight to cassette when I record. So that's if I'm doing it with the intention to move to a nicer tape machine later. But I also have a Yamaha MDA … mini disc eight track, and that's if I'm like, “Okay, I'm gonna make this whole song right now.”
So I'll just sit down and I'll record a drum beat or a metronome, almost. Then I'll do a scratch take of the guitar all the way through and I will go instrument by instrument, do the drums, and then I'll do the bass. Following that, any leads or add-ons, and then I'll sing two tracks, double tracked all the way through. I'll do like little harmonies or synthesizers or any of those eight-bit sounds that I use. It usually takes a day for the whole process and I'll just knock out a whole song in the day, and then I put it on the shelf. Once I'm like, “I want to put something out,” [I] take it off the shelf. It's all analog. The only time I step into GarageBand or Logic, which is what most people use, is to digitize and master the music to normal streaming service like standards and then put it out on the computer.
LUNA: What advice would you give to upcoming artists?
DOTTIE DA: Please don't do things from an algorithm standpoint — do what you want to do. I don't care what that is, but just don't do things because they will “do well.” I'm tired of hearing music with no emotion in it. I want everything to sound like somebody's putting it down because they needed to say it. Just keep things genuine, and I guess as cliche as it is, just never stop believing in yourself, keep on trying and run it through. You're doing great, kid. Love you.
LUNA: Is there any advice that you've gotten that's stuck with you?
DOTTIE DA: Corny, but there's only one of your brain. Your brain is the only one that can be as unique as you want it to be. If you start seeking for what other people's brains are making, then it's no longer you. I mean, it is, but in a sense that's when you'll feel the most proud of your work. That's when you'll love something, as my dad said. Just write, record, and make your favorite song, which is every song that I make. He's always telling me to just make my favorite song at that moment. The reason why you're listening to so many other people's music is because you want a song that has all of these things. Just hone in what those things are and make that song. That’s how I've tried to do it, and that's why I don't care what it sounds like or what people think it sounds like. I'm making my favorite songs.
LUNA: What brings you joy these days?
DOTTIE DA: I really like making clothes. I like doing bits, like a bit just keeps going and then you're like all of a sudden like, “I'm 20 minutes deep into a new character and I'm standing on the table being a pirate.” I love that stuff. I'm at the first point in a long time that I'm happy again, and it's fucking great. Everything brings me joy, even mundane activities of me washing the dishes. Everything's great. It's awesome. I'm high on life, if you will.
LUNA: What does the perfect day look like for you?
DOTTIE DA: This could be a perfect opportunity to just recite the lyrics to “Perfect Day,” but that's not my perfect day — that's Lou Reed's perfect day. My perfect day would start with just waking up and going. I love driving. I think the best mornings are when I'm driving and just screaming the lyrics to my favorite songs. That perks me up and it's like, you know, slightly sunny, not too hot. Then, I don't know, maybe make a nice sandwich. I don't even know if I [would] add playing music in my perfect day because that's when it gets kind of stressful. Perfect day would be finishing an almost already-recorded song, and then I love just hanging out with all of the people that I love. I just love to be surrounded by my people because I missed it for a long time. But definitely doing so out of the house — I don't like to sit in the house too much.
LUNA: What's something people don't know about you?
DOTTIE DA: There's a decent list. So much random stuff happens. Sam would explain it way better than I can, so I'll just go with a fun fact. I really like fingerboarding and cooking. I also collect an absurd amount of outdated media. I have a giant collection of mini discs, tapes, VHS, CDs, DVDs, and records — the whole frickin’ nine yards. It makes me really happy walking into my room and seeing all of this. I like my room to look like how I remember things looking when I was a kid.
LUNA: So what's the future look like for you?
DOTTIE DA: Fingers crossed I end up somewhere with music where I can be proud of my work and not struggle anymore. I've always been struggling. That's all I remember. I’d love to hopefully inspire people and make people happy as the music makes me happy. What the future holds is just being there and bringing all of my people with me, all of my siblings, my parents, all of my friends. I want everybody to be happy and comfortable around me and for me to be doing what I love. I don't want to go back to being the manager at YogurtLand or, I used to… Oh, fun fact actually, I was a behavioral therapist for a couple years before I started modeling. I worked with kids with autism for a few years and it was the best. That was the funnest job, and I love working with kids. So I think that is somewhere that I can also be.
LUNA: Do you have anything you're working on you want us to know about?
DOTTIE DA: I just recorded a new song. It is really good and that will be coming out soon. Also, I am about to start playing shows again. Dottie Da live will be happening soon with a beautiful band. I can't wait for people to see. I hope people like it. Also, I want to start journaling more and i wish i took better care of my teeth. I didn't brush my teeth very often growing up (eww) so I have 19 root canals. Everything in my life is great except for the fact that I neglected my teeth growing up. Also, hydrate.
CONNECT WITH DOTTIE DA
SPOTIFY
-
weekly tunes playlist has been updated! new tracks from @furtradeband, @pecqband, @garryfool & more! check it out! https://t.co/ToFU0R6YGo -
-
RT @oliviaborch: new @LunaCollective out todayyy shot by @alltookev ✨ @P1H_official editorial design by me ! https://t.co/cvSCKsWB5D
-
RT @rlyblonde: @AnnieDirusso for @LunaCollective shot by me #35mm #portra800 https://t.co/0UUJSCBGcH
