Fust is a band from Durham, North Carolina that started off because the songwriting challenge of Aaron Dowdy. Earlier than shifting to a dwell group, Dowdy home-recorded and self-released a number of EPs on Bandcamp between 2017 and 2018; they’re now not obtainable on the platform, however you may revisit that period of the band by way of Songs of the Rail, a group of 28 demos recorded throughout the identical time interval that got here out a 12 months in the past. After releasing their sun-kissed, soulful debut Evil Pleasure in 2021, Fust – now a seven-piece that includes drummer Avery Sullivan, pianist Frank Meadows, guitarist John Wallace, multi-instrumentalist Justin Morris, fiddlist Libby Rodenbough, and bassist Oliver Little one-Lanning – decamped to Drop of Solar to file Genevieve with producer Alex Farrar, with whom they reunited for his or her astounding new album, Large Ugly. Named after an unincorporated space in southern West Virginia, round which Dowdy’s household has deep roots, the file is conflicted but aspirational: homey whereas grappling with the thriller of residence, hopeful when hope rests between the promise of a brand new life and relenting in outdated, gradual, ragged methods. Because the title might recommend, it wrings magnificence out of probably the most sudden locations, honing within the band’s knack for making small emotions seem monumental – that’s, nearer to their true expertise.
We caught up with Fust’s Aaron Dowdy for the most recent version of our Artist Highlight collection to speak about his relationship to the South, the strain between documentary and fiction, making Large Ugly, and extra.
There’s a narrative within the press launch a couple of placard you noticed memorializing a gutter off the streets in Athens, the place I dwell. I’m fascinated by how being away from residence or your roots can power you to see them in a distinct mild, and it seems like that’s one thing that was occurring once you had been in Europe a few years in the past.
Athens was such a particular place. I don’t journey nicely – I’m kind of a homebody. After I journey, I begin to get anxious or really feel out of my component, like I’ve strayed too far and I’m dropping my superpowers that actually solely exist once I’m at residence and comfy. However Athens was the perfect touring expertise I ever had. I believe perhaps what I felt there – I used to be beginning to write in direction of new music, and simply being round such a disparity between the traditional and the trendy, visibly in all places, this type of stress of time. What I actually cherished was not simply the most important monuments, however how all the things, with time, turns into essential. Clearly, Athens is the middle of one thing the West has inherited, however seeing the gutter was the primary second the place I used to be like, “Wow, all the things has worth.” Even the forgettable element, the factor that goes missed.
I began to suppose then in regards to the South. We’ve mountains and landscapes which might be very outdated, however when it comes to the supplies – the issues individuals have made that you simply see round you – you don’t get that form of historic stress. So that you virtually need to challenge into the long run the worth of issues. In my yard now, there’s a fallen gutter, and it’s nowhere close to as stunning or well-made, however you virtually need to see it with that viewpoint. You can begin to make monuments out of your personal world and see how the detritus may belong to one thing sooner or later, even when it doesn’t really feel essential now. I wished to have a look at my place with that sense of historical past – not simply instant historical past, however an enormous historic weight. I began to think about a few of these photos – houses, buildings, trash – and marvel what it might seem like in the event that they had been taken as priceless.
You talked about issues individuals make, however individuals clearly additionally make artwork and literature, and there’s positively a lineage of Southern writers honouring that perspective – seeing the worth in issues in any other case misplaced to time.
Yeah, that’s precisely proper. I are typically very excited about individuals and human relations. I write about battle, disillusionment, pleasure – little emotions. Clearly, these emotions have been had nicely past the South, nicely past Athens. However by way of Southern music and Southern literature, it turns into clear that a part of our monuments are very particular sorts of human relationships – making one thing, a relation or interplay, that appears so unimportant, one thing anybody else would move by, right into a supply of literary worth. If we don’t have that instant sense of huge historical past, we nonetheless have historical past, and numerous it values human relationships and the poetry or dissonance inside them. I’m an enormous fan of Southern literature and Southern music, and I take these issues very severely. So once I say Athens made me wish to rethink the way in which I view the South, it doesn’t imply we don’t have our personal monuments. It simply seems totally different, and it’s important to change the way in which you concentrate on what we do have.
Past music or different individuals’s poetry, how do you go about relaying the Southern expertise when individuals ask you in day-to-day life, or once you spend time away from it? Or do songs make up for the dearth of language for that form of factor?
That’s query. I’ve all the time gravitated in direction of music as the way in which I have interaction the world. It’s a type that helps me piece issues collectively and make sense of my very own expertise. But additionally, once I hear different Southern music, it feels prefer it expresses or will get at one thing, and it’s typically very unclear what it’s about – there’s this ambiguiry, which I like and attempt to preserve in my very own work. I lived in New York for some time, I lived in Brooklyn, and I moved away from the South, from North Carolina, partially as a result of I assumed different locations on the planet had a vanguard – it was doing one thing urgent and forward-thinking. Rising up within the South, I assumed, perhaps poorly, that there have been some backwards, conventional, or conservative methods of life. I used to be excited about what it might seem like to be in a spot the place everybody was productive, all the time making issues, pushed.
However once I was in New York, I instantly began utilizing kinds from the South – melodic kinds or references. It took me leaving to appreciate these Southern parts aren’t backwards in any respect. They is perhaps slower, however they’re truly one thing lacking that’s lacking elsewhere – a sure ready, wading patiently. A sure slowness I grew up with and cherished, I embraced and embodied it. After I was within the South, I assumed, “I’ve this different factor – I make music, I’ve this different component that’s not being expressed right here.” However the second I left, I embraced these parts. I cherished being gradual once more, embracing this down-homeness, this dirtiness, this factor I didn’t know was so a part of me till I felt it wasn’t round me. After I was somewhere else, I felt dissonant, and coming again made me wish to perceive what that was – what attracts you again and makes you wish to defend it.
However I believe numerous us listening, studying, taking severely what it means to be from the South – it’s about that stress. It’s not only a full embrace. It’s embracing it as a result of there’s one thing difficult that makes it priceless. While you learn Faulkner or Frank Stanford’s poetry, these tensions are in all places – there’s hurt, damage, and ache lurking in all places. It’s not one thing that’s typically mentioned; and whether it is, it’s all the time coded in one thing else. Saying a nicety that covers over one thing extra painful is a part of the language of the South – how do you say one thing so troublesome about a spot whereas saying, “That is the place I select to dwell”? That’s numerous what’s happening on this file – a disaster of language, of having the ability to categorical this worth.
Talking of slowness, certainly one of my favourite traces on Large Ugly is from the title monitor: “Even when generally I’m slowing down, I do know I’m slowing over you.”
Yeah, thanks. That’s a music, I suppose, about dedication. “They’ll need to haul me off,” , they’ll need to take me out of right here if I’m going to depart. However what am I sticking round for? It’s this relationship to the earth, the place, the individuals, and its particular lifestyle – the way it compels you and makes you relate to it, and act that approach, too. I like that music and that line. It’s an odd one.
I relate it additionally to the ultimate music and that query of “Have I been okay at residing?” The road that actually strikes me is the one which comes proper after: “Do I’ve coronary heart once I’m blacking out from residing?” I really feel like that’s numerous what the album is in the end about: the issues that compel you to remain, to not bask in escapist or dissociative behaviour.
Yeah, I believe so too. Quite a lot of these things is about being overwhelmed, feeling incapable, just like the world is transferring within the flawed course. So that you shut down – whether or not by way of staying residence and changing into extra insular, consuming tradition, or no matter means that you can shut out the world. Clearly, blacking out has a consuming high quality, nevertheless it’s greater than that – it’s an actual closing out of the world. Quite a lot of what we see at the moment is, having coronary heart means being open, delicate, cautious. That’s good – it’s course and strategy to be. However how do you do this once you’re born out of virtually a repressive approach of approaching the world? If that’s your core, having coronary heart looks as if the factor you don’t have in that new sense of being open. I really like that stress – when the individual or character can’t do one thing, but it’s that very factor the place you anticipate it to not be that may shine by way of as essential. That’s what I like about Southern literature and themes – the kindnesses are precisely the place you don’t anticipate them.
I really feel like that stress is foregrounded within the title, which at first looks as if a continuation of the linguistic juxtaposition of Evil Pleasure, nevertheless it’s an actual place. While you determined to make use of the mural depicting the realm round Large Ugly Creek because the album cowl, what position did it play for you? And extra broadly, how does the actual lineage, neighborhood, and private historical past you found function a backdrop for fiction and songwriting?
I’ve all the time been drawn to little couplets, two phrases that, when put collectively, really feel flawed or like they shouldn’t exist. “Evil pleasure” needs to be damaging, nevertheless it’s one thing individuals know intuitively, this badness that additionally provides a form of pleasure. I believe “huge ugly” is a extra developed model of that. I like beginning with one thing very damaging and making an attempt to exploit it for its magnificence, helpfulness, or sensitivity. Linguistically, it units me up for the narratives I like to inform: an unsightly scenario that has numerous coronary heart. I assumed it was an ideal identify for these thematic tensions, nevertheless it’s additionally an ideal identify for the spatial issues happening on this file – small cities, an virtually documentarian sense of individuals residing their lives. I wished it to be actual, as a result of not all the things mentioned on right here is actual tales about actual individuals, nevertheless it ought to really feel actual. I wished it to be an actual place that somebody might discover on a map. That stress between documentary and fiction, historic truth and narrative, is completely encapsulated in that identify.
It’s not like I’ve a particular relationship to the small, unincorporated space known as Large Ugly, however I’ve a relationship to West Virginia and the Guyandotte River, the place my household is from. Large Ugly is a type of names that sticks with you as a spot and as a reputation. It’s humorous that a spot like that exists, and it’s humorous that the identify has lived on. After I began to look into it, I discovered that it’s truly an extremely stunning place. What I discovered there was this mural and a complete historical past of individuals producing music and literature about this space. It’s very conscious of itself and impressed by itself, producing all this reflection on itself. For me, outdoors of my very own investments and poetry, that turned an actual instance of expectations being completely undercut.
Equally, with my household, going to West Virginia, there’s an expectation that it’s not going to be nice. However then I went with my grandma, and he or she confirmed me all of the locations she went to, all of the love she had, all of the experiences and desires she had. She sees them as being there, and it undercuts it. You suppose one factor, however then you definately go there, and it’s full of desires and aspirations. All of that collectively made it such a strong start line or picture for me to maneuver by way of.
Are you able to inform me extra in regards to the expectations that had been undercut throughout these journeys together with your grandma?
Effectively, my expectation – and that is simply from residing within the South, even in North Carolina and Virginia, all of the locations I’ve lived and visited – is that these are locations in decline. Locations which have suffered financial crises, drug crises. These are locations which might be hurting, and individuals are closed off, conservative, cautious of outsiders. Although I’m from right here, I anticipate them being rundown, struggling areas. However as a substitute, with my grandma there, strolling round, together with her power and speaking to individuals – her private historical past is projected onto it, and he or she sees it come to life. If she’s doing that, if she’s bringing this place to life – it could look rundown and exhausted, nevertheless it’s not. It’s stuffed, by way of her view, with all these reminiscences and energies. And if she’s doing that, then everybody’s doing that. It takes a reconsideration by way of the lens of the individuals who dwell there, staff, the individuals who dwell on the land. Appearances are misleading. Clearly, there’s numerous poverty and structural poverty right here, however that’s not the top. Restoring or emphasizing the hopes and aspirations there appears to be the inversion wanted.
I believe these items are additionally truisms. Each place has its issues, but individuals stay. Folks look previous it and suppose ahead. I’m not saying something completely new, nevertheless it was huge for me, as somebody excited about private historical past, to expertise it by way of my grandmother – to see her trying on the residence she grew up in, the steps she performed on, or the home she was born in that was torn down. She’s this absent constructing – a constructing I can’t see, however she will be able to. It’s that historic reminiscence overlaid with appearances and expectations, rewriting these damaging projections with beautiful ones – that was so profound for me.
You talked about being fascinated by human battle, these little emotions, and what I get from Large Ugly is individuals being on the verge of vulnerability – or individuals on the opposite aspect of that vulnerability, making an attempt to dig it out. Is that interpersonal stress one thing that appeals to you?
Every of those songs has a personality – if not named, then it’s about individuals, individuals having emotions, crises, frustrations. It’s basic, in a approach: ‘Gateleg’ is form of a love story, ‘Spangled’ is a repressive, traumatic factor, and ‘Doghole’ is filled with pleasure. However none of them are so obtainable – it’s not simply the pure essence of pleasure or love. All the pieces is up towards the world in these songs. Like I mentioned earlier, with the thought of blacking out, numerous it’s about being raised in a tradition with numerous restrictions, and feeling that’s form of essential: a quiet method to the world, not being weak, blocking issues out.
Nobody’s put it this manner, however I believe it’s precisely proper: this being on the opposite aspect of vulnerability, having it break by way of in tiny methods. Whether or not it’s by way of language, having the ability to discuss one thing in a sure approach, or releasing the stronghold on expressing your self, like digging a gap – I really like that picture of a canine bursting out of the home into the yard, digging. That concept of pleasure, breaking by way of the barrier, having that be an expression of pleasure and love. Or in ‘Bleached’, trying again on the way you turned what you might be once you barely had ideas, barely might communicate. You took up with buddies and have become a particular approach since you had been making an attempt to match them, after which realizing it’s saved you from being extra weak – or no less than able to receiving new issues. I actually do suppose that will get on the core of it. I prefer to route it by way of individuals and interpersonal relations as a result of it occurs on the stage of individuals.
Within the music ‘Jody’, you’ve bought these characters who’re in a relationship, and so they each grew up in a tradition that’s perhaps abusive, or about enjoying exhausting, having a meanness. After which producing a very wholesome relationship out of that. Like with Large Ugly, these expectations – you suppose it’s this unhealthy factor you’re outlined by, however as a substitute, it’s this breaking by way of that provides it the power that’s value listening to or placing right into a music or studying. That’s the factor that’s so priceless right here.
Quite a lot of that power and pleasure is captured in ‘Mountain Language’. I’m curious in regards to the extent to which it’s one thing you personally establish with it, or if it wavers for you, that form of romanticism.
It feels private. Quite a lot of songs on this file really feel extra private in that approach. Every verse in ‘Mountain Language’ takes up an issue in every verse I do know very nicely from my life – socioeconomic restrictions or conditions that maintain you again, making you’re employed a wage job, have relationships that don’t really feel precisely proper, or have family and friends members in disaster. It’s so exhausting to suppose that, regardless of these conditions, there are nonetheless these candy, lived resistances to all of it. But when there was another approach – the large utopian query – we’ve bought to carry onto that picture, nevertheless romantic or unviable it’s. That music and sentiment are ones I actually really feel.
I’m somebody whose first precept is hope. It doesn’t all the time really feel vital, and generally it doesn’t look very political, however my first sentiment is hope. I believe hope is a good first philosophy to have – to look again on the hopes of individuals as one thing that’s value remembering, even when they didn’t materialize. Sustaining hope, no matter meaning – the factor that’s but to come back – makes the current really feel purposeful. It’s a easy wish-fulfillment kind music, however I believe these sentiments are essential.
As you talked about, there’s characters all all through the file, however certainly one of its most transferring songs is ‘Sister’, which has no names or no signifiers of place. It makes me really feel like that’s a music that hits residence for you.
It’s one of many solely songs I’ve ever written as a form of elegy – a music about loss of life. I wrote it after the expertise of loss of life in my life. I strive to not make songs too private as a result of then, each time you play or hearken to them, the private factor comes up consistently. You develop uninterested in it, or your place modifications, and also you don’t wish to take into consideration that factor anymore, so the music turns into misplaced. However this was a uncommon instance of processing one thing in my life by way of a music. I wrote it straight by way of in about 10-Quarter-hour as a result of I used to be in a really weak second in my life.
It’s much like what’s occurring in ‘Spangled’, the place one thing absent nonetheless has presence on the planet round you. In the case of loss of life, when somebody passes away, you see the remnants of their life, you continue to see the traces of life. It’s an odd stress of presence and absence – experiencing somebody’s loss by way of what they’ve left behind. However I additionally suppose it’s a common music in a approach. I all the time really feel that as a result of it’s explicit, another person can discover their factor by way of it. That’s what numerous the characters and particulars do in my songs, or I hope they do. However right here, with out these issues, it’s purely a sense music, an inner music that perhaps does it on a distinct stage. It positively feels prefer it’s an exception on this file, nevertheless it’s certainly one of my favourite songs and recordings. Libby’s fiddle on it’s so harrowing – it’s droning and crying. There’s a lot on the musical stage that feels prefer it’s doing the work.
You recorded the album with Alex Farrar, and one thing that separates you from many artists I’ve talked to who’ve made albums with him is that that is your second full-length collaboration in a row. What was it like working once more with him?
Effectively, after we recorded Genevieve, it occurred so quick. I had come out of years of residence recording, and it was my first time in a studio. I used to be all the time towards studio stuff as a result of so many individuals in my era anticipate the sound of residence recording – it’s a part of our musical DNA. However with Alex, it was instantly gratifying. He had such a sound and contact, and it felt pure. I wished to do a second file with him as a result of we had extra time to work on it collectively, which he was very completely satisfied to do.
After I look again on recording Large Ugly, it was very structured – we labored 10 to 7. Alex has a child, and his companion, Larkin, is certainly one of my favourite individuals. They’re the definition of fine individuals. The individuals at Drop of Solar are all so caring and considerate. It was a neighborhood effort with Alex. Additionally, he’s an ideal reader. He reads a lot, and he’s so delicate to themes and philosophical ideas. We’d file, after which we’d discuss books and flicks. He’s so quiet and critical and cautious in relation to recording, but additionally in a position to break free and have probably the most intriguing conversations. It’s not so technical – it’s very fluid. He’s on a wavelength the place we’re making music not as a result of there’s this urgency, however as a result of we’re buddies, and we every have our skills and capacities, and we wish to be round one another. And the music seems like a byproduct of that. After I suppose again on the file, I consider it like that: a doc of two weeks spent in shut quarters with good, caring, considerate individuals, versus a transaction.
The phrase we regularly use to explain how bands work collectively is “chemistry,” however I wished to ask what which means you’ve discovered within the companionship – a phrase that feels extra apt right here – of Fust as a bunch.
Yeah, I don’t learn about chemistry. I believe any mixture of individuals would produce a form of response, however I’m not somebody who firmly believes in that sense of chemical response. I’ll write songs as a result of I’ve been doing it for thus lengthy. Fortunately, it was the primary challenge the place strangers preferred it. There’s the query: What’s totally different? Why do individuals like this one? Is it due to chemistry between this group of individuals enjoying it and Alex? It may very well be, however these aren’t the questions I’m tremendous excited about.
What made Fust nice was that I surrendered to not being the one musician who performed all the things, to not recording and mixing all the things myself. I surrendered to whole management and made music not a treasured factor that needs to be precisely proper, however truly a dedication to different individuals. To Avery, who’s such an unbelievable and delicate drummer – a songwriter’s drummer. He performs with phrasing that provides me the momentum and stability I would like. Taking part in with Ollie and Justin, whose voices becoming a member of me is one thing I might by no means replicate. They’re the proper choir to sing with. It’s this dedication to different individuals’s hard-earned methods of performing and being round individuals. Alex’s hard-earned approach of creating music. Being very cautious and cautious with who I select to spend time with.
I don’t want to do that – there are different methods of residing life. I don’t must do all of this to place this file in entrance of individuals. What makes all of it value it’s that it means I get to have extra intense relationships with these individuals, that I get to proceed investing in them – not simply the music, however these individuals. I’ve bought such an ideal neighborhood – it’s virtually embarrassing how good the individuals I’ve discovered myself gathered amongst are. So proficient, so particular. I really like the pivot you made between chemistry as just a few form of symbiosis – this factor the place skills come collectively and it really works – and individuals who like to be collectively. May Fust sound otherwise with a distinct group? Completely. However that’s not what I’m listening for. After I pay attention again to Large Ugly, I’m listening to my buddies, my individuals doing issues I didn’t write, issues I didn’t know they had been going to do. I’m listening to traces of the individuals I really like, versus the musical concept perfected by a gun-for-hire.
This interview has been edited and condensed for readability and size.
Fust’s Large Ugly is out March 7 by way of Expensive Life Data.
