Dylan Wilson Interview

Bandanas On The Drums And Neil Young’s Microphone: Dylan Wilson, On ‘Five Stories High’

Dylan Wilson interviewed by Bryden Churchmichael

Dylan Wilson’s debut EP Five Stories High is out now. Five songs, the oldest written in 2018, recorded mostly live in one eight-hour session at Banana Row Studios in Edinburgh with Sean Casey on drums and Sorrel Harland on bass. It plays like a showcase: five songs that don’t sound like each other, from goth to a singalong about a frog. It’s hard not to like a band that is obviously doing what they love. They come out of an Edinburgh DIY scene where every artist turns up for everyone else, at places like Home Bar, which hosts the Oh Damn Jam on Thursday nights for musicians who play for the love of the game. When I saw them there, they had me laughing with a cover of Jim E. Brown’s ‘I’m About to Fall Over in ASDA’. We spoke over a video call; coffee refill and all, about Neil Young’s microphone, a seven-year-old song about a cartoon, and what saying Free Palestine at every show costs a band with no money.

Video: ‘Between You And Me’, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHKUnSeMD0U

Bryden: Eight hours at Banana Row. Walk me through the day.

Dylan: We got there at about 10, but we didn’t really start recording until about 12, because we all played together live in one room. My amp was all the way in the elevator shaft in the hallway, with the microphones and wiring stretching through to my pedalboard. And then we just bashed through the numbers like that.

Bryden: The EPK says you used the same mic, amp and drum setup as Neil Young. Was that the same gear, or the same sort of models?

Dylan: I don’t know the exact name of the mic, but it was the same microphone he used on Harvest, so songs like ‘Heart of Gold’ and ‘Old Man’. That was really cool for me, being like, wow, I’m using Neil Young’s microphone. I’d said to Craig, who owns Banana Row, “I really like Neil Young, and I want to do something like what he did. “What’s interesting about the drums was they were a vintage 70s kit, but we put bandanas over all the drum heads. Craig had found a picture from the Harvest sessions and seen that Kenny Buttrey, Neil Young’s drummer, had put bandanas over the snare and the toms. Craig liked the sound so much that he does that for every single drum recording at Banana Row now, and we were the first ones he did it with.

Bryden: So they didn’t just shape your recording. You’ve shaped how they record now.

Dylan: Yeah, crazy. For our little band to have done that, it feels really, really cool, you know?

Bryden: Is there a mistake on the record you chose to leave in? A good one, maybe?

Dylan: I’ve racked my brains on this. On ‘The Camera Girl’s Genius’, in the last verse, my voice breaks at one point. I thought it was giving Kurt Cobain, you know what I mean? The singer who can’t sing very well but is really trying his hardest. But we were quite meticulous, to be honest, because, spoiler alert, we did do overdubs.

Bryden: You did what?

Dylan: We did do overdubs, slightly. Spoiler alert, sorry. We were fairly meticulous with getting rid of the mistakes. Cool mistakes, unfortunately.

Bryden: Who were you, and where were you in life, when you wrote ‘Ruby Says’ back in 2018?

Dylan: I had just moved to Edinburgh. I was living in student halls. It started life as a B-side to another song, kind of a throwaway, recorded in a tiny little booth at Edinburgh College in Sighthill about the size of a double bed. [Now,] I think I’m a lot more cynical, a lot more switched on about the music industry. I don’t want to say less enthusiastic, because I am still enthusiastic. A big part of being an artist is you have to try and keep the light behind your eyes that you had when you were just starting
out and didn’t know how to play properly or write properly.

Bryden: Seven years is a long time to carry a song. Did the meaning change by the time you recorded it?

Dylan: I think so, yeah, because initially ‘Ruby Says’ was just written about a TV show I was watching at the time in halls. I don’t know if I should admit that, eh? Because people all think Ruby’s a real person. They think she’s an ex-girlfriend or something. They think there’s lore.

Bryden: You’ve said it now.

Dylan: Alright, yeah. It’s called RWBY, by Rooster Teeth. I’ll have no fans after that’s been revealed, but never mind. It was meant to be that show meets the Velvet Underground, because Lou Reed has ‘Candy Says’ and ‘Lisa Says’ and ‘Stephanie Says’. Girl’s name says. And I was kind of like, okay, I’m gonna get in on this. But nowadays it feels a lot more personal. The lyrics didn’t really mean too much to me at first, but having survived seven years, I really relate to that feeling of keeping hope alive and
not being sure if you can make it.

Bryden: What did Sean and Sorrel do to the songs that you couldn’t have done on your own?

Dylan: So much, to be honest. I turn up with lyrics and chords, and Sorrel’s very good at making it more dynamic and more bandy, if you will. The stops during the guitar solos on ‘The Camera Girl’s Genius’, that was all Sorrel. And then Sean is just Mr Rock and Roll, you know what I mean? He sits at the kit and it’s rock and roll drumming 101. His beats are so
solid you can walk on them. None of us are virtuoso musicians, do you know what I mean? But I genuinely believe that if Sean and Sorrel aren’t the musicians that I always needed, they are 100% at least the musicians that the songs always needed. And they’re two of the best friends I always dreamed of.

Bryden: Is there anything on the EP that comes from your actual life, rather than your record collection?

Dylan: Let me do it track by track. ‘Five Stories High’ was written during lockdown. “Standing where the others all say goodbye” is probably my favorite lyric on the entire EP. That was literally a lyric about survival, because people were dying all the time. But looking back on it five or six years later, I’ve been plugging away at this for quite a while, and here I am, still standing where the others say goodbye. ‘Between You And Me’ is the outlier. That one’s specific. ‘Vibin’ Like A Frog’? Not so much, really. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a tree frog. That’s all just artistic licence, I’m afraid.

Bryden: I’m disappointed.

Dylan: Oh no, yeah. From my years travelling in Uruguay.

Bryden: It goes down really well live, but it is a bit of a silly one next to the rest. Why put it on there?

Dylan: When I first started writing songs, I got into a habit of writing sad songs. And then I realised I was a bit afraid of turning into Morrissey. So for every nine sad songs, there should be one fun one. I love how a band like The Cure can have ‘One Hundred Years’ and ‘Disintegration’, but they can also have ‘The Lovecats’. ‘Vibin’ Like A Frog’ was sort of the ‘Lovecats’, if you will. It’s our best-performing track. [People were listening] in Europe and America and Australia, and I remember Ukraine was one I saw. The thought that maybe our songs were bringing joy to someone dealing with an invasion, that really made me feel like we’d actually done something mad. I’ve got the old duality with it. Part of me is like, oh god, I wish the serious, pouring-my-heart-out songs were the ones that did really well.

Bryden: But that’s not how it goes, is it?

Dylan: That’s never how it goes, do you know what I mean? ‘The Lovecats’ was one of The Cure’s biggest hits.

Bryden: The Skinny wrote about you joining the cultural boycott of Israel as a smaller band with no money, if we’re being honest. What does that look like in practice, and what’s it cost you?

Dylan: I don’t think we’re really losing any streaming bucks, because those don’t exist. My wallet hasn’t really suffered because Israel can’t listen to our songs. I don’t know if I should say this, but I will. I think being as openly political as we’ve been, maybe the cost has been that we’re not always everyone’s first choice to book. We do say Free Palestine at every show we do. But that’s speculation on my part. I’ve never been told that by anyone.

Bryden: Well, you probably wouldn’t be.

Dylan: Exactly. I don’t really think it’s cost us money. In a way, I think it’s been good for us. Getting into The Skinny was a dream come true. I felt like The Clash, you know what I mean? Because we were in The Skinny not because they were just talking about our music, but because we were saying something. I don’t want to name names or point fingers at anyone. That’s not who I am. Promoters might pick another band who just go up and play their songs and don’t say anything, and that’s great for them, but that’s just never gonna be who we’re gonna be. I think you’ve got to stand for something in this life, you know?

Bryden: Your press release calls the EP a statement on rock and roll’s place in modern music. So what is that statement?

Dylan: I think the statement is simply that it can still exist, basically… I wanted to try and go out there and prove that you could just go into a studio and record a record fast, quick and live.

Bryden: And when’s the next one coming out?

Dylan: I think our next record is gonna focus a lot more on the gothic sound. My idea for it is as if ‘Ruby Says’ was the opening track rather than the last track. Where would it go after ‘Ruby Says’? There are songs about Highland graveyards and war in the Middle East. Life and death and change. I don’t know when it’s gonna come out, but I know it’s definitely gonna come.

Bryden: I was only joking, but you’ve given me quite a lot there.

Dylan: To quote Bob Dylan, “I got a head full of ideas that are drivin’ me insane.”

‘Five Stories High’ is out now. Dylan Wilson headlines Banshee Labyrinth on 28 November, playing the EP in full.