Interview: Dolly Ave sits in the grey of it all
She Just Changes Her Mind talks to the emerging Vietnamese-American artist about her new album, Bad Brain.
Dolly Ave didn’t see her music career coming. It sort of fell into her lap, as happy accidents are wont to do. Although she’d been singing and writing songs her whole life, it wasn’t until the Covid lockdown that something bigger started to take shape. Originally pursuing film, then live music photography; the switch to making music felt fated by circumstance. Since there weren’t any live shows to photograph, Dolly turned inward and started writing music. The first time I talked to her about this, on a brief phone call made from east to west LA (worlds apart basically), she still sounded surprised by her own pivot. We gushed about the ways life can bend and mold around our personal destinies, and though she’s modest, I can tell Dolly’s found hers.
Unlike the confidence she embodies outside of her work, Dolly Ave’s just-released sophomore record, Bad Brain, is indie rock largely propelled by themes of anxiety and self-doubt. I asked Dolly if writing this album helped her process some of those feelings.
“Absolutely! The writing process is so cathartic. I love being able to express myself through song. An album is an open diary where the audience gets to take some parts of it for themselves, [but] my truth I'm telling will always stay private and up to interpretation - which keeps it fun for me.”
Catharsis, then, anchors Bad Brain’s harried spirit. While the lyrics are super cerebral and thematically frustrated, the music and vocal performances all over this album are visceral, kinetic. The album sounds and feels like the exact second an anxiety attack starts to break—teasing relief. I wondered if that dichotomy was intentional.
“Making an album is such a meticulous process. You stress every word, every instrument, every phrase, the vocal take, and decide whether a song will make it on the project. I hope that most people share music with intention behind it, [so] for me I'd say yes. But there were definitely happy accidents too! Sometimes you enter a room and the song is written in five minutes and there's no rhyme or reason to it other than you just loved how it came out.”
Well, rhyme and reason become elusive garden lizards in Dolly’s head on Bad Brain. Almost every track, especially “in trouble”, and “this spell”, expresses a lack of agency over her own spiraling mind. On the former she sings, “Try to the escape the patterns in my mind, I swear I’ll get better.” On the latter, “Don’t tell I’m going through hell… I’m under this spell and I don’t want no help.” Discontent is a familiar friend, and Dolly doesn’t force its resolution. I asked her how she grapples with such uncertainty, and what helps her feel back in control.
“On one hand I have learned to live in a world where I can’t control everything, and to accept that. On the other hand, when I’m struggling, I practice control by reminding myself that everything passes. The good and the bad. It’s all fleeting and so this too shall pass.”
After listening to this record and getting to know Dolly, I find this zen, near-resignation to the fates of life charming and even inspiring. Her new music spins the dominant culture’s overwhelming nihilism into a frenetic pulse. I guess I was the target audience, then, because when I asked Dolly what she hopes listeners take away from Bad Brain, she said this:
“We're full of complexities and it's okay if you're sitting in the grey of it all.”
That we are, and that we must. Bad Brain is an album written on the precipice of tension and release, torn between anxiety and anger. Dolly’s aware of her neuroses and often welcomes them right in. One of my favorite songs so far is “Killing Machine”, where she sings, “That’s where my head goes, maybe I’m going mental, I just know we’re doomed,” before the drums pick up and distorted guitar rips. I think it’s the perfect encapsulation of the push and pull this album does best. Thinking, thinking, then boom: feeling.
The song Dolly’s most proud of?
“It would have to be Better Side. I feel a responsibility to touch on the climate of the world we live in. The personal songs are meaningful, but I was happy to write a song that was beyond me.”
You can listen to these songs and more on Dolly Ave’s new record, Bad Brain, streaming now on all platforms.
Sneaky Bonus Thoughts:
My mentally ill brethren who fail talk therapy will really get the thinking vs. feeling thing I keep mentioning on this record
Mid-2000s to late 2010s indie rock, alt rock, punk rock, electronic & shoegaze influences but melodically pop
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