Get To Know... Dutch Interior • Neu • DIY Magazine

Hello and welcome back to DIY’s introducing feature, Get To Know… which aims to get you a little bit closer to the buzziest acts that have been catching our eye as of late, and working out what makes them tick.

For those in the know, LA County-based six-piece Dutch Interior are one of California’s best-kept secrets, having already got a brace of self-released projects under their belts and notched up support slots with cult names like DIIV and julie. Now, though, with the wind of label debut ‘Moneyball’ at their backs, the band are gearing up for their first proper foray across the pond, arriving at the likes of End Of The Road and Manchester Psych Fest armed with the LP’s compelling concoction of tender Americana, shoegaze fuzz, and roughly-hewn indie. We caught up with them as ‘Moneyball’ hit shelves - and ahead of their debut UK performances this Summer - to find out more about their instinctive creative connection.

Hey guys, congrats on the release of ‘Moneyball’! How have you been celebrating the release of your label debut?
Jack Nugent: Thank you! We celebrated last week with a big dinner with our team, an acoustic set at Going Underground in LA, and a crazy party with our friends at Well Wishes. Now we’re on tour with Frog playing the songs for people and selling records, which has been so fun.

What are your earliest musical memories?
Shane Barton: Drawing in crayon on my father’s drums as a young child.
Conner Reeves: Guns N’ Roses in my dad’s car.
Jack: There was a Klaxons song called ‘Gravity’s Rainbow’ in some skateboarding game that I fell head over heels for as a kid. I recently mined the memory and rediscovered it. It holds up.
Hayden Barton: Seeing They Might Be Giants at House of Blues.
Noah Kurtz: Piano lessons when I was around five years old.

You hail from LA and Long Beach - musically, what was it like growing up there? And what do you think of the music scene there at the moment?
We all actually grew up in Orange County and moved to LA/LB in our young adulthood, some of us for college and some of us to escape OC. Growing up there, we made a lot of music in our bedrooms, mainly for lack of a cohesive scene. We aren’t very plugged in to the OC music scene anymore, but the LA music scene is on a major upswing right now. There are a lot of exciting bands that hopefully the whole world will hear soon; look up Untitled (halo), Bondo, Alex Amen, Urikas Bedroom, Touching Ice, Dance Arts Center, and Ologist.

You’re a group of lifelong/childhood friends - how would you say this influences your band dynamic? Does it mean you’re all quite aligned creatively? Or does it perhaps make it harder to navigate when there are differences in opinion?
Shane: We don’t always align necessarily, but we always trust each other’s convictions about decisions. This makes things really smooth and allows us to pick up each other’s slack when we need a break or aren’t feeling the stage we’re at with a particular song.

“A Dutch Interior song comes into existence when it’s surrendered to the band.”

You’ve mentioned that the tracks on ‘Moneyball’ - which were all recorded in your Long Beach studio - are cohesive “not just in the art but the physical space”. Can you tell us a bit more about the importance of space/place to your creative process? How do you think location or environment plays into your work?
Jack, Hayden, Conner: Recording in a space we own and that have no real time constraints in allows us to try and fail without fear of sunk cost. This is a big deal for us because it allows us to follow ideas without fear of hitting dead ends - a lot of our best songs came from pulling these types of threads. Our shared studio space and shared living situations tend to put us into a cohesive creative headspace, and also tend to shape the music that was written/recorded within. We don’t know exactly why/how we work so well together, but we do - and that’s all that matters to us.

It’s an impressive feat that ‘Moneyball’ is such a coherent project, given that multiple members of the band have writing/lyrical credits. What would you say is the throughline that unites these different perspectives; what do they all have that makes them inherently Dutch Interior?
A Dutch Interior song comes into existence when it’s surrendered to the band. A lot of songs get rearranged and transformed when they’re taken into the studio - some not a lot, and others completely. The throughline that unites our perspectives is the simple reality that we have spent a lot of time together for so many years. Conner’s production sensibility is the most tangible thing holding our sound together, and even though cohesiveness wasn’t at the top of our list while recording ‘Moneyball’, it happened anyway.

What are your worst musical habits?
Conner: Biting my fingernails.
Shane: Giving up at the bridge.
Noah: Singing too softly.
Hayden: Putting my hi hats really low.
Davis Stewart: Drinking.
Jack: Overusing harmonics.

Finally, DIY are coming round for dinner - what are you making?
Conner: Chicken parmesan sandwich with caesar salad inside.

‘Moneyball’ is out now via Fat Possum; find out where to catch them live this Summer here.

#AD