Q&A: Indie Pop Newcomer Jeff Draco Talks DC Music Scene, Musical Influences & New Single “Letters”
DC-BASED INDIE POP STAR — Jeff Draco makes songs to be danced to at backyard house shows, blasted from a speaker at the beach, and played from a cassette player while you write letters on your bedroom floor. A vibey mix of bedroom pop, surf rock, and psych-pop, his music is sleepy yet bouncy, retro yet indie-contemporary.
Draco is best known for sleeper hit “Dreamgirl” but is quickly gaining acclaim for his recent EP, Freezing in Hollywood, a concept project that paints an anti-love story. Reminiscent of Current Joys and Peach Pit, Draco is on track to become the next household name in the indie music scene.
Draco’s newly released single, “Letters,” is described as his most vulnerable project yet. Soft and melodic, this acoustic track tells the story of healing after a lost love. Read on below to hear more about the process of “Letters,” Draco’s experience in the DC show scene, and insights into past and future projects.
Photo by Mike Kim
LUNA: I'd love to hear a little bit about your musical background — how did you get into the industry?
DRACO: I was born into a very musical family. All of my siblings were older than me growing up, and they were all in bands and stuff. So that was definitely very influential. I was just kind of always immersed in music my whole life. Growing up that's all I ever wanted to do really — it was just playing music, nothing else. There weren't a ton of people to play music with where I lived growing up, at least until high school. So I kind of had to make things happen for me the way I wanted them to happen. Because I was like, no one else is gonna do it, so I'll just do it. I went to school at [University of Maryland] in College Park, and I started Jeff Draco right before going off to school because the band I was in in high school kind of had disbanded. We pretty much got our roots in the DC and College Park scene. So yeah, it's been great so far.
LUNA: Can you tell me a little bit more about the music scene in DC?
DRACO: Yeah, it's a very interesting scene because I think there's not one thing really that [defines] the style of music that’s happening. There's really everything. There's a lot of good bands that have been on the rise [across] a huge array of genres, but it's all so spread out. So I think that's probably a good indicator of it.
LUNA: I feel like there's this huge community aspect of local music scenes, especially in the indie music scene. Do you feel the same way?
DRACO: Yeah, definitely. We were really intact with the community before COVID, and then during COVID everything was up in the air. But I feel like we're at the point now where that same sense of community feels like it's back. And there's a lot of new bands and a lot of the same older bands from a few years ago. So yeah, there's a really strong community here in DC. Absolutely.
LUNA: I'd love to hear about your new song, “Letters.” Tell me about your process for making it and the inspiration behind it.
DRACO: In terms of inspiration, I think the lyrics kind of answer that one for itself, it’s a breakup song but also very much an 'I'm over you and moved on' song. It's 100% the most painful song I've written and the most in-depth and vulnerable I've ever been in my writing. As for the process, there's several versions of this song that exist. One of my friends who's a great artist — his name is Blake Ruby, he's based out of Nashville — I showed him the song one day at a session we were doing and he was like, “Oh, this one's crazy.” Then we completely stripped it down and hashed out the entire thing together. He's one of the co-producers on the track. So yeah, it's been through a lot of changes, but I'm very happy with where it's at now. And a lot of that's due to collaborating with Blake.
LUNA: Overall, do you feel like you categorize your music within a certain genre? Or do you feel like you like to draw from a lot of different genres?
DRACO: I would say the latter. I guess the blanket term I go with usually is just “indie pop.” But a lot of the time I have a hard time describing it because there are a lot of different elements that I pull from in my writing. Whether it's beach rock kind of stuff or if it's more psych stuff, or very pop stuff or anything … I'm all over the map. So we try to blend them all together. But I would say indie pop in [the] most general terms.
LUNA: Do you have any big musical inspirations, any artists that you want to emulate?
DRACO: Yeah! I don't know if it’s so much [I want to] emulate [them], but one artist that's just really cool right now is Hemlocke Springs. I came across them on TikTok — you should check it out. I think they only have a few songs out, but it's one of those songs where it hit me for the first time in a while like, this is different. It's really good. In terms of inspiration, I think Gus Dapperton is definitely up there. I've seen his live show a few times. His last album, Orca, was really special to me. And he's from New York, so he's not too far away.
LUNA: You also had an EP come out last summer, Freezing in Hollywood. Tell me a little bit more about that.
DRACO: The EP came out in July, which feels like forever ago. The EP is six songs. There's some love songs, there’s some [anti]-love songs. But I feel like that’s a general theme in there. You're watching a story happen throughout the whole EP of a relationship unfolding. I wrote all the songs over the course of two to three years. I worked with another one of my friends who's a great artist, Grant Claytor. He's based in the Jersey/Delaware area. He did all the mixing and stuff, so he really put the final touches on that for me. But yeah, as a whole I’m really proud of that project. I think it fits together as a whole EP; I never want to just put out an EP that has just a bunch of songs that feel like singles. Having that collective start to finish feeling is something I'm really proud of.
LUNA: You mentioned that you do a lot of creating and collaborating with other people — do you think that's a pretty important part of your process? The community aspect of music?
DRACO: [I put my EP out] in July, and then this song “Letters” that's coming out this week, those were the first few times I've actually really brought in other people that collaborated directly on a project. Before that, it was all me. But now in doing that I can really take things to the next level. Because I write everything and record everything, sometimes I can get my head about a song if I've just heard it over and over again. Then sometimes one of my live bandmates will come in and be like, “Oh, what if you did this?” And then it's like a whole different song. And it's like, “Oh, that was great, and I would never have thought of that.” So I think it's become much more important. I think there's a lot of value in it.
LUNA: Are there any touchstones or themes that frequently pop up in your music?
DRACO: Yeah, I mean… I feel like love songs or anti-love songs, one of the two, have been kind of a common theme throughout the years. They're not even necessarily drawing from any real experience I've had or anything, but it's just writing these little stories. I don't know why it seems to come back to that, but it does.
LUNA: Do you have a favorite project that you've done or a biggest accomplishment as an artist?
DRACO: Yeah, putting out my last project is definitely up there. Because I feel like it was just so many years of work and such a process just to get everything out. And there were a lot of cool music videos. I think all of it was happening at a very weird time in my life because of multiple things. But yeah, I think probably that last project is up there for me, in terms of things I hold truly dear at the moment.
LUNA: Do you have any long term goals musically for your career?
DRACO: It would be nice to get to the point where we can really put out a full album and ramp up some of the things like that. Ideally, if we can get more into a fuller-time touring outfit, that's kind of the goal, to really be on the road as much as we possibly can. We've done two and a half smaller tours, and after those we just want to do it again. We want to just keep doing this forever.
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