An Interview with Haley Dahl of Sloppy Jane

Interview & photo by Kelly Darroch

This June, Haley Dahl of chamber pop and experimental rock project Sloppy Jane appeared at the Carsey-Wolf Center on the UC Santa Barbara campus, wrapped in her signature blue ensemble. After a screening of Jane Shoenbrun’s I Saw the TV Glow, PhD student Alice Fulmer moderated a Q&A with Dahl. You may recognize Sloppy Jane’s name being listed on the iconic soundtrack, or Dahl’s haunting performance in the film of her song “Claw Machine” featuring Phoebe Bridgers. 

Dahl’s universe is one that once you are sucked in, you will never be able to leave. Despite enormous shifts in genre, each album builds upon the last, with recurring characters, themes, and storylines. One listen is like falling down a rabbit hole into Alice in Wonderland, only five times more unsettling, and you’ll have to swap out the blue Peter Pan collared dress for a blue velvet suit. Dahl is unapologetically uninhibited and unafraid to take her art in whatever direction she deems appropriate at the moment, no matter the risk.

 From her 2015 EP, Sure-Tuff, to her 2018 debut album Willow, or her cave-recorded 2021 album Madison, Dahl has forged an impressive path of audacity and range. Imagine taking the most uncanny and mystical characteristics of David Lynch and pouring them into a project that is equally whimsical and devastating, riddled with beautiful orchestral arrangements and interludes, and a ridiculously clever storyline that just might as well be a musical.

Whether you catch her vomiting up blue in past videos or crawling around (or up) the stage singing about plastic horses, her commanding presence and beautifully guttural voice beam through each performance, making each one intoxicatingly unique.

I spoke to Dahl in a much less hectic setting than the concerts of hers I have attended, and of course, even in her off hours, she sported her casual blue attire. Over the course of the conversation, we discussed her work, the beauty of having a meltdown on the floor, her favorite Scott Walker album, and all else that encompasses Haley Dahl. 

 

Kelly Darroch: Your album, Madison, is the first full-length album to be recorded entirely in a cave outside of a few shorter projects like Bjork’s “Cover Me (Cave Version),” correct?

Haley Dahl: I found out about this after I said a bunch of times that Madison is the only album to ever be recorded in the cave, but I think that there was a recording studio in a cave in the 70s where they made some weird compilation. I saw that come out maybe a few years ago. But I kind of feel like we were the first people to do it like for-real for-real. There has been some like ambient stuff or live stuff, but record, record — yes.

KD: How long did the entire recording process take, with transporting all the recording gear down there?

HD: I think that we were in the cave for about 3 weeks. We would work from about 3:00 p.m. till like 8:00 a.m. every single day. There was a one-day session that we had done months before that, where we recorded “Judy’s Bedroom,” and that was a separate process. Then there was a time, a few months later, when we came back and re-amped some stuff that we had recorded in a studio, and that was like two more days. So I think the in-cave process took probably a little over three weeks total for recording the album and then doing the music videos. There was also the process of finding the cave; we did many demos in many, many caves to find the right one. That process took about a year.

KD: So you recorded at Lost World Caverns — how was the process of gaining approval to record in a cave? 

HD: The owner is this guy Steve Silverbird, and he honestly was just such an angel. He let us use it in the off hours and was like very, very lax with us and very trusting. One of the reasons we picked Lost World, aside from it being a really beautiful setting to record, is that Steve was so hospitable. Because we knew that the project was going to be pretty invasive, we couldn’t really work with anybody who kind of felt unsure about us doing the project.

KD: I know you have a pretty elaborate storyboard kind of process for mapping out your work, but with Madison being a sequential story and a continuation of Willow, do you try to write in order, or is it just more sporadic?

HD: It’s pretty sporadic. I feel like I usually start coming up with kind of a body of songs, and then I almost start with like a beginning, middle, and an end. Then I look at how I get from one to the other. That was definitely the case with Madison. I had the overture and the mid record stuff, like the title track and “The Constable,” all written out before the stuff that came in between those tracks. My process is all over the place, but usually, as I go, I have a big map out on the wall where I try to make sure that all the pieces feel like they connect in my map.

KD: The first time I saw you play was opening for Phoebe Bridgers in Vegas in 2022—

HD: I dropped the microphone right when I got on stage. That was so annoying. These things like that haunt you. It was like the first show of that tour, too. 

KD: When I saw you perform, there was this level of cohesion between both albums, despite the Willow to Madison genre shift — a bit of Kate Bush The Kick Inside and a little PJ Harvey. Were there any specific influences you had in mind that carried over from one album to the other?

HD: Totally. People don’t instantly see this upon immediately looking at the albums, but I think an influence that would be in both of them would be the weirder side of The Beach Boys. Their stuff is kind of a throughline in all of my work. The nature of the compositions and weird background vocals, like harmonies that are maybe a bit spooky, but also really lush and beautiful. The chattering and stuff definitely come from Brian Wilson’s world. I think Willow is much more rock-driven, and I was definitely on a kick of thinking a lot about Hole. I always listen to a lot of all this stuff, but when I’m focusing on a record, I kind of stop listening to anything that isn’t like it. I think both of them have a little Tom Waits. “Bark Like a God” is definitely accessing that, and some parts of Madison, like the beginning of “The Constable,” are very broken voice singing a ballad with a lot of strings. In both albums, I’m always thinking about Bowie. Mostly just in how he is very boundless. He inspires me to not put too many restraints on myself. Genre-wise, he evolved so much. So every time I’m worried that I’m making a choice that’s going to alienate the fans who like me for a certain reason, I sort of think about him and how evolution was really a part of what defined him, and it emboldens me to continue to change. 

KD: I was looking at your New Year’s Eve playlist you have on Spotify and saw Scott Walker on there, who seems to be another one of your influences — do you have a favorite Scott Walker album?

HD: It’s so boring, but I feel like [Scott] 3 is my favorite album. I know that it’s kind of the entry level, “Oh, have you heard of Scott Walker?” But really, the first time I heard that record, it really turned me on my head. The strings on that album are just insane. It’s just kind of the perfect combination. I feel like later he got so much more experimental, and earlier he was more pop, and I feel like 3 is the perfect intersection. It’s like pop that’s slightly eating itself. 

KD: I mean, it’s such a great album, that song “Copenhagen,” I love it.

HD: Amazing. I love it.

KD: When was the pivotal moment when you really committed to the color blue?

HD: I feel like it’s happened kind of slowly because back in the time when I did “Aunt Rosie’s Garden” and all those Sure-Tuff songs, blue is definitely a theme in the band. The first line of the first song in the Sloppy Jane lineage, “Ballad of Jane, ” talks about loving blue like right off the bat. At that point, I was performing usually nude and vomiting blue dye. That was kind of like the beginning of that, and then it slowly spread and evolved to everything. For a long time, it was kind of just my stage character that was blue, and me in my walking life wore other colors. It seems like it was longer, but a little less than two years ago, I was like, “Actually, just everything I own is going to be this now.” I was kind of taking a break from performing and from writing, and I was living up in the mountains and feeling a real loss of self. The person I am on stage feels like the most real me that I’m most proud of, and it’s so easy for me to be creative when I’m that person. I think that it was just a way to bring that person into my everyday life, even if I’m not hanging out with people in my music community or not being on stage or doing Sloppy Jane stuff. My grandpa was also an abstract painter, and he painted only in blue. That wasn’t really the reason for me connecting to it or discovering it, but it’s interesting! 

KD: Who made the blue horse for the Madison album cover?

HD: I found it on some street sale and I painted it. It was orange with a bunch of little designs on it. I was looking for a horse that would cast a very strong shadow and I felt like if I got one that had hair or was more detailed, the shadow wouldn’t read. I was very excited to find this boxy one. But then, after Madison came out, the horse became like the mascot for IKEA. I walk around IKEA and those horses are everywhere.

KD: Are they all one color?

HD: No, they’re all different colors, but it’s just really funny.  There’s like wall lights that are the shape of the horse and there are murals all over with the horse. I’m like, “What is my horse doing all over IKEA?”

KD: You have many nods and references to Christianity and religion in your music. Was there a religious influence or something that sparked that fascination?

HD: I didn’t grow up religious at all. I think most of my religious stuff is like borderline voyeurism or fetishist or something because I was raised so outside of it. So, no kind of grown-up attachment to it, but I really like the idea of a god or something. Also, in a lot of Madison, when I’m talking about religion, I’m sort of equating the feeling of like when you are so in love with or so obsessed with somebody, that everything about them becomes almost spiritual or put up on this pedestal. It’s not a healthy thing, but that’s the reason.

KD: You’ve also mentioned in the past that you are a big fan of and have been influenced by nursery rhymes. Do you have a favorite nursery rhyme?

HD: I mean, probably “Ring Around the Rosy,” which you know, is in one of my early songs, but that one’s so weird. I think that one’s still my favorite.

KD: For Madison, you learned to write for chamber instruments and taught yourself piano. How long was the period in which you were developing those skills before fully embarking on making the album?

HD: It definitely happened in pieces, but from starting to write Madison to recording Madison, it was two years. Which at the time seemed really long, but actually, for learning a whole lot of skills, was not that long. I think I found a keyboard in the trash in September of 2017, and then I was recording Madison in like October of 2019.

KD: “The Constable” on Madison has always stood out to me, especially the lyric, “A once handsome horse, rusted into a toy, just as I, a great man, have grown into a scared little boy.” What was the inspiration behind that song and lyric?

HD: Yeah, that song probably stays like one of my favorite ones on the album. I’m really proud of that song and the ways that it kind of like moves from one thing to another. That song just kind of kept expanding, and I was working on it for a really long time. It’s interesting when you write songs, there’s so much stuff that is just like insular stories that no one will ever really know. But when I was growing up, my mom had this weird rusty, like not rocking horse, but you could sit on it and you would push your feet down on these pedals and it would kind of go forward, and its name was Constable. We knew its name was Constable and we talked about it all the time, and then one day, we just forgot. Then I was riding the horse and I fell off of it and hit my head on the ground and then I yelled, “Constable!” because I was mad at it, and that’s how we remembered its name. So that story just came up in the song. That’s like the first time that I was interacting with a fake horse, which you know, fake horses are all throughout the entire album. But yeah, there was a literal rusted horse named Constable. It threaded into the larger narrative, but I feel like a lot of my writing style is like that, where there are these little glimmers of truth within a fictionalized thing.

 

KD: You also put the New Year’s Eve countdown in that song, which is your favorite holiday — what was the most impressionable New Year’s Eve you’ve ever had?

HD: I don’t really know, I just feel like every single one just always seems to somehow encapsulate what the year ends up being. When I look back on it, it’s kind of spooky. Even if the plans shift or even it’s bad, or even if it’s anything, I just think there’s always a spookiness about it, and I’ve gotten really superstitious about it.

KD: You cast the same actor who played the Tooth Fairy character in the “Mindy” music video in the “Madison” music video. Do you have a rotating cast of friends or people that you go back to for your music videos or projects?

HD: I feel like I try to. I mean, we did all the Madison music videos with Mika Lungulov-Klotz; she was the director and also did some of the Willow videos. I just really like the continuity of image and for everything to feel tied together. So when I’m able to pull from the same people, I’m very lucky. The actor, John Ennis, the Tooth Fairy character who’s been in multiple music videos, he was actually my acting teacher as a kid. He was awesome, and he’s in like a million shows and commercials. I like reusing him kind of as the same character. I wanted to use the same guy who was in the “Kitchen Store” video and Willow videos for the guy in the Madison videos as the other old guy, but it didn’t work out for some practical reasons. But I like those two characters moving with the universe, whether or not it always gets to be the same guy.

KD: You also have a handful of lyrics that reference the kitchen floor, the living room floor, or kitchens and floors in general. The floor can be such a liminal space — what is your relationship to the floor?

HD: Yeah, I do reference the floor a lot, and I’ve realized that a few times, but it’s not like that conscious. Maybe just being someone who’s depressive or like a tantrum thrower or has meltdowns, the floor is just where you go when you’re really at bottom. So I feel like it comes up a lot. If you’re found dead in your house, you’re on the floor. I do lie on the floor a lot. That’s one of my favorite things about now having my own apartment is being able to lie on the floor without judgment. Especially like right after I eat, lying on your stomach on the floor is unbeatable.

KD: For your Grammy campaign, you paid homage to David Lynch when he did the Laura Dern Oscar campaigning with the cow for Inland Empire. Is there a film of his that is most influential to you visually?

HD: I mean, I feel like it would be off-brand of me to say anything other than Blue Velvet for a David Lynch film. Also, credit to my friend John Hein for the idea for doing the cow picture, that was fun to do. But yeah, probably Blue Velvet. Honestly, the oxygen mask and the other images, I just feel pretty connected to. Aesthetically, Blue Velvet out of David Lynch’s films, but I love Inland Empire and Lost Highway. Lost Highway is the first David Lynch movie that I saw, which I think is kind of a crazy entry.

KD: There’s plenty of visual parallels between your projects and Jane Schoenbrun’s I Saw the TV Glow — to what extent were the two of you collaborating and in tune with one another?

HD: It’s crazy because Jane wrote that entire script long before ever knowing me, and when we first started talking, they did not know anything about my use of blue vomit or TV screens or anything. It was just weird. They used the word “kismet,” but it was a totally random parallel. When I read the script, I was just like, “Well, I obviously have to do this.” It has like so many random things that I do. Especially with Jane being named Jane, it was just really funny and crazy.

KD: What was the development process of “Claw Machine?”

HD: ​​ I mean, the first thing that happened is that I read the screenplay, and then Jane and I got on the phone and chatted about some ideas. I wrote the song over the course of a couple weeks and we kind of went back and forth where I would send them a draft and they would be like, “Oh I don’t really like this part,” or “I do like this part,” but they were very cool about it. I think that we only did like two passes before they signed off on it, and I worked on it some more on my own, and that was it.

 

KD: When I saw the film last year, I went into it pretty blind. I was shocked by how perfect a film it was for your music; it was almost ridiculous.

HD: Totally, I was immediately obsessed with it. I thought there were so many weird coincidences of aesthetic sameness.

KD: Given that you’ve been friends with Phoebe Bridgers since high school and she used to be Sloppy Jane’s bassist when it was a three-piece, how was the filming experience together for the performance in the film?

HD: It was awesome! Phoebe wasn’t involved in the writing of it, but once the song was done, she really signed off on it and really loved it. We tracked her vocals at the studio once the song was mostly recorded otherwise. The day of shooting was pretty painless, it was really fun getting to work together in that way. I think we hadn’t collaborated musically since we were in high school and she was in Sloppy Jane. Since then, we’ve shared a lot of stages, and obviously she started Saddest Factory [Records]. So, we work together in a business way, and we’re very good friends and like champions of each other. But, it felt very full circle, specifically to be writing a song that was about high school and singing it together as kind of these grown-up musicians. So, that was a really nice moment.

KD: You also did some shows recently with Bartees Strange, who appears on the soundtrack as well. Would you ever be open to the idea of a full-scale concert of the whole soundtrack?

HD: It would be awesome! I mean, if A24 ever asked me to do it, I’m in.

KD: You recently played Kilby Block Party, and in your performance, you scaled the stage, tore up your knees, and all that. What is the ultimate Sloppy Jane venue and stage set-up if you had an unlimited budget?

HD: I love playing big stages, and it’s interesting, I get pegged as this like kind of weird experimental artist or something a lot. I feel like so much of that is because of scale, and it’s very hard to explain to people where like, I’ll have this large band and this large production and this kind of extreme music and I’m trying to put it on these small club stages or small bar stages, and it all gets very cluttered. Something about that, I think is what makes it hard to engage with. Because then when we do something like Kilby Block Party, it’s like immediately having more space and good sound makes it just so much more immediate. It feels like people really get it, and all of a sudden, I don’t feel like I’m being seen as a niche artist anymore. People understand that it’s this big production kind of like rock star thing, and that’s just really rewarding, and I would just love to get more opportunities to do that. I’d love to get the band to just a couple rings up the ladder to where we’re playing bigger stages on our tours, just so that we can give it the space that it needs to actually be received well.

KD: How was playing the Hollywood Bowl?

HD: That was fun! I think opening at really big places like that is always a little bit strange because my band has a lot of pieces, but we were first of three, and so our sound check was kind of the final one and very rushed and all that. I think like all things considered, it went really well, and obviously it was a dream and we had an amazing time. But it’s different doing something like that versus doing something where the audience is there on purpose to see you.

KD: The Hollywood Bowl is definitely an interesting place; it’s really cool to see a show there, but I also have mixed opinions.

HD: Well, it’s weird because it’s just like so vast. We were like not on the Jumbotron and so those back people couldn’t really even see it. I mean it’s all It’s all amazing and it’s like all a plus, but I just remember at the beginning of the set I was kind of trying to perform to everyone, and by the end I was like “I’m performing to the general area here.” Like that’s a better investment right now.

KD: Do you have a favorite smaller LA venue like The Smell or something like that?

HD: I mean, I played The Smell so much when we were like an early-on punk band, and so I always have a ton of love for it. I’m definitely not on the scene in LA right now. So, I don’t know what a cool small venue is, but that place is really special. I remember getting our first show with The Smell and being like, “Damn, we made it.” You know? Like it was such a cool thing where I was like, “Damn, we’re like famous now because we’re playing The Smell,” which is so funny in retrospect.

KD: What about venues in Brooklyn, or New York in general?

HD: We haven’t played a ton of shows in New York lately. I’m not doing many like hometown shows until we put out an album, but my New York like DIY class was the class of The Glove, which was a DIY venue that existed in my early 20s that is now gone. That was kind of my spot at the time. I always love playing Baby’s [All Right], and I know that they just opened up Night Club 101, which is also really cool. I loved playing Elsewhere Hall when we played there, which was our first big Madison show. TV Eye is cool too, I mean it’s New York, there’s a million cool venues.

KD: You were also hosting character-building workshops in New York, what was involved in the execution of that?

HD: I still do them once in a while, finding the timing for them is always hard. There’s so many like cool people doing classes and workshops in New York and I was going to a lot of them and I was like, “Is there something that I have to contribute to this kind of conversation in New York?” Because now I’m not like an early 20s artist. I’m 30, and so that’s what the cool artists who are 30 seem to be doing. It’s a fun way for me to also think about what I do to get into a performance headspace, because I do get asked about it a lot, especially by other musicians. Plus, I’ve done a ton of theater which is embarrassing, but I have. 

KD: I’ve always thought that your music has the best components of musical theatre. I love Cabaret, and your music kind of encompasses all these aspects of older musical theatre.

HD: I love old musical theater, and I hate new musical theater, and that’s how I feel about it, and that’s my entire take. I don’t know, a lot of it just has to do with getting used to this knob that’s internal, where you’re very aware of what you do naturally, physically, and learning how to turn that really really high up, and turn that really really low down. A lot of my performance practice is just taking the things that are natural to you and exaggerating them. That takes a lot of self-awareness to be like, “This is what I do.”

KD: Are a lot of the people who go to these workshops musicians and actors who are looking for a new angle?

HD: I feel like most of them are people in bands who want to have more of a presence, but it’s open to everyone. We have people where it’s like there’s been like some dancers and stuff who have come, and I’ve been like, “I feel like you’re better at this than me, I don’t know why you’re here.” But all kinds of different people come to the workshops.

KD: Have you ever thought of doing them in different cities when you’re on tour or passing through?

HD: I have thought about it for on tour because it would be a good way to make some extra money, but it’s too much to plan along with everything else, so I don’t think so. Maybe I would do it in other cities, but the workshop thing is something where I feel like this has potential, but I don’t have the space to like grow it as a concept. Because I can only get my shit together to do it like once every three months and I kind of throw it together last minute. It’s great, and every time I do it I’m like, “Oh, I should do this more because this is like very cool and generative,” but I don’t know.

KD: Do you still have a plan to eventually eat your suit? [Dahl created a GoFundMe in 2019, declaring that she would eat her partially rotted, oversized, black suit for $20,000]

HD: Yes, I do. It’s buried right now, so I would have to like exhume it. But the time will come. 

KD: Do you draw a lot of inspiration from the people that you share a stage with, like Gustaf, CSS, or Pussy Riot?

HD: Yeah, I think definitely. It’s always cool just seeing how other people do it, and when you’re on the road with someone every night, you see different things about different setups. Especially if I’m opening for somebody, I’m playing essentially to their audience. So I learn a lot about what different audiences like and what works in different kinds of rooms. Some things are cool as a performer in like a basement versus a small club versus an amphitheater. It’s kind of learning how to adapt to different spaces. But yeah, I’m very interested by all my friends.

KD: Right before you played the Hollywood Bowl show in 2023, you released a cover of My Chemical Romance’s “Cancer.” If you could speak to Gerard Way, what would you say?

HD: Ummm, “I’m sorry?” I don’t know, I don’t know what I would say. You never know when you meet somebody that has been so influential, whether to be cool or not cool. I think it would depend on the context, but I think I would struggle to be cool. That’s all I know. 

KD: You’ve also worked with college students a handful of times, such as your Berklee internship for recording Madison, as well as sessions at NYU — is that something that you make the effort to do?

HD: Well, when I did Madison, I was much younger, and so I feel like I would not be trying to get a bunch of college students to play on my record for free at the age of 30. At the time, I was in my early 20s, so a lot of my friends were still in college or had just gotten out. It’s fun to do stuff like that. I just did that class with Erin [Tonkin] and it was super fun. I don’t know if I go out of my way to do stuff with college students, but I’m always psyched to go where people call me. It’s funny because I didn’t go. It’s always specifically funny when I get called by a college to get paid to teach people something or say something.

KD: What do you think is your most underrated song on each record?

HD: I always feel like on Madison, the orchestral ones don’t get enough love. I get why they don’t because that’s not a popular kind of music, but I feel like I work so much harder on them than the other songs. I mean both “Overture” and “Wonderama,” I worked so hard on those songs. And especially I feel like when we play “Wonderama” live, like no one gives a fuck and I’m like “everyone be quiet, I worked really hard on this!” You know I played “Where’s My Wife” so can you please just take a second to listen to this classical song? As for Willow, I don’t know, I’m not that connected to that record anymore.

KD: On your solo tour in 2023, you played songs like “Peroxide Beach” and “Mindy.” How do you pick what songs off of Willow or your older music to play during your shows? Do you ever take into consideration requests from fans?

HD: Once in a while, but sometimes I just kind of do what I feel like. Like I hadn’t played those songs in a long time, and “Peroxide Beach” is pretty fun live and so I just had the opportunity to rework them and have some fun with it, so I did. I just think of like an overall energetic arc and weirdly, in the Madison set we play “Where’s My Wife?” and “Bark Like a God” and a couple other interludes from Willow, and they sort of almost fall in the same place in the Madison set as they do in the Willow set. The arc of it energetically still feels kind of the same, where it starts in this kind of crazy zany musical place, and builds up into this kind of angst height, and then winds back down into this grand place or something.

 

KD: You’ve sort of alluded to the fact that the next album will be a continuation of the story. Is there anything you can say that people can expect from your next album?

HD: No (laughs), I don’t know. I both don’t like to reveal anything, but I also don’t like to make promises of what something is going to be. I guess in the same way that Madison was much different from Willow, this one is going to be different from those too. I do think that there is a lot that they have in common, and the things that all three records have in common are things that I find to be definitive of me as an artist. If you like what I do for the right reasons, you’ll like it. If you like what I do for one specific thing that I’ve already done, you might be alienated, and that’s just how it is!