Multi-faceted Songwriter Will Dailey on the Non-Release Model and Intimate Conversations of ‘Boys Talking’ (INTERVIEW)

Photo credit: Pat Piaseki

Indie artist Will Dailey’s seventh album Boys Talking, is currently available as physical media like vinyl and CD directly from him, as well as by direct download. But only a limited number of the tracks from the album will be made available on streaming, and those releases will be spread out over time with fan voting involved to determine which are released. This decision on Dailey’s part has been based on the experience of release dates over time, and on his enlightening and hopeful interactions with fans at shows via his ten-dollar song project whereby fans could access an unreleased song for one listen only. It gave him hope regarding the significance of unique musical experiences and how they can still impact our lives.

The songs on the album came together following a period of loss for Dailey where two dear friends passed away, leaving him considering their impact on his life. What followed was a bigger era of conversations among musicians and other friends, including those who worked on the album with him, and he encapsulated some of those shared stories into the new tracks. I spoke with Will Dailey about the challenges of making this move to share an album in a different mode than he’s used before, largely about the motivation he felt to do so, and also about the bigger significance of conversation to him, and of connections forged with those who may encounter his music in various ways. 

It does seem like this is a big development for you, the unusual release/non-release approach to Boys Talking. Do you feel that it is?

I’ve always done what feels true, which may sound kind of trite. I was in a band that was doing well in Boston, New York, and on the East Coast, but it was like your best friends from high school. I went and cut my first record and just thought I was making it for myself, so I just found this guy who had old, vintage equipment. There were no computers, 16 tracks only, and no automation on the mix. You had to mix to master with your hands. I had no idea what I was doing producing my own record. I just thought I was making the record for my friends. I had to pay the studio owner with my car. I gave him my old Honda Civic. 

I didn’t really have a plan; I just knew that I needed to finish the album, to know myself, to get myself to the next stage, and a car wasn’t gonna get me to the next stage. I kind of still find myself in that thinking pattern. I never understood how important that kind of thinking is, to do something for me, just for me, until 2023. Then I did that thing with the ten-dollar song project, which is still rolling. It’s just a CD player on my merch table, with a set of headphones that go over your ears, and people pay 10 dollars to listen to this one song. It’s called “Cover of Clouds,” and they get to listen to it one time in their life. All of art is available under our thumbs. We live under the thumb of ourselves! It’s kind of oppressive, but it’s our doing right now! We all say it’s not paying right, and it doesn’t feel good, but we’re all still doing it. The question was, “How do we get more?” But I had to stop myself and ask, “What if more is not the answer?” But I think we put too much emphasis on algorithms and Spotify, which is the easiest to walk away from because the medium of art always changes and fades. I just want to make choices that feel good about getting myself to the next best place by way of music and art. 

I was wondering about the function of release dates and how that affects this album. Is it that you don’t mind if you get feedback on the album now, or a year from now? Is that fair?

That is fair. It’s an adjustment, and it’s exactly what I was going for. The ten-dollar song rewired my expectations. I realized on my last full-length how emotionally detrimental it was when you’re at the whims of all these expectations that we all have, which were unhealthy for me. I think they are unhealthy for how we perceive music and its role in our lives, and not just our lives now, but its role in our lives throughout time. Since music has been with us from the beginning, it’s part of us on a cellular level. I thought, “I’m the creative here. Why am I behaving in an obedient fashion? How disingenuous to pull other humans into that behavior.” 

This isn’t, “Fuck Spotify.” This is me saying, “I’m going to be pro-human level.” But I do have to adjust myself because I’m lying in bed thinking, “No one has heard this.”  Maybe only 400 people have heard the ten-dollar song, but there are people crying some nights when I’ve never met them before. That is powerful. I will never forget that. I will never forget these moments with other people, and I will change and grow from that. But I have to rewire my brain because the business itself is built to tell you that you’re not enough all the time, even if you’re Taylor Swift. 

How do you feel about selling the physical copies of the album and/or getting placements for your songs? Is that still appealing to you?

Oh yes, I’m trying to build a better financial model because one of those songs might bring in some streaming money, but the physical has more value. I wouldn’t have abandoned radio in the 90s if they wanted to spin my stuff, but I would have protected myself and used it appropriately. I would also love licensors to say, “This one isn’t out, but maybe if we use it, it can be the third release.” I would love to save two or three of the songs to remain just for those people who bought it or that we do remixes or live versions of the songs that go out to digital. That’s so that having the record is having the piece of art that we made. Even the version of “Make Another Me” that’s on Spotify right now is a slightly shorter version. I’m constantly tinkering. 

How has this felt for you, seeing this release/non-release play out for Boys Talking? Are you happy with the experience so far?

Anytime I think, “Am I doing this right?” I remember the feeling of releasing a record on a specific date. When we release records, we can all collectively talk about 20 records or so, and there might be another 250 to 500 that have their success. We kind of lose sight about how to celebrate those things. I think it might be toxic. 

We want to have universal storytelling, which is a huge part of being human. We used to tell stories around a fire, and now we’re trying to do it throughout the world. We have to psychologically evolve to figure out how to do it around the fire, still, throughout the world. That’s what I’m trying to do. I believe in that fire more than I need to be on someone’s year-end list. 

I think it’s interesting that the album has a concept of people talking together, and that’s both parties contributing. So there’s a feeling also of the role that the audience plays in talking about this music and spreading it. There’s an idea of involvement. 

Yes, yes. This kind of conversation that we’re having is exactly what I had hoped would happen because of this choice. Because here’s how a normal release conversation would have gone, “How’d you come up with the title, ‘Boys Talking’?” 

For me, this album started with my friend, who’s an artist, and he’s more in Hip-Hop. I said that I had a bunch of songs, and he said, “What’s you’re album about?” He wanted to know what my album was about before I’d even made it. I had to answer, and I said, “I think the album is about getting good with grief and turning into my power now.” Because I lost two friends during the pandemic, one to suicide and one to cancer, they were both pivotal anytime I shared music. One of them was a life-long fake older brother, who, anytime I had a release, I’d wake up to a dissertation text about it. The other was the Yoda/Gandalf figure, an older, wiser French artist who would speak about the universal and eternal nature of anything I was doing. You couldn’t believe that he was shining his light your way. 

I started thinking about what it feels like as an artist to lose these independent receptors of your creations. So a lot of the songs came from that and what I was struggling with. Then there were other peoples’ stories and that kind of thinking. When my Production partner, longtime best friend, and musical collaborator Dave Brophy and I were on the phone one day, talking about what to call the album, I said, “I’m thinking of calling it ‘Send Some Energy’ since it’s a cool phrase and kind of what I’m saying, but I hate the idea of giving one song the spotlight.” I said, “Really this album is just boys talking, and trying to have conversations, and the good and the bad of it.” It was one of those, “Dude!” moments. It was true of every song. 

Does some of this reflect back on some conversations that you had with your friends who have now passed away, or more on conversations you had around the time of writing the album?

It’s both. It wasn’t a direct concept record in any sense, but I wanted the through-line of that feeling. There’s my friend who would have expounded on the universal nature of art and its performance. But it wasn’t a concept for them. It just started out with them. You just start to think, “Is a long life one where you end up missing everyone?” 

That’s an old philosophical question that people have been asking at least since Ancient Greece such as “Is it better to live long and lose everyone or live short but live well?”

I think it’s living long. But the concept is the true honor and blessing it is to remember someone forever. That would be it. Not that “Make Another Me” is about that, but that is the energy that I took into making it. It’s connected to the release process because I have to protect music, which is intrinsically human, and my own humanity and that of the people who play with me. The release is tied to that vision.

Do you have thoughts about the sound and how that functions on the album? The songs are pretty different, sonically, but not wildly so. Or do you prefer not to create a unified sound because that’s often tied to the packaging and commodification of albums?

I have definitely struggled, career-wise, because I did not pick a sound. I remember, early on, when I was on labels, they asked, “Do you want to be the Rock guy, the singer/songwriter guy, the sensitive guy…?” [Laughs] You know, I want to make what I want to make. I don’t have a plan. I have to be free to make what I feel like I have to make. Dave Brophy and I Produced the last three records, and we tried to make the most uniform album, and that meant cutting some of those more aggressive songs. At the end of it, I was laughing, because “Make Another Me” is still very different from “Hell of a Drug.” But it was all recorded in the same room and in the same span of two sets of five days. 

But, personally, when I listen to music, I’m most attracted to albums that twist me around over and over again. I can think of classic records like Sticky Fingers, by The Rolling Stones, that has Country songs, Rock ‘n Roll songs, epic ballads. “Moonlight Mile”, “Bitch”, “Can’t You Hear Me Knockin’” and “Dead Flowers” are all wildly different songs. Then, in the 90s, I hear a band like Pearl Jam, and they have a Punk Rock song, then they have a Folk ballad. That informed me. I realized, “You do what you have to create. That’s what you make.” That is my only principle. I need some twists and turns.  

Related Content

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recent Posts

New to Glide

Keep up-to-date with Glide

Twitter