Bathe Alone X Fresh Off The Scene
Interview by Destiny Ross and photos by @retroartiste & @paulapaulabillsyall
How has the release of the new album been for you in regards to your last album release in 2021?
Bailey- I wasn’t signed, I was independent and doing Submit Hub and I didn’t know how to get any of my music out there. I was watching all these YouTube videos about how to market yourself, and I’m still bad at it to this day… But it was just such a solo experience. I feel like when I was releasing the music it was a trickle, there were 9 songs on that album and I released 8 singles, so by the time the album came out it was like, here’s this package that you’ve already heard but with an extra song. I was going through a lot of mental health, and a lot of the record was about depression and anxiety and so I was trying to move on personally as well from that. The band didn’t exist yet, it was just me. And it felt good. TLDR: Last Looks was a solo, lonliner experience, and this one (I Don’t Do Humidity) feels like I’m surrounded by family.
How did you meet Damon?
Damon- Long story short, we were working together on some stuff for another band she was in at the time, and one night after a session Bailey said “Hey so I have some demos of my own stuff, can I show you one of these?” and I was like “Yeah, let’s hear it” and I was just completely blown away.
Bailey- The first band I was in, we booked three days with Damon so we were hustling, making an entire record and it was all business.
Damon- I was like “What are you doing in these other bands? You need to be doing this stuff”. So I convinced her to book some time to work on this one song, and that's sorta how Last Looks started. After that record, we chatted more about writing together a bit and me coming on board a bit more as a band member. It was always obvious to me that you have it and should prioritize this.
Any cool stories about how you met the other band members?
Bailey- The background of me and where I grew up, is in the suburbs of Georgia. There’s not really a community of indie and rock musicians, it's all in the city. I had zero people around me playing that kind of music. I joined this website called BandMix, which is kind of like Tinder for musicians. I met both of the bands I joined that way. I don’t know if I would've met Damon had I not gotten an ad from BandMix.
Damon- The other members of the band, have been a patriot of the studio circle for a while, they were in other bands and my partner Sydney is also a part of Bathe Alone. It was kind of like, “Let’s put together a band” and then just taking the whole studio staff.
What would you describe your genre of music as to first-time listeners?
Bailey- It’s changed over the years. The new piece is more indie pop, it's still dreamy, and we're using a lot of analog synths that are kind of iconic for dream pop music. Pop structure, pop melodies, arcs and samples.
Damon- Dream pop but with a capital P
How has your career been as an artist in this generation and what have been the biggest obstacles you’ve had to overcome because of this?
Damon- I think it’s a really interesting time to be an artist. I think for Bathe Alone, from my perspective, things have sort of happened backward from how a lot of bands experience things. How we were talking about earlier it started as a sort of studio project and then the live band kind of happened. The streaming side of it seems like everyone is barely treading water, and it seemed to be doing well for being brand new as a band. The growth we were seeing was online before we saw any growth as a band playing. It’s been an interesting path.
Bailey- The TDLR is I’ve never experienced it the other way around so I have nothing to compare it to, but it feels like a mystery. The people we interact with are people online and it's all skyrocketing and it's insane. But when we go on the road on tour, like the Vacations Tour, and people say “We came here for you” it's hard to know who is out there. It’s just a mystery.
Being a part of the musical sphere ever since you were little, what’s been the most defining moment in your music career? Whether that be when you were in grade school band or on tour!
Bailey- The feeling I got when I was at my first Beach House concert, and the second song they played was Wild. It was this drum machine and I remember being in that moment in real life and being like “This is what I want my music to sound like”. The moment you hear something live and you know what song is about to play based on one sound, it's the best feeling. I think that was a turning point in my musicianship as far as genre goes.
The other moment I think of was one that affected how I view being a musician that's reachable. When I was 16 I was obsessed with Paramore, I learned all the songs off the Brand New Eyes album as a New Year’s resolution. The brothers left and I started following Zach, the old drummer, and started this band Half Noise and saw he was playing shows, so I planned to go see them as he was my musician idol. After 3 or 4 shows he started recognizing me and we were at this Nashville show and at the end of the show I went up and did the “We came here from Atlanta” thing. He said “Next time we're in Atlanta we’ll go get dinner or something” and then he played Atlanta and he was like “Let’s go get pizza” and we went to go get pizza as we talked. He was genuinely interested in me and asked him a question that was “How do you get your music so loud?” and he was like “Oh, it’s mastering” and this felt like an industry secret. The TLDR is that I really appreciated him appreciating me. When we played with Beabadoobee in Asheville this guy was genuinely interested in us and told us he was going to travel to see us, so I told him “Let’s go get food or something” and then we went out for food with him. That guy's name is Colin, he's so sick.
Do any tracks off the new album hold a special significance to you personally?
Bailey- They’re all special in a way. All the divorce ones are the ones personally hitting me right now if I had to pick one it would be Dreamboy.
Damon- Dreamboy or Fear Everything. When we finished Fear Everything it felt really fresh like it was still a new song.
What’s been your favorite thrift find when it comes to synths/music equipment? Where was it and how much was it (if you remember)?
Bailey- It is my CASIO CT 301 or one of those. I went to the thrift store and it was $49.99, it was covered in dirt and smokers’ grime, I'm pretty sure there were bugs in it. It has a matte finish from how much alcohol I used on it. It’s the sound of the song “Some Things Never Change” . It's so Beach House and I'm obsessed with that synth. If my house was burning down I'd run and grab that. There’s a music store called Music Around Here, there’s this little corner in the back with all the synths and I'll shuffle through them asking Damon if they're cool. If it's under $100 it's immediately interesting.
Damon- I’ve gotten a couple of cool old drum machines and thrifted an old Gul Branson drum machine I found for $15. There’s a keyboard we have that's made by Nintendo, it’s meant to go with a game and has this weird cable and it only looks like it has a few sounds.
Bailey- There are only 6 buttons, what happens if you press in a secret code then you unlock over 100 patches on it. They're all broken sounding, they all sound great and toyish. In victims, that's the entire bridge, the strings sound is a Nintendo keyboard.
Your music on recording rings true to the nostalgic dream-pop genre and even live, your voice sounds almost, creepily beautiful (I know you’ve mentioned being able to control your voice breaks and tones), what was a defining moment when you found your “sound”?
Bailey- Lana Del Rey does this thing in Born to Die where she's like I'm singing and now I'm talking cute and then yeah it's just really sassy and spicy.
Damon- There’s all these things we've been trying to think of vocals as not using it to just sing. There are so many things you can do with the human voice and try to be conscious and direct with how we're making those decisions.
Bailey- Cyndi Lauper has always been one of my icons. Something unlocked when we did Victims. It’s Cyndi Lauper and I don’t even sound like her. In the song “Kiss Me” by her she does this thing I do similarly in Victims in the first verse where I say “And I wish I could get Tyler to be that good to me”.
What lies in store for Bathe Alone in the near future? Anything you’d like to tease or hint at?
Bailey- There’s a lot coming and we can’t say what it is yet.
