If you've been on our site in the past day, chances are you've seen our review of Dylan Pacheco's "Youthful Exuberance" EP. We were lucky enough to be able to sit down and talk with him, taking a bit of a deep dive into his musical background and discussing the new release!
For those who don’t know, who are you and how would you describe your music?
I am Dylan Pacheco, and I guess the music I make is like, I guess I’ve been calling it weirdo pop. I’m trying to make music that’s pop, instantly gratifying or accessible.
So cool! I really love that description you gave of "bedroom pop meets heartland rock." It definitely has elements of the 8-bit/chiptune band Anamanaguchi and then has a folky soul sound as well. How did you decide to mash those up?
The heartland rock thing is the kind of music I grew up on, so I have a lot of experience with it. That’s kind of the filter I see my music through sometimes.
I think the bedroom pop stuff isn’t 100% a necessity, but it’s allowing me the freedom to not have to mess with a band or just letting me do things myself It allows for more freedom and to indulge in sillier or kind of eccentric tendencies I want to move my music through.
The heartland rock stuff is just kind of a jumping-off point, I guess. I know it's hokey, but I like how hokey it is; you watch the music video for Bruce Springsteen’s “Dancing in the Dark” and it’s just silly. There’s just an aspect of theater to it and I like that.
Exactly, a little campy but still so good! Moving on, I know you're a solo artist who likes full creative control, but would you think of ever collaborating with anyone or bringing other people in?
I’ve spent a lot of years playing in bands and stuff like that, and I love that dynamic too. That’s something I’m never going to shut myself off to, just collaborating with different artists.
That’s something I really want to do more of, I think. I live in Austin, Texas, and I have so many friends who are songwriters or musicians.
I think not having a band I can be more spontaneous; you can say “Let's record this” and just work with your friends in a more spur-of-the-moment way. That’s what I’m excited about right now, but it’s hard with quarantine.
So you said you’ve played in many bands over the years, how did you get into music?
I guess I have a musical family; my dad is a songwriter and always wrote music on instruments around the house. I started playing drums and was really bad, I just sucked at drums for many years. (laughs)
I moved to guitar mostly because it’s easier in some ways and I just stuck with that. But I really want to get back into playing drums! I have a little music space set up so I am going to try to get back into it.
That’s really cool man, drums were my first instrument but since moving into the apartment I don’t think the neighbors would take too kindly to that. (laughs) Who are some of your influences?
I was really into 2000’s emo and pop-punk bullshit and I still love a lot of it too. It’s kind of like the heartland rock thing; sappy and silly but has a place in your heart.
[I'm into] a lot of stuff like that, a lot of contemporary stuff like Big Feet, Pale Hound. There's this artist called Emperor X, I think he’s in like Berlin...kind of all over the place.
That’s nice! Kind of like a mixed bag.
So, I really like the production on this thing, from the first song, right away it reminded me of some other stuff I listen to. You can tell and I mean this in a good way, that it’s just you doing your thing, programming the drums and whatnot and I dig it.
Was there a certain aesthetic you had going into this? Like, was there a certain vision or direction you had for it?
I guess yes and no. When I write and try to put songs together for a release, I never really have a big concept with me.
There may be a big general theme that goes through different songs that tie them together, but I feel like I focus on writing song-by-song and I just have to put them together to make a release in some ways.
So, it’s maybe more haphazardly, especially with this one; I was kind of doing it myself, with the help of my buddy Jake Miles who produced it. He helped me a lot with all the production stuff too.
I was like, "I have a bunch of songs and want to see where they go", I got into a little studio with him at his house, and he basically helped me flesh them out. I’m not technically minded but I know what I want in a lot of ways, so it’s helpful to have Jake in a lot of ways to help translate that.
How much of this release, if any was inspired by COVID-19?
It’s kind of funny, because I really feel like it feels very COVID-y.
It feels like a "quarantine bedroom-pop" thing that someone did because they were bored or whatever, and I guess that’s cool, but I wrote and recorded it before COVID-19 was even a thought. I've been depressed and isolated long before this! (laughs)
So, I’m hoping folks who are experiencing those things can find songs or lines in here that they can relate to. It's more important now than ever, now that people who don't normally experience them are going through it.
Your song “Unkind” is the first song that comes to me when you mention all that, a pretty somber feeling. The lyric “Seven years in proportion to a dog’s life” really struck me.
So, up next, who designed the album cover?
My partner, Gabrielle! She's primarily a tattoo artist but she basically does all my art. She’s just great, she can take little cues from the music or the lyrics and put artwork to it. I'm not a visual person, so it's her job to make it look good and make it look like someone would want to listen to it. (laughs)
Very cool! Is that dog "Parvo" from the song of the same name on the cover?
So that song is basically about a sickness that dogs get...
Damn, I thought that was the name of a dog or something!
Yeah, it's this really bad disease, don’t know what kind of disease it is, but it can really kill dogs. It’s kind of like a childhood memory that inspired that song, my dog getting sick when I was a kid and the whole process following it. It did get better in the end though!
Well that’s good! Can you give me a run-down of what inspired the other tracks? Obviously, one was about your dog, which makes the dog barking sample make a lot more sense.
For sure! I have a little Casio keyboard and there’s a setting that’s just for barks, so I was really stoked to put that in there.
It’s kind of hard to say...a lot of it is inspired by mental illness that I as well as people around me deal with. I think everything I write is through that filter in some ways, but I try not to get fixated on it; I try to tell a story in my songs or paint some kind of picture.
There’s a real tendency to get down in the dumps and just write miserable music. I’ve always tried to take it somewhere else.
I can really feel what you’re trying to get across by talking about mental illness with titles like “Boy Meets Void” and “Negative Space”. Looking in those dark places, I think it's juxtaposed very well with the heartland/pop influences. It's dark subject matter with just a bit of light in it.
That’s a really cool take on it, very insightful. I feel like that’s something I try to do.
I feel like a lot of kids who start out young want their stuff to be complex. As I get older, I want to make sure it can be accessible no matter what I’m singing about.
I’m thinking like, what are my parents thinking when they listen to this? Because they listen to my music, and it's sick that they do that! It’s not an inhibitor, but I want to make sure someone on the street can take something away from it, not just "I’m so dark and deep and sad. (laughs)
Totally. I could definitely see some of these songs being used in a coming-of-age type film.
Oh, that’d be sick! Juno 2, hit me up!
Absolutely! Alright so, finally, do you have any plans musically for 2020? I’m pretty sure socially everyone’s in the same boat, but do you have any plans for the end of the year or going into next? Or is it just this and then chilling?
I am definitely going to take a little break. It’s really been great that I’ve been able to be unemployed and okay for a good amount of time; I’ve been able to focus on the release and reach out to folks like you guys and there’s been a really cool response from people wanting to write about it and do interviews. SO thank you so much for taking the time!
Anyway, I’m going to hibernate after this and try to get a job. I have one single I recorded a few months ago that I’m probably going to work on releasing in the new year.
I really want to start working with some other people; I’d even love to do some weird remote/virtual collabs, I think it’d be fun, break up the monotony of everyone being at home.
Huge thanks to Dylan Pacheco for taking the time to talk with us; you can support him by streaming "Youthful Exuberance" everywhere you listen to music, following him on Twitter @DPachecoMusic, and picking up a tee or a cassette from his Bandcamp merch store! If there's anyone you think we should interview next, hit us up on Twitter @lgndsoftmrw.
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