soudvsystem x Dining Dead

On their second album Is This a House?, Dining Dead’s risk-taking paid off. The five-piece band is Sammy Skidmore (vocals/guitar), Emma Hayes (guitar), Bogie Pieper (drums), Shannon Barberry (bass), and Kennedy Webb (synth/violin/vocals). Their songs could just as easily blend in with Fiona Apple and PJ Harvey as it could with Linda Ronstadt—we’ve confirmed. Combining the influences of chamber pop and yacht rock, alongside funk and folk, the band pushes the boundaries on alternative music. Their collaborative spirit, Webb’s classical training and Skidmore’s coursework in songwriting pushed the band to new heights. You can get a taste by listening to the playlist of songs that influenced the album and hear directly from the band on the tone, tension and the energy it inspired.

We spoke with Sammy about the album’s development, building relationships, breaking up traditional song structures and more. Read the Q&A and scroll down to the listen to the playlist!

Congrats on Is This A House? - Walk us through the creation of the album. When did the writing sessions start?

Sammy: The writing process for this album started a few years ago before we even knew we were making an album. We had a collection of songs that was starting to come together, and at some point, we decided we were going to extrapolate on those songs and create an album.

We were all really excited to take our music in a more ornamental, nuanced direction. Perhaps we were siloed a bit as Indie Country (?) from our first album, Medium Rare. With the new album, we wanted to break out of that genre a bit, and we were excited to try new things with our sound since our musical styles and abilities had grown. This is no knock on Indie or Country—we certainly retain elements of both. We just wanted to do something different.

I believe the first song we wrote on the album was “Heaven from the Ceiling”, which we initially released as a single. It was the first time as a band that we had written a song with the inception point being a drum and bass groove. In the past, I’ve always come to the band with a near-completed song: lyrics, melody, and chords established, and then we would build around that. On “Heaven from the Ceiling", we started with the bass and drums and I toplined over it to create the verses and then wrote the bridge and brought it to the band a few weeks later. You can hear my musical style colliding with Bogie and Shannon's (funk-driven) in a really cool way on this song. “Against the Wall” also went a bit like that. Bogie created a drum part he loved, and then I changed some already-written lyrics to fit with the bass melody to create that song.

Eventually, the album started to take shape, and I knew I really wanted Emma to do something that would highlight her guitar playing, hence the formation of “Interlude”. Bogie then suggested we have an Overture to the album, which was a daunting task but one that Emma and I knocked out the structure of in a day off of a bunch of Matcha lattes. Then Kennedy dreamed up the transitions for “Overture” (literally, the violin transitions were inspired by a dream she had) and Bogie and Shannon filled out the rest with some tempo changes, adding in elements from their parts of other songs to create our "masterpiece," as Emma says.

I wrote “Hands/Body” in one sitting. It just came out, and it was so pop-like but with an edge to the lyrics, and I knew we had to add it to the album. That song and “Angel of Logic” were both very pop-inspired.

The last addition to the album, the most recently written song, is “Goddammit”, inspired by PJ Harvey's “Sheela Na Gig” on the verses. I think I wrote the bones of this song about a year ago? “Heaven from the Ceiling” is maybe 3 years old at this point? This album was a long time in the making, the structure of it slowly revealed itself to us over the past four years.

As a listener, the connection that you all have as a band really comes across on the album. Is that something that you’ve all actively worked on over the years?

Sammy: The connection we have as a band is both organic and actively cultivated. Emma and I became friends at summer camp in middle school. When I moved back to Seattle in late 2018 we reconnected and started jamming in her living room with the intention of taking music more seriously. Instantly, it felt natural. Emma is, for sure, my musical soulmate; she can hear and execute the things I cannot, and she is able to perfectly grasp my song vision every single time. Sometimes, I hate something I wrote until I show it to her; she brings such a unique and thoughtful playing style to our songs.

I think we weren't really sure what we were doing musically at first when it was just Emma and me. We had no huge goals, and we were just throwing random songs around for months there. I think I had some lofty intention of perhaps playing a show someday or establishing a band, but in the end, it was Emma who suggested we play our first open mic. We were terrified, so we chugged beers and practiced our ONE song in the parking lot before the open mic to calm our nerves. We've always put a lot of pressure on ourselves to sound perfect in a live setting, something that has been both a strength as we've taken years to cultivate our live performances, and also our Achilles heel, bringing nerves, disappointment at small mistakes, etc. We’re working on it!

After months of playing high-stress one-song open mic performances, Emma floated the idea of her roommates joining in our jam sessions. Sean played the bass, and Bogie played the drums (both from the Bay Area), and they seemed motivated to play music with us, which was surprising to me only until I learned that Emma and Bogie were secretly in love lol (they've now been together for 5 years).

Eventually, Sean moved on to become a chef, and we were left bassist-less. I posted a random Instagram ask for a new bassist, and Shannon responded (a friend of my friend Sarah Maloney who actually booked my first-ever show at Makeda and Mingus before I was playing with Emma). Shannon came in, and we all instantly vibed. How lucky we were to find the one on the first try! Shannon's easy-going kindness was a welcome addition to our band, especially as the pandemic ripped through the world and the political situation in the US hit a boiling point.

We all got along great and were fast friends. Those early days of the band were, to my recollection, strictly hopeful, positive, and exciting. It was also the foundation for my first ever friend group of sorts. In the past I'd always been someone who had friends in every circle, and this felt different, something all our own.

Fast forward a few years, and Shannon moved away for a bit, and we had a different bassist for about a year as we mourned Shannon's funky basslines, dedication and essential contributions to our songwriting. This other bassist did introduce us to Kennedy, though, who has now been with us for over a year, and it's as if I can't imagine her ever not being a part of Dining Dead. She adds so much texture to our sound with keys and violin, and it has been one of the most fun things in my music career to write vocal melodies with her and collaborate on vocal parts, rounds, harmonies, etc. I find it so much fun. Eventually, Shannon moved back home and rejoined Dining Dead (fuck YES), and we had the addition of Kennedy, who fit in with all of us right away (she even looks like Shannon's little sister).

While I was initially afraid of 5 people in a band (sounds like a lot, right?), I feel so grateful to have gained such talented friends and musicians. I haven't talked about the drums enough yet or Bogie, without whom we would all be terribly off time and a bit less inspired. Bogie's dedication to his drumming is unmatched: he is talented but also incredibly diligent and daring, constantly coming up with new grooves and ideas that bring our songs to the next level. If not for him, we would never have had a swing section in “Wavelength”.

Bogie is also famous in the band for starting group chats, or "clubs". There is tennis club, microscope club (don't ask), and even beta club (you can't get together in this club; that would be too alpha). This is all to say we hang out A LOT, both in and out of the studio. Also, our band spans about 10 years in ages, so I think we all bring unique perspectives and various life experiences to this project. I am sure you can tell that I respect all of my bandmates immensely as musicians but also as people. The connection comes through in the music because it is the cornerstone of Dining Dead, we are all very close. A band is a cult. Or perhaps, more lightly, a community. An organism: a complex structure of interdependent and subordinate elements whose relations and properties are largely determined by their function in the whole. Imbued with its own language, customs, culture, communication style, and group think, making music with other people can be the most intense and intimate relationship in your life.

You make an effort to move away from traditional song arcs. What prompted you to explore song structures outside the standard form?

Sammy: I got really into song structure this year when I took a year-long songwriting course through Berklee College of Music. In that class, we learned about various song structures, and I became more familiar with some technical terms of songwriting. Pre-chorus, post-chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, etc., were all familiar to me, but motifs or verse-refrain songs, for example, were less familiar.

By learning the structures more deeply, I was able to play with breaking things a bit more. I wasn't necessarily doing this intentionally; I think I just became better at being intuitive with my songs rather than sitting down and being like, "Okay, where is the chorus? Now I have to write a bridge".

I also started doing something around this time called hook stacking. That is, I would write multiple hooky song portions and let them knock around my head for a while, days, weeks, or sometimes months. Then, I would choose a few of my favorites and try to weave them together and create a hook-stacked song. I did this in “Evaporate”, and I think it was really successful. Every section of the song really grabs the listener in a different but engaging way. I got better at doing this as I became better at transposing songs into different keys which obviously made it way easier to marry previously unrelated sections of songs.

I also took an Adrianne Lenker songwriting class this year and learned a lot about lyricism and how to make my lyrics more dynamic by combining the highly personal with the metaphoric. I usually tend towards more esoteric lyrics, but I think striking the balance is important. This year, I also read Meander, Spiral, Explode: Design and Pattern in Narrative by Jane Alison and took a feminist writing course through Hugo House. Reading Alison's book and taking that class enlightened me about the inherent patriarchal structure in popular narrative form (beginning, climax, end) and taught me different ways to play with structure through a feminist lens.

Meandering, taking time, and not having a final destination are important ways to play with structure. I think this will come through even more on the songs that will be on our next project, songs like “Hustled” or “Castles” (yet to be released). Both of these play with these notions even further than I had time to develop for this album.

Because we all work on songs collaboratively, a lot of structural elements come from the band as well. For example, on “Wavelength”, Emma had the idea to do vocal rounds at the end. And on “Goddammit”, the sort of weird musical bridge middle section was an idea of a picking pattern I had that Bogie extrapolated on. He wanted to create a longer, more free-flowing section than I had initially planned. More weird sounds, dissonance, psych elements, etc, were all his idea.

The band is heading out on an East Coast tour next month. What can people expect at the shows?

Sammy: We are so excited for our East Coast tour! At our shows, you can expect a set that really runs the gamut. I think we have something for everyone: humor, insightfulness, playful energy, somber energy, rock songs, pop songs, orchestral leaning songs, political commentary, etc. Our songs are really diverse so you can expect a really fun and nuanced set.

Is there anything that you’d like people to know about the album?

Sammy: I want people to know the origin story of the name Is This A House?. I had been writing all these lyrics and one day, Emma pointed out that there are a lot of structural things being mentioned in them. I had not even realized, but then I noticed my titles: "Against the Wall” and “Heaven from the Ceiling”. And then “Goddammit” has the lyrics ‘in this house’ and ‘in these walls’. I had also written “Containers”, another enclosed structure.

I kind of knew that we had to incorporate the word "House" in our album title. Then Emma told me a hilarious story months later, in a musically unrelated conversation in the car after a night out. She was on an early date with someone in her early twenties and was super nervous and feeling very awkward. The person took Emma to a get-together at a friend's house for the date. Not knowing what to say and trying desperately to make conversation, Emma turned to one of the friends and asked, "So, Is This a House?". I was cracking up. I felt nothing encapsulated the feeling of being out of place or uncomfortable in your skin in your 20s more poignantly than that one sentence. When she told me that, I knew it was the title of our album.

PJ Harvey - “Sheela Na Gig”

This song inspired me to use only two power chords on a verse to create tension before a chorus (I rarely use power chords, but this song inspired me to do so). I also love the lyrics in this song and wanted to incorporate something about washing your hands/hair into one of my own songs, so I put the line "wash the strands of my hair, palms of my hands" into our song “Goddammit.”
- Sammy

Fiona Apple - “Criminal”

This is one of my favorite songs of all time but I had never taken the time to learn it until this year. While learning it, I was introduced to some new jazz-y chords that incorporate 7ths or flats. It was fun to learn a song that was initially written on the piano and then transfer it to the guitar; I was using chords I would not intuitively use in my own songwriting. This song inspired me to choose chords with more color for this alum. I also love the nuance in Fiona's voice on this song and tried to write “Containers” in a lower register than I normally sing to emulate some of Fiona's alto nuance.
- Sammy

Linda Rondstadt - “You’re No Good”

This song kinda has it all—those classic bass walk-ups and walk-downs, super melodic guitars, catchy repeating vocal parts and harmonies, cool outros, even a nice little fadeout. All that stuff definitely found its way into our album in one way or another. I really love how it features two tonally different instrumental sections and plays around with the dynamics in a really fun way. It keeps things interesting, and that vibe was a big influence for us, especially on tracks like "Goddammit" and "Evaporate".
- Shannon

The Go-Go’s - “This Town”

This is one of those songs that just gets stuck in my head all day but in the best way. I love how chill the bass line is during the verses—it kind of hangs back and lets the guitars push things forward into this super fun, surfy pop-punk chorus. It's really cool the way the song balances the upbeat, overdriven sound with the edgier lyrics. That kind of mix of energy and mood was definitely something we were going for with this album.
- Shannon

Bill Callahan’s - “Eid Ma Clack Shaw”

“I fell back asleep some time later on
And I dreamed the perfect song
It held all the answers”

Dream ideas are often so malformed but like Bill Callahan’s “Eid Ma Clack Shaw”, our idea for a specific melody in “Overture” came from a dream and felt like something abruptly “perfect”. An answer for solving transitions and something we could be playful with. It may not be any of Callahan’s dream gibberish, but still feels like a way to bring the listener into (or out of) a dreamy haze and into “Is This a House?”
- Kennedy

Girlpool - Before The World Was Big

I love overlapping vocal lines because it takes lyrics and turns them into a dynamic texture. Girlpool’s “Before The World Was Big” has a really satisfying repetitive vocal melody that overlaps on top of itself and also a nostalgic family of origin subject matter- both elements that can be found in “Wavelength” from “Is this is a house?”

Steely Dan - “Peg”

Listened to this one on the job site every day with my coworker Dmitri. We were so tired cause plumbing is so boring, and Peg was the only thing that could keep us awake. I appreciated how a drum part could be so simple but bring so much energy at the same time.
- Bogie

Aretha Franklin - “Chain of Fools”
This has been my favorite song to play along to for years. I'm pretty sure I stole the beat and used it on “Hands(Body)”, now that I think of it. That switch to the bell of the ride at the end is so sick.
- Bogie