The Dee Dee Sea Interview
Are you originally from Montana? I understand you currently reside in Maine, correct?
Am I originally from Montana... That is a good question. these days everybody is very worried about where they are from... Me included... And no, originally I am from Wyoming. Sheridan, Wyoming, home of king ropes once visited by the queen of England, and seen by Prince, as he cruised in a limo down the dusty street on the way to the premiere of under the Cherry Moon, with a lucky winner from an MTV listener contest. My ma said he was very nice, very polite and that the winner was picked up at her house in that limo sporting a very large hair-do. I was born across from the rodeo grounds in the deep winter with something wrong with me. My folks asked the convict neighbor to watch my two-year-old sister, and they took me to Billings, Montana within hours to find out what was wrong. So then I was in Montana. It took a few hours, but I made it. Within hours Montana had a reeled me in. On st. Valentine’s Day. I guess it was first love. And first love lasts forever. But it’s not the only.... So when people ask, I say yes I’m from Montana, but really I was born in Wyoming across from the rodeo. My kid and I still wear king ropes hats just to keep us honest... Yeah, my kid wears my old king ropes hat from when I was a kid but I guess I ought to get some lobster hat or something because my kid was born in Belfast Maine right off of the ocean. Right in the middle of the plague... Right before Halloween. I gave her the middle name, Saint Rosalia, the patron saint of plagues and the unemployed Also the patron saint of Palermo, Italy. My little off grid cabin and timberframed studio is in Palermo Maine. Far from power-lines and paved roads, I decided after getting a job at a local antique tool art project/junk store (Liberty Tool), that I should try my hand at building a timber-frame to house my future studio, Little Sea Saint Studio. Named after my great uncle Marshall sehorn, 1/2 of Seasaint studios in New Orleans. That is a whole other story...
Allen Toussaint playing at my family’s weddings but the vhs recording of it destroyed because of a bad divorce.... Lee Dorsey coming to Thanksgiving and gifting his giant poodle to my family (yet no one remembers who took the dog or what became of it...) The meters as the house band. I mean the first time I went to Europe I called Paul McCartney‘s secretary to see if he was around hoping that I could crash at his house. Unfortunately, he was not there. Ha ha. I do have one of his picks though. He bites them... There are teeth marks. Let’s see I’m supposed to be talking about Maine... Let’s see I ended up here because I needed somewhere that I didn’t know anyone. And I thought it was kind of the Montana of the east. I couldn’t go back to my hometown in Montana, it had become so expensive I knew that my tramp lifestyle was not going to cut it there. I had been squatting Jordan Street in the lower ninth ward in New Orleans for a few years... Just pit bulls for a door and time-quicksand seeping through the holes in the walls when it rained, it rained inside but that was good cause the vines and trees that grew into the house needed to be watered. Previous to that I have been living in London, squatting, and cruising around being an international party boy. Making immersive strange art movies... Reading a lot... Drinking 2 for 5 pounds wine all night in animal furs and completely covered in glitter. Waking up IN the roof of Saint Paul’s cathedral wrapped up in newspapers from three different newspapers printed that same morning.... Came to Maine and immediately switched my sleep brain around. (I have 2 sleeping disorders making me “stoned from the womb” and able to hallucinate from going into REM dream state with my eyes open) Instead of going to bed at 4 AM. I was waking up at 4 AM. I was feeling like I had a future. I just didn’t know what was in store. Not at all. But as Neil says, “equal time for past, present and future.”
What was your childhood like growing up? When did you first begin to fall in love with music?
I was outdoors a lot. Playing in the woods... Riding bikes... I guess nothings changed. Feel like the majority of my games included a map that I drew on an old piece of canvas, maybe a wooden bow and arrow. Little treasures... Marbles, jaxs, sinew of moose, scraps of leather, quartz rocks collected around the foot of the “quartztree” in my grandparent’s front yard... A Raccoon skin hat always tucked in my backpack. I didn’t really talk much. Making up for that now huh? Ha ha. my folks weren’t so sure that I could speak real sentences... I would mumble a couple syllables, cut the front and end off words... Just the middle of the word. I was probably four years old before they snuck up on me in my room, and I was chatting away to “no one”. Then they didn’t worry if I could speak. Then they just worried who I was speaking to. I was always living a life of contradictions though... I was in my head... In love with poetry... In love with the rivers in and around Missoula Montana but was also into coffee, the stock market page of the newspaper and was a multiple time all star baseball player... Until some bad seafood took me outta the game right before we went to compete in California in hopes of ending up in the little league World Series. The rest of the team went and lost... Not saying anything, but dang it raw oysters are still haunting me. I guess that’s what brought me me Maine come to think of it! The haunted coast! The damn oysters!
Honestly, it was probably the song “Somewhere Out There” from the film an American Tail. The version sung by Fievel Moskowitz. The mouse version, not Linda Ronstadt (don’t get me wrong I love a bit of Ronstadt! Baby yer no good!). But after that, I heard Crimson and Clover Tommy James version, and that song made me realize that music wasn’t just singing a song. It meant manipulating the heart. It meant some lightning bolt that I could not see could manipulate me into pounding the floor. Into shaking my head and waggling my tongue side to side, covering myself in spit just cause the song was making me so excited and crazy. In sixth grade I got a copy of Sergeant Pepper. I didn’t know it was The Beatles. I thought it was a different hippie band. I got extremely into it. It was the only thing I listened to for about 3 years, well sometimes Santana (the instrumental songs), but mostly Sergeant Pepper. I would lie on the floor in my parents basement and put it on and unplug one speaker, it was a stereo copy. Then I would listen to the whole album again but plug in only the other speaker. I just had new ears. I think the great music of the world falls on New ears. As a lover of music, I think we just have to keep our ears, clear and new.
Was this something that was relevant around your household growing up? What would you do for fun growing up? Who were some of your earliest influences in your more formative years?
My folks had a lot of good country records. My dad is from North Carolina. I suspect a lot of the records were his. He had a couple local gospel records, some bluegrass, a lot of Johnny Cash. A couple of rogue Lou Reed records, and then Marshall would send out records, mostly Allen Toussaint from New Orleans. My southern family sings a lot of gospel music. My grandmother had an organ in the house always that we would all mess around with, a fiddle and a mandolin traded to my gramps In lieu of owed money... A big grand piano at some point, but mostly we just used it to put the Linda Ronstadt record sleeve on and dance around to “baby, you’re no good“. In high school, I started a busking band called the hills brothers and my grandmother came and sang some of the gospel songs with us. I’m pretty sure someone donated some mushroom brownies and a hemp necklace while she was singing. It is hard to overstate the deep and permanent wiring live music does to a young body. I saw a lot of sweaty bloody boozy shows that were in the Iggy and Stooges realm at Jay’s pstairs (rip). I was 14 when I first was allowed upstairs to this legendary Montana bar. You could wash your clothes downstairs on the first floor. Bands always saved a lot of energy and dirty clothes for our little town. It was a 24 hr drive to Minneapolis and at Jay’s the bands drank free. I feel like dead moon was the house band. I saw brightblack open for Bonnie billy on master and everyone tour. I saw Jenny Lewis pass out drunk in a mini van parked in the alley (Rilo Kiley) and wondered how I could achieve such heights. The Cherry Valience had two drummers and dueling Thin Lizzy like whiskey soaked guitars. And one guitarist was named Cheetah. Damn. It made an impression like a nail through a hand. Also K records was close so I saw early two or four people audiences for Mirah, The Microphones, Little Wings, Adrian Orange. I also saw great shows in Seattle. I’d pile a few friends into my 240d Mercedes and quick jaunt over the 9 hours to catch Tracy Chapman, Elliot smith, Built To Spill... And then the record stores of Missoula! Thank god for ear candy music for everything hip new and underground...
Beachwood sparks first two records picked up on my high school lunch break. My first bob d ( bringing it all back) snuck into my locker from that same snag. I was embarrassed that I didn’t know who he was... And thank god for rockin Rudy’s records for their generous 25 cent bin for the classics delivered in giant stacks by bmx back to my parents basement. I got my first (and therefore favorite) Neil record out of those bins. “After The Goldrush” is my clear ear and golden heart. That is the sound of my teenage basement....”To our new home in the sun! There was a band....” Eyes of the beacon street union for 25 cents! John Lennon’s first beautiful angry tree record!? Hugh Masekla? And then the Day That Started It All, I was at rockin Rudy’s records and staring out at me was half Japanese’s “greatest hits” on blue vinyl on 3 lps. I had never heard of them and normally wouldn’t hardly glance at anything above the 25ct bin. But jad in his “destroy all monsters” shirt and David wearing the expression of a round curious bird wouldn’t let me be. I forked over $16 I think. A fortune! And no one is prepared for dropping the needle on a half Japanese record for the first time sounds like driving a cartoon car around sharp curves of a mountain going up on two wheels, drinking soda, pop that blue with a 20 gallon hat and a big kazoo. Firecracker firecracker boom boom boom! Damn I didn’t know what I was hearing. It was a huge hugging feeling around me. So much joy so much heart. I couldn’t imagine some thing so raw and accessible and yet I could, under the direction of Jad Fair, become the greatest musician in the world on day one all I had to do was pick up a drum or a guitar untuned or even just my voice and to sing and to sing and to sing. I had been a fan of Pete Seeger since I was a child and this was a special link from what Pete and Woody, and all those folkies we’re trying to do, and the weirdness and strangeness and improvisation that I held inside of myself. I didn’t understand what I was doing, but I immediately began to play music and I have never played as well as those first few years, I have a small bird drawing that Jad did for me in London when I lived out there. I made a frame for it and put it above my piano in my studio. I’m happy just to stare at it. It just talks to me.
When and where did you see your first concert and when did you realize you wanted to spend your time pursuing music? When and where did you play your very first gig and what was that experience like for you?
I have a hard time with chronological time... That’s probably why I ramble on and on when I’m talking. I have a hard time remembering what happened to me first. Like I said I’m a real big believer in “equal time for past present and future“. But I think I can place it in Montana somewhere in the early 90s. I think my first concert I didn’t even get to see... I think I was in the hall and knew there was a show happening but we didn’t have tickets? I could hear someone playing the fiddle. It was Alison Krauss and Union Station back when she used to fiddle more than sing. The memory is just of wishing I could see the music I could hear muffled through the wall. I knew there was something better happening in there, but I wasn’t sure why I wasn’t allowed in... Why were they hiding this magic gathering? I knew I wanted into that room, or to tear the walls down around the band so everyone could hear. I suppose that is why I played my first gigs on the street in Montana. Me and a couple friends would play the farmers market every weekend. Sometimes coming back from camping somewhere early in the sunrise and sleeping on our special spot in our sleeping bags until The folks started to show up. We had no name, but we used to bang on a Hills Bros. coffee can with a stick and after a year or so without a name someone suggested that while walking by and it stuck. Local book seller Garth, owner of Shakespeare and Company In Missoula Montana Saw us playing on the street and asked if we would play a show in his stacks of books. It became a regular gig for us. On weekends, we were 16, or 17 yrs old? We played a lot of originals, some CCR, a lot of gospel songs, some beck, A couple Hank Williams tunes. senior of Course... I was possessed in such a special way that I didn’t have an embarrassment bone in my body. The music and performing let out some Weird beast inside of me. God bless the beasts and the children.
You’ve written and recorded a number of albums, but I’d like to focus on the piece that brought my attention years ago and that is 2013’s “Stoned Womb”. What was the overall vision and approach to this release?
Stoned womb might be my favorite record I’ve made also. I was in a solid songwriting phase, but still experimenting to find my sound inside of that country with electric guitar possession kind of music. I had always been trying to have a band, but I was so transient I could never figure it out. I would always stop in to Montana and dig out my Tascam 4-track and make an album in a couple weeks and then go back on my way.... That trip home was special because my friend June West and my friend Julian Neel ,Both extremely talented musicians and songwriters, were around and had some drums set up and a place to play in East Missoula by the river. I recorded an album for them, a band called death month, album called True blues. Then I just hit record and we played through the songs I had that I wanted to get onto an album. We didn’t rehearse. I’m not too good at knowing what key I’m in or how to even say what I’m about to play but these folks took it in stride and what resulted was a cohesive sound that I had never achieved before. A lot of my albums sound like a collage... I often was taking first takes of songs that I was writing as I was recording. Some of them I’ve never played again although some of those I really enjoy... I just can’t re-create their original sweetness. The album is composed of a lot of songs I wrote tucked into a corner of New Orleans in the lower ninth ward. One of the songs a lot of folks like on that one came from a story Reily Downing of the Deslones told in our kitchen one day... I turned that snippet into the song Old Flames... Down there I was living with a lot of musicians... Riddy Arman and Kate Cavazos lived at that house. We used to have some late night candle lit guitar pass arounds, until I’d need another olde English 40. Cavazos used to sing olde English lonesome at me. That song is there, but not recorded yet... But all of my albums are like my poems, they are just a way for me to shorthand remember my life.
When and where did recording begin and how did you want to go about writing and reading this album? How did you initially meet our mutual pal Eric Loundy?
We recorded all of this record along the banks of the Blackfoot River. I got those first tracks of me and June and Julian playing guitar bass and drums. Then I got Julian to come in on top of it that same day and lay down some lap steel. Then I took it up the river 15 miles to a family cabin and overdubbed my noodling guitar and some big church Organ with the spinning Leslie. It was my grandmothers. The guitar is played mostly in first and second takes with my eyes closed not really trying to do anything but feel it out. I want everything to sound like Maggot Brain, or some 10 minutes into a live Neil Young song. Ha ha I met Eric on the streets of New Orleans. I was riding my bike uptown to this brewery that would give away free beer on Fridays. We called it double Friday because we’d get so silly with ipa that we would sleep somewhere beyond the quarter and then wake up for second round of madness before we went home in the wee hours. I saw some bad ass long-haired hippie on a beautiful bike somewhere in the quarter with a few miles to go still and I yelled “race you!” As I rode by him on my single speed bicycle. I did pretty good since I could blow red lights. We got there around the same time and drank one, or seven strong beers and the rest is past present and future as they say. I think I made a big impression on him musically on the karaoke stage soon after that, may be a few days? We went out and I got up on stage, did a few pink. or blue Jell-O shots as someone walked by with the tray and began to belt Teenage Dirt Bag in a loungy kinda crooner way. Really had him rolling on the floor... I love being able to make people feel something out of nothing. That song isn’t really a good song, but if you give it your all you can really make a chill dude fall off his stool.
That following summer you released another project with his album artwork entitled “Hauntas”. Can you tell me about writing and recording this album? What is your particular approach when beginning to work on a new project?
Hauntas came out of that same vibe of the previous album. I had just finished touring with a theater project. The play was called three kinds of wildness and coyote city the title track and where the living get lost we’re both from from that play. For many years I wrote original songs and performed them live while acting a character for a theater company called the Missoula Oblongata. That was founded by Madeline Ffitch (check out her novel Stay and Fight!), Donna Oblangata and Sarah Lowry. The majority of my touring of music has been in the diy theater scene. I guess some of that album was a lingering feeling from when I was living in London and was acting 24 hours a day for a month straight for a weird film project where we were always being watched. There’s something spooky and apocalyptic going on but if you aren’t just singing songs and being yourself and loving as much as you can when the end of the world comes then I’m not sure we can really hang... I recorded it on the same river at the same cabin in Montana in a few weeks on the same 4-track. I did all the tracking and then brought in a friend Sam Molstad and he did all the drums without hearing any of the album. I let them do a couple second takes, but mostly first takes. I’m not an only first or second take kinda person, but there is a special Magic in guessing, in anticipation, in knowing what is coming before it comes. I never know when I have started something. I like to consider the phrase “Life‘s work“. I work in so many different mediums crisscrossing ideas with writing poems, singing songs, making paintings, drawings, making theater, working on my friendships, being a parent, working outside with plants, working at the art museum... It all blends together for me. there is a Glenn Gould quote that has been my mantra for many years now, “the purpose of art is not the release of a momentary ejection of adrenaline but rather the gradual, lifelong construction of a state of wonder and serenity“...
What is your process as far as bringing a song to life? What else does summer have in store for you this year?
Sometimes I write a song in 10 minutes and it’s done and I love it when that happens. It’s usually the ones that people love back. But a lot of my favorite songs that I like to play for myself developed over 10 years. There would be a line dropped from an earlier song that I would hang onto and it would come to me later when it meant something more, something different. it would reveal itself finally so I would know why I held onto it. Often I find the things that I love in my songs are not the things that people listening enjoy. So I try to just let them out fully, not wrangle them too much because I don’t know how they will work out there until I let them play around in the yard a bit. My last album, I saw the awful light in the shadows of joy, I may have allowed myself too much control... I love the album, but there are no hits on it for sure... I think it’s a beautiful thing but I had been hiding from the world for too long perhaps and I made a selfish album. My next album will include some awareness of the outside world and more space for it to run around. Ha ha let’s see... Rebuilding a 125 year old farmhouse on the coast of Maine, also keeping my off grid homestead and timber frame studio from being neglected, working at the art museum... I’m painting pretty often at night, listening to records, and I’m working on this new album, I’ve got all the songs for two or three albums at this point but it takes me a while... Longer than it used to to get them all down. If I had a band I could do it in three days... Who wants to step up!? This is a call out for a drummer, a bassist and pedal steel! Come on up to Maine and let’s play! Maybe I’ll put out a 10 year anniversary vinyl of stoned womb...
Any shows, or tours in the works? Is there anything else you would like to further share with the readers?
I used to play 1 million shows back in Montana. I opened for some heroes like Magnolia electric company, did keg stands with Jason. Opened for Califone, opened for dark dark dark... Opened for typhoon and lake and Karl Blau and your heart breaks... Then I toured theater and I disappeared into myself for a long time... I loved to play music but I never knew how to tour my music... One of these days I’ll get a band together and do my first music tour. I am going to play a few rare shows here and there. I’m playing in a couple weeks in a wood shop in liberty Maine. If anyone wants to take me out on tour let me know. I might say yes. I might say no. Hiding out in the woods it’s pretty dang dreamy... but the right tour with the right folks is always on the horizon in my eyes. Keep ‘em clear. I guess I gotta write another book... It turns out I got a lot to say. Please write to me if you want a record. Or a book of poems. Or a postcard. Come to Maine I’ll buy you a beer and play you a song. I’ll send you a record and a few more after that or maybe you’ll just find it in the goodwill stacks In 10 years...
