What's Up! Magazine

At times, the confines of the rock interview prove to be frustrating. Especially on a limited time schedule, when all you want to do is pick your interview subject’s brains for wisdom and experience, have a conversation. I’ve found this to be the case with many of my interviewees, simply enjoying new company and perspective and forgetting for periods of time that I’m supposed to be organizing thoughts into concise and publishable quotes.

Such was the case when I sat down at Tokyo House with Alex Parrish and Angela Seguel of local indie-popsters Dame Dulce. The information and opinions provided were interesting, but just as good were the personalities behind them, something not fully transmutable to print.

But, for those not familiar with the band, here’s some history. Dame Dulce was formed in the summer of 2001 when Angela Seguel bought a drum set and she and her husband (Parrish) started kicking out the sweet and sensibly romantic jams. Throughout the years, the couple has been the core of Dame Dulce, with rotating membership accompanying them, including Serene (Yr Heart Breaks) and members of The Geese. The current lineup is a three-piece, featuring Dave Matthies (The Gift Machine) on bass.

“We’re thinking lately that Dave’s part of the band,” Seguel says laughing.

“We don’t have any plans of making music without him,” Parrish interjects.

Such interludes made up the bulk of the interview, such as when I brought out the typical “so, what made you want to start a band” question.

“You know, we’re kind of in love with each other,” says Seguel.

“We’ve been that way for a while,” Parrish adds.

“We’d both done music projects before that, so it just makes sense that we’d do something together,” Seguel says.

The conversation drifts to their collective and individual musical pasts, the role that couple hood plays in band dynamics (prominent) and future plans for Dame Dulce, who’s sound has been expanding to include forays into fuzzy, seventies funk rock, which mixes unexpectedly well with their loungier, Pavement-influenced earlier work.

“Well, they (Pavement) were my favorite band between the ages of eighteen and twenty – that doesn’t leave you. But I think that we could have never heard Pavement and we’d still be making the same music,” Parrish says.

This leads to a conversation about which member of Pavement one would choose to be (I choose Malkmus, natch) and the recent additions to the Dame Dulce sound

“We still write sweet, beautiful pop songs but now we have these ‘get the funky drummer out’ songs,” Seguel says.

“I don’t know if my guitar playing has gotten better, but it’s definitely gotten braver,” says Parrish. He then adds that the “funk rock” in their sound is comparative to earlier Dulce work, something that should be kept in mind by anyone expecting La Push style hippie jams.

Eventually, the interview ended, and, it being an interview, I gave the opportunity for any last words from the band. At the time, they were nonchalant, nothing coming to mind, but a few days later I received an e-mail from Parrish, issuing a challenge to the wah-wah guitaring community of Bellingham that dare not be ignored.

“I, [Alex] hereby challenge all the local hippie type jam bands to a jamathon. They know who they are, even if I don’t. I believe that my 4th rate Santana rip-offs can out smoke their second rate rip-offs of whoever played guitar for Phish. I will fill the Wild Buffalo w/ a heavy wah fuzz that will not cease until our pockets are overflowing w/ the money of their trustifarian fans that once went to them.”

So it has been written, so it shall be done.