Episode 537
with John Darnielle and Dessa
Host Luke Burbank and announcer Elena Passarello reveal the unexpected expertise of our listeners; novelist John Darnielle, frontman of The Mountain Goats, reflects on America's obsession with true crime and becoming a writer in his own right; and rapper and podcaster Dessa discusses falling out of love for a behavioral science experiment, before performing "Jumprope" from her album Chime.
John Darnielle
Novelist
John Darnielle is best known as the founder and front man of The Mountain Goats, an indie folk band which has released twenty studio albums since the early nineties. As a guitarist, pianist, vocalist, and songwriter, Darnielle was for many years the band’s sole member. He is also a New York Times bestselling author of three novels, including 2014’s Wolf in White Van, which was nominated for the National Book Award. His suspenseful new novel Devil House, released in January 2022, explores true crime, memory, and artistic obsession.
Dessa
Rapper and Podcaster
Dessa is a singer, rapper, writer, and speaker who has made a career of bucking genres and defying expectations. Her résumé as a musician includes performances at Lollapalooza and Glastonbury, co-compositions for 100-voice choirs, and recordings with the Minnesota Orchestra. Her track “Congratulations,” part of the #1 album The Hamilton Mixtape, has over 16 million streams. In 2021, she released two EPs: Ides and I Already Like You. She is the author of My Own Devices, a 2018 memoir-in-essays, and an in-demand public speaker on such topics as art, science, and entrepreneurship. Dessa is also the host of Deeply Human, a podcast created by the BBC and American Public Media. On the stage and on the page, Dessa’s style is defined by ferocity, wit, tenderness, and candor.
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Luke Burbank Hey, Elena.
Elena Passarello Hey, Luke. How's it going?
Luke Burbank It's going great. I am really excited about this week's station location identification examination. You ready to play?
Elena Passarello Let's do it.
Luke Burbank This is, of course, where I quiz Elena on a place in the country where Live Wire is on the radio. She's got to guess where I'm talking about. This city is the headquarters of QuikTrip, the regional gas and convenience stores.
Elena Passarello Hmm. We have them in Georgia. It's one of Tony P.'s favorite places on the planet.
Luke Burbank One of your dad's favorite places. Live Wire supporter, Tony Passarello.
Elena Passarello Is it a southern, a southern locale?
Luke Burbank We're going more midwest. How about this? This city used to hold the Guinness World Record for most nightclubs and bars on one street. That's not going to help at all.
Elena Passarello Madison, Wisconsin.
Luke Burbank Wow. You're in the right state. Can you name another place in Wisconsin?
Elena Passarello Milwaukee, Wisconsin?
Luke Burbank How about La Crosse, Wisconsin? Where we are on WLSU radio. Yes. La Crosse, Wisconsin. Once the nightclub capital of America, maybe?
Elena Passarello Saw on a map once like the states with the most bars in it and Wisconsin just crushed it. But I didn't know that La Crosse was particularly dense in bar population.
Luke Burbank Wisconsin often leads the nation in alcohol consumption per capita, and it sounds like La Crosse is really doing their part of the heavy lifting. So shout out to everybody tuning in on WLSU Radio out there in La Crosse. All right. Should we get to the show?
Elena Passarello Let's do it.
Luke Burbank All right. Take it away.
Elena Passarello From PRX, it's...
Audience Live Wire!
Elena Passarello This week, author and musician John Darnielle of The Mountain Goats.
John Darnielle One of the things the book is about is mythmaking, right? And the nature of the stories we hold as true.
Elena Passarello And rapper and podcast host Dessa.
Dessa You acclimate to outrageous conditions by virtue of the fact that you don't have the metabolic energy to maintain rage. But you do at 13.
Elena Passarello I'm your announcer, Elena Passarello. And now the host of Live Wire: Luke Burbank.
Luke Burbank Thank you so much, Elena. Thanks, everyone, for tuning in from all over the country, including in beautiful La Crosse, Wisconsin. We do have a great show for you this week, of course. We asked the listeners a question. We asked, what expertise would most people be surprised that you have? We have two guests this week who are both really good at kind of a lot of things. So we want to find out what our listeners are really good at. We're going to hear those responses in a minute. First, though, it's time for the best news we heard all week. This right here is our little reminder at the top of the show there is some good news happening out there in the world. Elena, what's the best news you heard this week?
Elena Passarello Grocery news. All right. I don't know, are you familiar? I don't know if we have these out here in the Pacific Northwest with the grocery store chain known as Aldi or Aldi's.
Luke Burbank I've never been in one, but I feel like I've driven past one or something. I think I thought it was a shoe store with a name like Aldi.
Elena Passarello Aldi shoes. Well, I remember Aldi from my time in Iowa. I think it might be kind of Midwestern, I'm not sure. But this is also a midwestern story involving an Aldi, but in a very interesting way. They had a contest to see if anybody would be interested in getting married at Aldi. And it turns out that Aldi's two biggest fans, Michael Hurd and Jessica Bojanowski, who are in a fianced couple, very much wanted to get married in Aldi. They entered the contest and then in Batavia, Illinois, which I believe is their local franchise of Aldi's, they tied the knot in November and Aldi took care of everything. And honestly, this wedding, I've seen worse, like I think it looks pretty, pretty good.
Luke Burbank That what you want to hear about your wedding: I've seen worse.
Elena Passarello So the the pictures are actually kind of lovely. And the story is lovely, too, because Michael and Jessica work, they've been together for a while and they work opposite hours during the week. So they don't see very much of each other. And sort of part of their couple ritual is a kind of leisurely trip to Aldi's every Saturday. So I think that's one of the reasons why it's so meaningful that they had their wedding there. And the pictures look great. Honestly, the altar where they got married, they brought in those shelves of apples, you know, kind of like at a farmer's market in those boxes. And of course, this is in the fall. So a lot of great colorful apples. The aisle is the classic Aldi's rainbow, which is kind of part of their insignia. They had the reception over in the beer and wine aisle.
Luke Burbank Okay. They've sort of got everything you need, right, in a grocery store for your wedding.
Elena Passarello Yeah. I mean, you never have to, if you, like, the thing that always happens to me when I go to weddings is my feet start hurting. Just run over to the Band-Aid aisle and you're all set. So plenty of space for, I don't know, like the food table, which took the entire run of one of the checkout lanes, one of the conveyor belts, which I thought was pretty cute. Aldi made signature food for them. They made signature cocktails. They also had a wedding registry where they got a bunch of great stuff. And the wedding cake, instead of having a bride and groom on top of it, had a shopping cart on top of it.
Luke Burbank Nice. Very on-brand.
Elena Passarello Yeah, it looks great. It looked really lovely.
Luke Burbank Now, you all got married secretly, which I'll never forgive you for, by an Elvis Impersonator.
Elena Passarello You and my mom.
Luke Burbank Now, now that, you know, getting married in an Aldi is possible, are you reconsidering your choice to get married by an Elvis impersonator?
Elena Passarello I would do a double and I would do an Aldi with a different era of Elvis on every aisle. So it's like sort of clean up on aisle 7, it's '68-comeback-special on aisle seven, and then you have the aloha from Hawaii in the fruit section, etc., etc., etc..
Luke Burbank I don't think there's anybody who knows more about Elvis right now than you, thanks to this book project that you've been doing, you a font of knowledge of all things Elvis related. All right. The best news that I've seen this week, Elena, involves what they think might be the world's largest goldfish, Carrot. I don't know if you're near a computer, but while we're chatting, see if you can Google Carrot, the 67 and a half pound goldfish that this British angler named Andy Hackett was able to catch. Now, he didn't catch this fish actually in the UK it was in France, in the Blue Water Lakes District of Champagne. France. I'm seeing the look on your face, Elena, like, you're looking now at a picture of Carrot the goldfish. Have you ever seen anything like it?
Elena Passarello How is that a goldfish? Is it just because it's the same color as a goldfish? It looks like a like a mackerel or like a whale or something.
Luke Burbank It is actually a cross between a leather carp and a koi carp. But it looks to me like I mean, just imagine, like the goldfish that your kid brings home from school, like, for the Christmas break. Someone's got to watch the the hamsters and the goldfish while everyone's on vacation. Just imagine that. But, like, a million times bigger. And that is Carrot the goldfish.
Elena Passarello He definitely needs both hands to hold this goldfish. It is a, you know, I would have a hard time doing bicep curls with it.
Luke Burbank This goldfish is legendary, apparently, in this lake. This guy who caught him said, I knew Carrot was out there, but I never thought I would catch them. I knew it was a big fish when it took my bait and went off side to side and up and down with it. Like, I mean, how do you catch one of these goldfish? Do you just sprinkle some of that, like, those flakes on top of the lake and they just, like, come up and like, eat them? I don't know what the process is.
Elena Passarello Sprinkle goldfish crackers.
Luke Burbank Yes. Exactly. So Carrot is, they think, the largest goldfish. I mean, if we're going to call it a goldfish out in the world at 67.4 pounds, to be exact. Apparently Carrot is also very elusive for being a gargantuan goldfish. Carrot is pretty savvy and has been avoiding, like people come to this lake to try to catch this particular goldfish. And I was reading this and looking at the picture of this guy, Andy Hackett, holding the goldfish. And I thought, it's kind of a shame because now the world's largest goldfish is going to be deceased. But it turns out and this is why this is the best news I've heard this week, right after taking the picture, he gently put Carrot back into the lake.
Elena Passarello Yes!
Luke Burbank So Carrot will live on and get to become even more rotund in its dodges. They don't say, I think, what the gender of Carrot is. So we'll just go with nondescript.
Elena Passarello I think female according to this thing that I just googled on my phone. Fox News.
Luke Burbank Oh, great. Yeah. The place to turn for large goldfish news. Anyway, the fact that this guy got his big prize, the goldfish and the goldfish didn't have to lose its life over the whole thing is the best news I've heard all week. All right. Let's welcome our first guest on over to the show. He's the founder and frontman of the band The Mountain Goats, who, for those of you might not know, they're an indie folk band. They've released 20 studio albums going all the way back to the early nineties. But he's also a New York Times best selling author of three novels. The L.A. Times calls him a master at building suspense. His latest novel, Devil House, came out in January, and I was able to sit down with John Darnielle at Town Hall in Seattle to talk about it. Take a listen. For folks who haven't had a chance to read the book yet, can you kind of lay out as much of the plot of Devil House as you feel comfortable with? Or at least what is the arc of this this book?
John Darnielle It is about a true crime author, an engaged Chandler, who has a method that involves inhabiting the property where the crime happened and sort of it's like method acting where he he scopes out the place and gets inside and his agent calls him and says, Hey, there's a place where some crimes happened that's actually going for sale. It's in this little town called Milpitas, south of San Francisco. So you can move in. So he does. The book is structured, it has a mirror structure so parts one and seven involves that story. Parts two and six involve his first book, The White Witch of Morro Bay and Parts three and five, are, regard the book he's working on. And then part four is this separate freestanding thing about about castle doctrine
Luke Burbank Yeah. Part four is a real doozy. I guess that would be middle English?
John Darnielle I mean, it's not real middle English. It's, I do, I do a pretty convincing middle English.
Luke Burbank I was convinced reading it. So the book is going along kind of with as sort of as one kind of prose. And then everything changes somewhere in the middle, the font, the style of writing. Why did you choose to do that?
John Darnielle Um, well, it has to do with some of the final reveals. It was some plot points that I don't want to bear into. But one of the things the book is about is myth making right. And the nature of the stories we hold as true. And, while I was studying it and studying this Castle Doctrine, which is this law that's it's often used by NRA types to justify shooting people who are on their property. But it's a very old law that begins by saying if you are, in fact, in the King's Castle, the king can do whatever he likes to you. It's his castle, right? And so I started studying this stuff and discovered that the castle is actually a Norman import into England. Right. But when I talk to you about King Arthur, you know, King Arthur has to proceed the Norman invasion. We know the stuff that happened after 1066. We know that Arthur wasn't there. But if the castle comes with the French, where did Arthur live? Where were the Knights of the Round Table? They didn't have a castle. Right.
Luke Burbank It's a very Mandela effect sort of moment.
John Darnielle But they did have a castle because you can see that castle, it's called Camelot.
Luke Burbank I can picture it right now.
John Darnielle And so I'm really into that. Right. That's that's kind of a vortex for me. And in the case of of the house that Gage moves into. It was a castle for some people who lived there. Right. Who had to defend it against interlopers at one point. And so so all that stuff is sort of addressed in a sort of condensed way in the middle section.
Luke Burbank This is Live Wire. From PRX we're listening to a conversation I had with the writer and musician John Darnielle from The Mountain Goats about his latest book, Devil House. We've got to take a quick break. Don't go anywhere. Much more with John coming up in a minute. Welcome back to Live Wire. I'm your host, Luke Burbank, here with Elena Passarello. We are listening to a conversation I had with John Darnielle of the Mountain Goats recorded at Town Hall in Seattle talking about his latest book, Devil House. I'm curious about what your relationship was with true crime before you started writing this book. I think Kirkus called this book an impressively meta work that delivers the pleasure of true crime while skewering it, which I think is an accurate description of what goes on in the book. Was that something that you spent much time with before you started on this project?
John Darnielle Well, I have a I have I have gothic bones. So so is the the mission, the mission, the duty of the young Goth to indulge some true crime. You know, and and but the thing is, when I was in my Gothic days, which continue to this day, but in my more visibly gothic days-
Luke Burbank It's a state of mind, it doesn't have to be externalized with the outfit.
John Darnielle That's right. You carry your Goth with you. But I mean, this is sort of what the book is about to some extent, or is part of what it's about is like when when you're 18, 17, 18, 19 years old. You know, you hear about a serial killer named Peter Curtain, the vampire of Dusseldorf, who asks his executioner if he'd be able to hear his blood rushing out of his neck for even a moment after he was beheaded, because to him, that would be the greatest thing. Right. You hear about this, oh, I got to know more about this guy. You know, and and as you grow and especially become a parent, you start to think more about who these people killed and what were they to those people? You know, and and it becomes a much more complicated question. But young Goths, you know, tend to they get excited that John Wayne Gacy paints clowns, you know, and there's a band every loves this band. Joy Division. Right. Joy Division is named after the prostitution wing of a concentration camp. That's not funny, right? That's not a cool band name, actually. That's a really s*** thing to name your band. Right? But in the late seventies, in the punk era, it was kind of you were trying to do something shocking and and it was shocking and obscure, it was even better. Right. But it is one of those things where you, you know, you reflect and you go, what what effect does it have on people to be just sort of giving a pass to stuff like that over time? I think it has deleterious effect, you know, but at the same time, I don't like to land on "and then you shouldn't be into it" you know, it doesn't do anything for me.
Luke Burbank It does make you think, though, as the reader about sort of there's a big fascination these days with true crime. And I think it's a little different than the John Wayne Gacy stuff. I mean, I just saw a New Yorker cartoon this week where someone is going up to a DJ at a packed rave and asking them, do you have any true crime podcasts you can play? That's where we're at as a society like we have, you're right, there was this sort of goth fascination with the macabre. Now it's just moms who are coming home from pilates listening to My Favorite Murder.
John Darnielle But that's who was going to Grand Guignol stuff in Paris. You know the Grand Guignol? So where we get splatter movies from basically starts in 19th century Paris, a theater called The Grand Guignol, where they did these plays. And the playwrights were sort of these young proto decadence guys drinking absinthe and and being into Baudelaire and stuff like that. And the plays were very bloody like people would pass out at the theater watching them. This was like 19th century stagecraft stuff. And, and they were all like a lot of them were derived from from Roman tragedy, which is very different from Greek tragedy. It's all the same basic stories, but Roman tragedy is gnarly and that stuff sort of is the proto true crime thing. I think it's like this because they were often presented and the same thing happens in pre Hays Code mysteries and horror stuff. They're presented as moral lessons. Like, I'm showing you this in case you ever meet up with a guy who offers you soup and you don't know what's in it. Right? And that's a pose, right? That's a that's a pose is like, no, you're not. You're showing me this because you think it's bitchin.
Luke Burbank Did you have a hunch you were going to be good at writing novels? And I ask because you have written a ton of music.
John Darnielle Don't know that I am either.
Luke Burbank Well, they've they've all sold a lot and been well-reviewed. And there's a bunch of people here who've read the previous novels. I just I wonder about that because, you know, you've had a lot of success with music, but this is a sort of different thing. And I mean, particularly with your first novel, I don't mean the 33 1/3 book, which is great, but I mean the novel novel, we're just kind of like, I hope I'm good at this?
John Darnielle Yeah, well, a couple of things. I was like after I did the 33 1/3, that's when my agent made contact and said, I thought this was really good. If you ever work on anything else, if you want somebody to represent you, give me a holler. And and I said, well, I actually did start working on something while I was waiting, this is how I work, like when I'm waiting to get the edit back on whatever I just wrote, I start writing something else just to keep busy. And as I had done that with what became the first six chapters, well, the original very different draft of Wolf in White Van. And then I just sort of let it sit because I was busy, had other stuff to do, you know. And a few years later he. He said, If you have anything, you know, I'd love to show it around. I sent him six chapters and he said, you know, I can absolutely sell this. So so he did. But the thing is, I have an absolute horror of getting anything at all on the basis of being John Darnielle, you know what I mean? Like last time I was in Seattle, someone tried to pay for my dinner. Why should you pay for my dinner? You shouldn't pay for my dinner. I have a good job. If you like my music, you paid for my music. You sure don't owe me any dinner or drinks. I owe you dinner and drinks, you know? And so, so. And I you know, I grew up in Southern California. I know that celebrities, like, they start paying for stuff. They just go in and somebody wants to buy Tom Cruise a drink. Why? Why should he get a free drink? He has millions of dollars. And so when I go to write a book, I know that, like, I have an advantage that a writer who doesn't have a band that people like doesn't have. Right. I'm 100% certain there's better writers than me out there banging their heads against the wall, trying to get published, you know, but they don't, you know, when they present their stuff, an editor might be like yeah, this is great. How am I going to sell this? Who are you? What are you going to do? Like 33 1/3, when you pitch one now they ask you to include a marketing plan because it's hard to sell books. Right. And so but I have an absolute like I really from the minute somebody asked me about the book, I was like, I do not want one person to read this book and think, well, you know, see if they would have published this if you weren't that dude.
Luke Burbank What are you hoping folks get out of their experience reading Devil House?
John Darnielle I mean, the answer for me always, first and foremost with music and books is pleasure, right? It's like, I hope they have a good time reading it. I don't I'm not didactic. Like there is nothing worse than the just asking questions guy. But on a broader scale, I mean, that is what I write to pose, to let questions out into the air. I don't write to teach.
Luke Burbank It seems that a theme of this book is a question of sort of who gets to tell stories about real people.
John Darnielle That's right.
Luke Burbank And I wonder, you know, with your songs, if you're telling stories about real people and if some of that thought about this stuff in the book also applies to the musical process, as far as, do you ever feel bad? You ever put a real person in a scenario in your song and then you sort of regret it?
John Darnielle Yes, I have. Somebody I was having an affair with who, before I got married, but who said, you know, that song is just straight narrative. I was like, no one's going to know, right? And no one does. But, but, but yeah. No, I used to do that a lot, actually, but it was usually as a wink to somebody, to the only other person who would know, right. And and that's a little different. And it was all really heavily cloaked, you know, whereas I think when you're telling a story, I mean, look, if you're sleeping with somebody you're not supposed to be sleeping with and you tell that story in some in a roman a clef sort of style, it doesn't matter. Nobody cares about your affair. It doesn't actually matter. Right. But if you're telling a story where people actually got hurt, where people died, people's lives changed in a really important way, then I think the duty to think about what the effect of telling that story on others and letting it out into the world is going to be, is an important question, right. I don't think, emphatically don't think that that leads to any simple "and then you shouldn't," right, or that only the following people should do that. I don't think it's like that, but I think what it should do is inform your practice.
Luke Burbank Has that practice evolved for you of writing songs because of those experiences?
John Darnielle Yeah. Well, I mean, yeah, I mean, a lot of the stuff I'm interested in writing about has changed over the years. I mean, I just follow my, my heart on that. But it's like that's not, you know, I mean, I'm a middle aged father of two now and I'm not having any affairs, but I don't have that stuff to draw on now. I suppose if I was out there doing that, I would probably want to do that still, you know, but, but yeah, it was, it was a different me who was doing that.
Luke Burbank I know you're you're somebody who, you know, you studied literature in college. You obviously read widely. Do you feel like that is what's helped you be a good writer of novels is is just all of the other stuff that you've consumed?
John Darnielle I think, if I'm a good writer, it's because I am in awe of great writers and that's who I mainly glut myself on. And in that glut, I actually I dole them out sparingly, which at my age and now start to go. You should stop being so sparing with the ones you think are the best ones and read them before you die. So but when I'm reading great stuff, I mean, I want to do that. And I also know that I can't. But I sort of really, really have a strong desire to be able to stand next to the writers that I worship, you know, the ones that I think are, you know, unimpeachably great. So if you pair that with with the fact that I also really believe that my neck of the woods is to entertain, right, you know, the stuff I read a lot of would not be entertaining to a lot of people. Right? It's entertaining to people who like literary fiction. But when I do my stuff, I want it to have that, but also be something you can read on an airplane. You know that you can be on an airplane if you're not me. So so there's a sort of a is a hierarchical thing that I feel I like to be a disciple. I like to I like to stand in beneath somebody and aspire to their condition.
Luke Burbank John Darnielle, everyone. The book is Devil House. Thank you for coming out. Thanks, John. That was John Darnielle, recorded at Town Hall in Seattle. John's latest book, Devil House, is available now. And also his band, The Mountain Goats, are out on tour. So check them out in a town near you. Live Wire is brought to you in part by Alaska Airlines. Alaska Airlines offers the most nonstop from the West Coast, including destinations like Hawaii, Palm Springs and San Francisco. And as a member of the OneWorld Alliance, Alaska Airlines can connect you to more than 1000 destinations worldwide with their global partners. Learn more at AlaskaAir.com. This is Live Wire from PRX. Of course, each week we ask our listeners a question. This week we've got two multi-talented multi hyphenate guests on the show. So we wanted to find out from our listeners what expertise would most people be surprised that you have. Elena has been collecting those responses. What do you see?
Elena Passarello Oh, listen to this one from Tracy. Tracy's expertise is I have an uncanny ability to recommend the best restaurant or bar for any occasion. Oh, that's such a good skill.
Luke Burbank That is amazing. I have whatever the opposite of that is.
Elena Passarello You can find the worst place to go.
Luke Burbank I always manage to find the worst place to go.
Elena Passarello You're just always at Quiznos.
Luke Burbank I'm overwhelmed. I have a real, you know, decision paralysis because, you know, I live in Portland and there are just so many great places to go. And I'll just like, I'll just sort of stare at the list of places and then just yeah. End up ordering, you know, a pizza delivery or something.
Elena Passarello Same, yeah, or I'll just like, like just I'll get so stressed out that I'm not even hungry anymore.
Luke Burbank I wish my stress manifested like that. I think I get the I get the stress munchies. What's something else that one of our listeners can do that people might be surprised by?
Elena Passarello Oh, this is this is good for you. Maybe you need some help from the expertize of Soumya, who says, I can always de-stress a situation. So when you're trying to figure out what restaurant to go to and you get the stress munchies, then you can call Tracy and get a great restaurant rec.
Luke Burbank Can we set up a servicem Soumya? Can you like text the show or something? I'm going to need to call you next time I'm in a pickle. One more secret talent of one of our listeners.
Elena Passarello Oh, I love this one from Verna. Verna's expertise is in other people's relationship problems.
Luke Burbank Why is it so much easier to diagnose what other people should do in there? It's like being a kid and you'd be at your friend's house and you'd be washing the dishes after dinner. And it just wasn't nearly as annoying as washing your own dishes at your actual house? Did you ever have that experience?
Elena Passarello I thought you were going to say that while you're washing dishes, you listen to your friend's parents fight and you could easily solve their relationship problems. But no, it's just that you were very happy to help.
Luke Burbank Somehow dealing with other people's stuff is just kind of less annoying than dealing with your own stuff.
Elena Passarello That's true. Yeah. There's no resistance when you're a guest in someone's home to just, like, get up and do the dishes. But in your own home, it just feels like this Herculean labor.
Luke Burbank Exactly. Or like, if you know someone else's relationship is falling apart I feel like I have lots of great, I'm the Tracy of, I'm sort of like that listener. I'm the Tracy of recommendations. I can recommend all kinds of things for these people to do. None of which I can implement in my own life. All right. Thank you so much to everyone who sent in those responses. We have another listener question for next week's show, which we will reveal at the end of this program. So stick around for that. You're listening to Live Wire Radio. I'm Luke Burbank here with Elena Passarello. Our musical guest this week is a singer, rapper, writer and speaker who has made a career out of blending genres and defying expectations. She's performed at Lollapalooza and Glastonbury. Her track Congratulations from the Hamilton Mixtape has over 17 million streams. She's also the host of the fascinating podcast, Deeply Human. She joined us at the Alberta Rose Theater in Portland, Oregon. This is Dessa performing her song Jump Rope.
Dessa (singing) Girls on the block to calling out the same games that I played. It goes turn around and jump, touch the ground then jump wake up to find work and look for love. And when that rope comes round you jump, that rope comes round you jump, jump, jump, jump. You sterilize the needle with a lighter and a prayer. Sew your empty packets closed, cut off all your hair. You train up on the mountaintop to weaponize the blood. You bring your body back to sea level to see what body does. And it runs and it runs and it runs. It was just jumprope then. You try not to get hit. You try to stay in. Don't let em talk that down. Still jump rope now. It was just jump rope then. You try not to get hit. You try to stay in. Don't let em talk that down. It's still jump rope now. You hope you get the fast horse some of what you ask for and never let a broken heart keep you from the dance floor. Have a little fun. Have a little fun. You can't make me pay by all new rules. Some kids barely practice but I do. I'm old enough to know how this goes. How it all plays out. How it all plays out. The end is always when the ring is empty and we all fall down. It was just jump rope then. Trying not to get hit. You try to stay in. Don't let em talk that down. It's still jump rope now.
Luke Burbank That was great. How long have you been back doing live music in a live space with people.
Dessa With humans. With human people? I mean, I think like a lot of folks who probably made a lot of false starts. You know, it was like, let's rebook the tour. Sike! Let's rebook the—sike! You know? But but now for a few months, we've had most of our shows go. So every once in a while, if there's a spike, you know, we'll call something off. But yeah, we've been back at it now for a few months.
Luke Burbank And when you got, like back doing it for the first time, did it feel natural and familiar? Was there rust? Like, what was it like getting back into that mode of performance?
Dessa I remember that I was like in my early twenties I had a car and I had never opened the hood and I lived in Minnesota. And the way that like a calcification will build up on a car battery is a remarkable thing. I mean, it's like,
Luke Burbank Corrosion.
Dessa Water. Yeah. It's like white and green and colors you didn't know were inside your car. There was a little bit of that first day back. I remember like, you know, I was on stage with Aviva, Jay and Joshua, who we just heard and and it was like one of us couldn't remember which direction upstage meant. And then the other two couldn't either.
Luke Burbank Yeah. Did it come back pretty quickly after you remembered what upstage meant?
Dessa We're still, we're no yeah, it did. I mean, it's it's. It feels great now. It really does. Yeah.
Luke Burbank This tour that you're on is called The Ides Project Tour. And can you remind us you were on a while ago on Live Wire talking about the Ides Project, but what was that exactly?
Dessa Yeah. So it was kind of like depths of the pandemic, trying to figure out how to make and release art when a lot of like the systems that one would normally adhere to didn't make sense. The templates, you know, you could essentially light them on fire and throw them into the snow and that, you know, usually a musician will make a bunch of songs. You go into a studio, you record them, and you run around until people don't want to hear them anymore. And then you repeat the rinse and repeat, you know. But there was no running around to record, obviously. And I was really aware of the fact that like, I was having deep emotional connections to fake people on Netflix series because—
Luke Burbank I believe those are parasocial relationships, they call them.
Dessa Yes, they do. You just call him Roy Kent, fake boyfriend, you know, whatever.
Luke Burbank Yeah. So you were developing a strong connection to Roy Kent and during the pandemic. And and how did that cause you to want to do this regular sort of practice of this Ides project?
Dessa I liked the fact that, you know, at night or whatever before going to bed that I could return to these series. There was always more to be had, you know, just and it was such, and winter is the worst. And I was like, I would like to release music in that format where after you consume some of it, you know, you hear a new song, you know that there's more to look forward to. And so instead of releasing a record, I decided to do this kind of like intermittent single project, which isn't something that I'd done before, because I liked the idea of something on the horizon when it felt like so much was underground.
Luke Burbank This is Live Wire Radio. We're talking to Dessa. Were you releasing the tracks on the 15th of every month?
Dessa I was.
Luke Burbank I trying to remember because I know we chatted about this at some point. But I guess my question is what was happening when it was like the 12th and maybe you weren't feeling inspired? Like, I'm interested in this approach to creativity of, you know, they say with Saturday Night Live, like they do the show not because it's ready, but because it's 11 p.m. on Saturday. Did it help your creativity?
Dessa Yeah. I mean, I think in some way, you know, I've always been sort of, I think left to my own devices, I can be kind of precious about stuff, you know, like I can really make that last 5% of a process, you know, make that last years and so and so, yeah. Just having a strict deadline, I think in the context in which we were all living, where everybody knew like, yo, this isn't going to be perfect because you can't go into a mixed studio. You can't. I do feel like it actually ended up I don't know, it felt like training with, you know, with a parachute running around. Is that still something that runners do? I don't know, but yeah. So every every month, you know, to be honest, it was just trying to name the series in a way that would help people remember when it was coming out. And so I was like, What's one word that everybody knows: Ides. And then everyone was like, IDs? And I realized I had picked the wrong word.
Elena Passarello How many Ides did you do? How many months worth of Ides?
Dessa A nice round seven.
Luke Burbank Sure. One of those was the song Terry Gross, which you performed on the show, which is amazing. It was getting a lot of attention. Why Terry Gross and why not Lakshmi Singh?
Dessa Lakshmi Singh doesn't rhyme with a lot, man.
Luke Burbank I see.
Dessa Terry Gross, I just I think she's, I think she's boss. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No shade Lakshmi, you know.
Luke Burbank Sure. Also boss.
Dessa Also double boss.
Luke Burbank Yeah. So you also you host a podcast Deeply Human that start second season. Did you, have you picked up some hosting techniques from Terry Gross?
Dessa I like the fact that Terry Gross seems to be interested in having conversation and that she's not afraid to say "what? I don't know what that means" or like, "are you serious?" You know, she just like she doesn't seem like she has to be in the driver's seat. And the burden of, like, omniscience isn't one that she's decided to pick up. I like that she sounds really human.
Luke Burbank So do you try to bring that to your hosting? Because you mean you have this great show where you're talking about kind of behavioral science, but you're trying to get into it in a as the name would indicate, a very human way.
Dessa There's been a lot of times, because you have to look well, I have to like listen back to my own audio and I can hear the moment where I try to be Terry Gross. And then I am like a lesser Terry Gross in some moments.
Luke Burbank Is that the part where Dave Davies shows up for you?
Dessa Oh! Boom boom shots fired!
Luke Burbank Cut all that out.
Dessa But we know. Yeah. I mean. And also, I mean, Terry Gross has the added benefit of being Terry Gross. So I feel like when Terry Gross doesn't know something, it sounds like humble and and charming. Whereas if like random lady off the street is talking to a neuroscientist like, Oh, dude, I've never heard that word before, it's not as charming. So I feel like I have to know everything until I have the name recognition. And then I'm allowed to become ignorant.
Luke Burbank Right.
Dessa Can we. Can we have, like a moment here where I remove the fourth wall and become vulnerable in front of everybody? My bracelets are locked together and I can't undo them. Thank you.
Luke Burbank Can we can we add-
Elena Passarello That cost extra.
Luke Burbank Can we add escapist to your resume? Later on in the show, we're going to lower you into a tank of water upside down. See if you can make your way out. The second season of Deeply Human is coming up. What kind of stuff do you get into and explore?
Dessa So I got to try like an alcohol alternative that's supposed to, you know, kind of gently intoxicate by acting on the GABA receptors in your brain, but it doesn't have like a hangover or result in that kind of like tissue inflammation. That was exciting. And we talk about accents. I'm a language fiend and I think a lot of us are charmed, you know, if you have a friend who can just like slay accents, I mean, that person just wins the party.
Luke Burbank Yeah. Yeah. Or like, if you're me, every accent I do ends up sounding like Bill Clinton. Oh, it's terrible. It is really terrible. It just starts off with me trying to do like an Irish person. And then pretty soon it's just like, hey, how's it going? Like, it just it it is a one way street to Clinton Town. Which is the opposite of slaying it at the party.
Dessa That's a cul-de-sac, my guy, yeah, yeah.
Luke Burbank That's Dessa right here on Live Wire. I'm Luke Burbank with Elena Passarello. We got to take a quick break, but don't go anywhere. More live wire with Dessa in a moment. Welcome back to Live Wire from PRX. I'm Luke Burbank, here with Elena Passarello. We're listening to a conversation we had with the rapper, writer and podcast host Dessa at the Alberta Rose Theater in Portland, Oregon. Take a listen. You gave this TED talk. Can we choose to fall out of love? It's got, like, over 4 million views. What were you exploring with that TED talk?
Dessa I was trying to fall out of love, man.
Luke Burbank Really? Actively?
Dessa 100% yes. I'd been in love with the same dude for, like, I don't know, eight times as long as would have been helpful for anybody involved. You know, and it just became sort of like an embarrassing thing, like braces. Those are fine to have for a while. But you don't want to die with braces. Right. Do you know what I mean? And I had been in love for just way too long. And so after waiting for three years and then five years and then ten years and then, you know, a long time. I was like, man, what if I just tried to tackle this as you would, any other problem? You know, you just put your hands on your hips and put your safety goggles on and work it out. And so I ended up like asking a few, a couple of neuroscientists if they'd be game to try a particular experimental protocol to see if we might be able to make some headway that way.
Luke Burbank Wow. Do you want to talk about how that went or is that spoiling the TED Talk for people?
Dessa I would say that you can sort of fall out of love medium, you know. But yeah, I mean, I guess the happy stories like I'm not in love with the dude anymore. I would need you to applaud at this point. But also it was just like it was such an exciting project.
Luke Burbank By the way, he's here tonight. Jason. Come on down. We told you we had a surprise, Des.
Dessa Okay. But also it was just like, I don't know. It was one of the most exciting projects of my life. I remember standing at the kitchen, in my kitchen, like in my apartment and reading something that I was really excited, I was reading about the the brain of a dead Parisian woman who is anonymous in the scientific literature. It was her brain which was used to create some of the atlases. So essentially it's like the way that we know what's in your head or in my head, like how far in to sink the needle before we get to a particular region was based on this one brain, at least in the beginning. And I got so excited as I was researching this and I felt like I was going to vomit. And so I was like holding the edge of the sink. It was just one of the most rewarding, like intellectual ventures that I'd had. And in some way, it's like loving that work enough, I think, gave me something else to love, too, you know?
Luke Burbank Gotcha. All right. Let's talk about this, Dessa. Besides your musical accomplishments, you're also, as we've now been exploring the host of this podcast, Deeply Human. It takes a very personal look at neuroscience and behavioral science and things like that. As such, we were hoping we could take a moment to pick your deeply human brain and get some insights from your life. So here on the table, we have an actual physical jar. It's got five questions in it based on some of the topics from episodes of your podcast. We call this the Deeply Human jar of truth. Yes. Thank you. Here's how this is going to work. Dessa, you will grab a question at random from the jar of truth. Elena Passarello will read it to you and then we will get your answer.
Elena Passarello Okay, so in your episode, The Teenage Brain, you explore why adolescence is so weird. That means we want to know what do you believe as a teenager that you don't believe anymore?
Dessa Oh, God. Oh, man. Oh, man. I imagined that walking in high heels was something that would happen naturally to you. That that at one point in your life, you'd be able to do it.
Elena Passarello Yeah. That it was just like a state of mastery.
Dessa You get breasts, you move out of your house, you can magically walk in high heels. You know what I mean?
Elena Passarello Licensure.
Dessa And it doesn't. That didn't happen. But I would also say, at the risk of being totally maudlin, that, yes, of course, there there's some things that I would like that I think differently about now. But I think that there were some things that she was right about that I've gotten too tired to police the same way that I used to. Like she was right, this place is insane and not fair.
Luke Burbank So young Dessa was actually right about a few things.
Dessa I think so. And it's just like you get, you acclimate. You acclimate to outrageous conditions by virtue of the fact that you don't have the metabolic energy to maintain rage, but you do at 13, you know.
Elena Passarello Okay. In the episode "Spooked" you investigate some of the most mystical, disorienting and disturbing experiences that a person can have. So we want to know what is something that scares you way more than it should?
Dessa Oh, something that scares me way more than it should. Okay, there is a turn in that question because I was ready with the answer having a nosebleed on mushrooms. But that's not the way that the question ended.
Luke Burbank Now, hold on.
Dessa No, no, no.
Luke Burbank First thought. Best thought.
Dessa Y'all had your chance.
Luke Burbank Question. What question has the answer "had a nosebleed on mushrooms?"
Dessa What question isn't that the answer to? .
Elena Passarello Amen. Amen.
Dessa You know what scares me? I would I will say that I think, like, I've known that I'm high strung for a long time. I am only fully appreciating like how high above concert a I am wired. The amount of, like, rumination that's expended on like really minor social things is surprising. And, you know, just like the thing where you, like, replay the thing that you said the night before. I think now that I'm adult, I've had a chance to like trade notes with other people. I'm scared of that. I'm scared of of even like minor slights to other people really genuinely freak me out in a way that intellectually I know is entirely out of proportion.
Luke Burbank I was wondering if you had come to any kind of insight on that, because I think one of the key requirements of being a public radio listener is also having intrusive thoughts. So I feel like the people hearing this can relate to sort of rumination and intrusive thoughts. And if you in all of your sort of neurological research or lived experience, if you had arrived at something that helped quiet those voices, I bet you there's some people right now who would love to hear about that.
Dessa I mean, I do enjoy whiskey, you know, like that, that quiets it right down for a little while sometimes. But okay, like example. So I'm on tour with two musicians who are like close friends of mine. Aviva plays harp and sings. We share a room together and today I can hear her laughing and I'm already worried that this is going to play well today. When we were coming here, she was reading a book and I didn't want to interrupt Aviva, and I went in my makeup bag, she has a little canister of, like, face cream, and it was in my makeup bag. I have spent the past 3 hours wondering, did she put it in there or did I put it in there and take it? Is it a gift and should I say thank you or did I accidentally take her stuff? Aviva, could you just say yes or no? You didn't? Oh, my God!
Elena Passarello You stole it!
Dessa I'm so sorry.
Luke Burbank Put the cuffs back on her.
Dessa Sorry, Aviva.
Luke Burbank Dessa, everyone, right here on Live Wire. That was Dessa right here on Live Wire. The latest season of Deeply Human is available now and you can visit DessaWander.com that's DessaWander.com for upcoming events. All right, before we get out of here, a little preview of next week's episode. We'll be talking to writer and podcaster Nora McInerney about her latest book, Bad Vibes Only. It's a collection of essays that challenges what Nora calls society's oppressive optimism sort of live-laugh-ove-ification of everything. Then we're also going to talk to author and music entrepreneur Nabil Ayres about his memoir, My Life in the Sunshine, which explores his relationship with his father, the musician Roy Ayres. Also, we're going to hear music from the very talented Madison Cunningham, the now twice Grammy nominated recently Madison Cunningham. And as always, we'll be looking to get your answers to our listener question. Elena, what are we asking the listeners for next week's show?
Elena Passarello We want to know what small thing are you too hard on yourself about?
Luke Burbank I know the grammar of that is killing you as an English professor, but just we're just going to go with it. If you want to tell us about a small thing that you are too hard on yourself about, go ahead and hit us up on Twitter or Facebook. We are @LiveWireRadio. All right. That's going to do it for this episode of Live Wire. Huge thanks to our guests: John Darnielle and Dessa. Dessa's band, by the way, is Joshua Holmgren and Aviva J. Live Wire is brought to you in part by Alaska Airlines. Special thanks to where Wier Harman, Becky Hoffman, Stephanie While, Steven While, Candace Wilkinson-Davis and all the other fine folks over at Town Hall in Seattle.
Elena Passarello Laura Hadden is our executive producer, Heather Dee. Michelle is our executive director. Our producer and editor is Melanie Sevcenko. Our assistant editor is Tré Hester. Our marketing manager is Paige Thomas and our production fellow is Tanvi Kumar. Our house band is Ethan Fox Tucker, Sam Tucker, Zach Domer, a.k.a. Pony, Ayle Alves, and A. Walker Spring, who also composes our music. Molly Pettit is our technical director and mixer and our house sound is by D. Neil Blake.
Luke Burbank Additional funding provided by the Marie Lampfrom Charitable Foundation. Live Wire was created by Robin Tenenbaum and Kate Sokoloff. This week we'd like to thank members William and Kathleen Lockwood of Vancouver, Washington. More information about our show or how you can listen to our podcast head on over to LiveWireRadio.org. I'm Luke Burbank for Elena Passarello and the whole Live Wire team. Thanks for listening and we'll see you next week. PRX.
