CREATIVE CONVERSATIONS 132: DOLCE BLUE ON THE BENEFITS OF RERELEASING

Interview by AJ Mahar.

Indie-rock/alt-pop band Dolce Blue have released the final taste of their extended LP, Sweet Melancholy Deluxe with a new rework of a fan favourite, Dream Catcher ft. Finn Pearson.

Futuremag Music sat down with songwriter/frontwoman Veronica Zurzolo, to talk about the numerous benefits rereleasing music can bring and why more Australian artists should consider this.

FMM: Your latest release, Dream Catcher, has been released previously. It's a familiar one. What made you want to revisit it? 

Veronica: When we originally wrote the song, I kind of felt that the narrative of it was a conversation between two people. That's kind of how I wrote it, and it's something I'd been thinking of at the time, to just re-record it like that and have two different people talking and narrating the story, I guess.

FMM: What made you go with Finn Pearson to be the other person on this one?

Veronica: He just seemed like a natural choice. I'm a big fan of his work. We're friends and his voice, I thought, would really complement mine. It's just a bit similar kind of laid-back style to it, so I thought they would complement each other nicely on the track.

FMM: I would have to agree with you on that. His voice is almost somewhat low and deadpan.

Veronica: Yeah, it's nice and soft and soothing, which is kind of what I wanted.

FMM: Do you guys go way back, or just someone you run into in the music scene?

Veronica: Um, yeah, someone I just run into in the music scene. I think when we went over to Big Sound last year, we hung out a lot more. I think just being in a different city, it brings people closer together. We hung out there and since then, I've just been bumping into him a lot.

FMM: Did he seem to relate to the song himself?

Veronica: Yeah, he was super stoked when I asked him, which was cool. I wanted someone who'd be excited. He seemed to really connect with it and even added acoustic guitar to it, which wasn't in the original plan, but he just really wanted to engage with it a bit more.

FMM: With going back and revisiting and really dissecting it, has the song changed meaning to you at all?

Veronica: It's one of those songs that's a bit strange in the sense that when I wrote it, I didn't really have an idea of this is what it's about in mind. So, I think over the years, the meaning of it has kind of evolved for me. Before that, I had rewritten it because I originally wrote it as a love song about someone I was with at the time, and then I rewrote it to kind of be on the flip side of that, I suppose, but in a vague way. I think since then, it's just taken on so many different lives. It seems to evolve with me, which is nice.

FMM: How did you find working with Michael from You're Weird mixing?

Veronica: Yeah, I love Michael. We go way back. We've been recording with him now for, I think, the last three or four years. Big fans of his work. He's just a great guy to work 

FMM: You record yourselves mostly so does he just finish it off?

Veronica: I'll come up with mainly, the key concepts and will demo the song, and then we'll engage with Michael to help us record it and mix it and master it, and then put it all together.

FMM: How did you end up going down the self-producing path ?

Veronica: I think as an independent artist, it's something that you kind of have to do. There's not a lot of money in music, I'm sure most people know. We've always wanted to make music and always wanted to release music. You'll see on our first releases, our first album, even, that we did that all DIY because it's just what we had to do in order to do it. We didn't have a budget to go to a studio and record it all. I think sentiment has carried over through what we've continued to do.

FMM: If you're going to pay for a recording session, you’ve got to have everything right as soon as you go in there. You don't have time to really figure out your music.

Veronica: Absolutely. We spend a lot of time doing things ourselves and getting it how we want it ourselves and then you know, we're lucky enough now to know people like Michael who can help us just take it to that next level.

FMM: When you are working on the recording side of things, is the recording process a group thing, or is it just one person leading it?

Veronica: I think very much in all things of the band, there's always one person leading it. I think I'm kind of the driving force behind it. We've kind of, at the moment, set up a bit of a system where I'll do our scratch tracks, which is just the guitar and vocals, just a very bare bone demo that I'll send to Michael, and then I'll usually be present. When we track drums and bass and guitar, we do it all separately, but I'll usually be present and just overseeing the whole thing to kind of make sure it's aligning with what the final product's going to look like.

FMM: Do you feel like there's been a progression in your skill in the production side of things over the few years you have been doing it now?

Veronica: Yeah, absolutely. When we started recording, I was only 18 and obviously had limited knowledge, limited skills, and even just limited reference points. Since then, I've listened to so much music and just grasped a better understanding on what you can do and how you can make things sound a certain way. I'm sure I'll just continue to keep learning stuff as I get older. 

FMM: When I speak to people who have done audio recording courses, and certainly having tried to record my own music, you have no choice but to figure it out yourself.

Veronica: And that's the thing as well. As an original artist, you want the music to reflect what you're hearing in your head., and no one else is really going to know how to capture that besides yourself. Especially if you don't have the lingo and the know how to be able to describe what you're thinking of.

FMM: Feelings don't always have words to describe them.

Veronica: And, you know, music, a lot of it's what the sound is and how it makes you feel.

FMM: During the pandemic, we had a bit of an interesting situation in the Perth music scene. It was the only place where you could actually really do a gig. Do you feel like in the last few years, since then, there's been a bit of a lull in that?

Veronica: Look, it's a very complex problem to unpack. I think a lot of it comes down to the state of the economy and people's limited funds to go out and see live music. You see it, live music venues struggling, and I think all of that contributes to it. Also, during COVID, we were told to stay inside, we were told to not go out and interact with people. I think a bit of that has crossed over now, and people don't feel like they have to go out to gigs. They can stay in. They've gotten used to that. So, yeah, I think it's a real combination of things.

FMM: What's next for Dolce Blue?

Veronica: So, we've got our deluxe album coming out next month, so that's the big thing on the horizon for us. 

FMM: Actually, something I was going to ask earlier; what else can we expect from that extended edition of Sweet Melancholy?

Veronica: It's interesting rereleasing an album. It's actually going to be seven additional tracks, which sounds ridiculous saying it out loud, but it's four new songs, so two of them have already been released, Sugar Free and Typical Kind of Fun. With the other two, you can expect more singing from our drummer, Brody, which is very nice. Also, we've got this really nice pop-rock ballad thing going on. I really enjoy that song. We've also got three reworks of songs. So, Dream Catcher with Finn Pearson's one of them. We've also got Valentino, but I sing it in Italian, which is interesting. To finish off the album is Dinosaurs, but a stripped back version. The original album ends on Dinosaurs and his one's the same song, but I've recorded it how I originally wrote it. So, it's just me live in a studio with a piano and singing just very bare bones of the track.

FMM: Sounds like more of an Extended Edition than Charli XCX's new album!

Veronica: I think it's just like any artist; it's a great opportunity to promote your release again and really give the fans something else, especially in this day and age.

FMM: Obviously, once upon a time when, you had your 45, you had your b-side, that's where you released all your other songs. And so, I guess with that not being so much of a thing these days, the extended editions and how common and quickly they are, probably make sense now.

Veronica: Yeah, absolutely, and I think it's something that we've reflected on a lot as a band. We really love being an artist that releases albums. I think releasing this extended album, it's giving the people that are actually invested in our music and take the time and energy to listen to a whole album if they want even more. There's even more of those deep cuts, you know, other things to make them happy, hopefully.

FMM: I guess even with how common deluxe editions of albums have become, they haven't lost significance to you?

Veronica: Yeah, I think, a lot of my favourite artists do it and I really think more local artists should get around it as a way to promote their music. It's actually been really interesting talking to people and telling them that we're releasing a deluxe album. They're like, no one's doing that in Perth, and I was like, well, maybe they should. 

FMM: It's almost like a power move saying all the biggest stars do it, and we're doing it, which you gotta do sometimes.

Veronica: You gotta do it. You gotta believe in yourself, because no one else will.