Q&A: Genre-Defying Artist Danny Dwyer Joins Forces With Daniel Fang on Remix of Viral Single, “mice band”
INTERVIEW
INTERVIEW
☆ BY FAITH LUEVANOS ☆
Photo By Stefan Kohli
WITH A SONG THAT’S REACHED ALL CORNERS OF THE INTERNET – experimental artist Danny Dwyer has seen his hit single “mice band” take on a whole new life. Fans everywhere have created a multitude of storylines to accompany the single, building a sense of community within Dwyer’s fan base.
“mice band” has inspired conversations about AI-generated art and the future of it moving forward, as fans originally believed the song was created by AI. Upon finding out the song was an original creation by Dwyer, his music captured the attention of thousands, including Turnstile’s drummer Daniel Fang who recently joined forces with Dwyer to release a remixed version of “mice band.”
The Luna Collective had the opportunity to chat with Dwyer about the extensive lore behind “mice band,” his lifelong relationship with music, how his music is intended to be listened to, and more. Read the full interview below.
Photo By Stefan Kohli
LUNA: It was mentioned that there was some crazy lore behind “mice band.” Please catch me up to speed, I have to know what’s going on.
DWYER: Definitely lots of lore. There was this sort of viral thing that exploded and then turned into the main characters and the beefs between them, and it turned into drama—Succession type of drama. I'm seeing all kinds of sh*t, which is really cool. We got Marvin Cheese, Marvin Cheese is currently stuck in the back rooms. (laughs) I think it's cool to see the world building. I think we're heading into this future that I've seen for a while of everything becoming one, whether it's films or music or games. I see that merger happening, and I find it super exciting and empowering. Great songs create all of this. Great art in general, it can expand so much beyond how it did ten years ago.
LUNA: So after all of these different plot lines started surfacing, how did Daniel Fang get to become a part of the lore?
DWYER: I've been doing some live performance stuff on reels the last few days that have been doing really well. It's funny, everyone's in the Danny Dwyer comments talking about, “Bro thinks he's Marvin Cheese.” Part of it blew up because it is also a very cool song, it became associated with AI and people thought the song was [created by] AI, which is a whole cool thing.
There was a week where everyone thought it was AI-generated when it first started blowing up, and it was a big conversation. Even though it wasn't AI-generated art, people believed it was and it was on some, “This marks the turning point, people don't care if it's AI or not. They love the song and accept it.” That's something we've never seen. But from the artist's perspective, I've only seen love, and my community is so supportive of the art, and I'm getting emotional reading comments, the song actually means a lot. Daniel from Turnstile hit me up and told me he thought it was AI-generated when he heard the counter melody and was like, “You're actually doing this real rock sh*t. This is so cool.”
LUNA: How would you describe your genre or style of music for those who may just be discovering you now?
DWYER: I think the biggest thing for me as an artist has always been being outside of genre. It’s something that's always excited me. Transparency. I felt like I was early on it in a way that, towards the beginning of me putting out music, it was something people brought up a lot. I think people who had an older mindset, who didn't understand it, were on some, “I think you should focus on more genre consistency, and you should stay in R&B or this and that.” It came to this point where we look back now, and I look at my 17 year-old brother, and I'm in the car with him and his Spotify is the craziest mix of everything. Bedroom pop, hard rap, this and that. And it's like, all these kids listen to that. Especially around the bedroom pop era is where we really saw people not being afraid to be outside of genre and not identify with genre so heavily. I've always seen genre more as another tool to express myself. There are certain things that I want to say that I feel like I couldn't say if I was boxed into one genre.
With “mice band,” it was about a 20-minute session. Most of my biggest songs are something that pours out of me in 20 minutes. For me, creatively, I go into making things with no expectations and with no limitations. Being free from that has always led me to creating the coolest things.
LUNA: Since this song has such a unique sound and has taken on a life of its own, would you continue down this path because of its success? Or is this something so rare and precious to you that you wouldn’t want to?
DWYER: In general, there's been sort of two pushes for me in the last few years artistically. I played trumpet my whole life, and that's how I got number two jazz trumpet in the state in high school, [which is] how I got into college. Coming from a working-class St. Louis family, music was the way I did anything, and that all came from the trumpet. That turned into going to school and getting to LA. I found my love of music when a family friend gave me his old drum set. I started playing drums, and my brother started playing guitar in the basement. That's all we did. You know, they would sneak me into bars to play because I was under 18 and I was a young kid who got to go do all this cool stuff. So that was my [experience] first falling in love with music.
It inspires me to connect with what it's like being a kid with your brother playing in a basement. I’m someone who really cares about music, and blending those two worlds is what excites me. I think “mice band” is something like no one's heard before, which is the reason that people were so intrigued by it, and I’m just continuing to make things people have never heard before.
LUNA: Could you have predicted that “mice band” would take off the way it did?
DWYER: I don't think so. I always knew it was very special. Usually, the way I know that is in the years later, you hear it and it sounds better and newer than when you made it. I always had that feeling about this song. I sort of never knew what to do with it at the time when I made it. There didn't feel like a world for it yet, and at this point I had this very brief phase of just uploading things to TikTok mostly for the reason that I lose things a lot. I've made thousands of demos and a lot of them are lost in a Dropbox. I started putting things up through that or through burner accounts just to have a better place to keep it. There's so much music I made that is gone on hard drives and the only things that I can find are the things that I happened to put on Bandcamp in high school. It comes from that perspective of just letting it live, and then happen to stumble upon it.
LUNA: Do you have any favorite production elements within the song that you’re most proud of?
DWYER: It's a very like, first thought, best thought, type of song which is probably what is cool. I think the lyrics were damn near, like, freestyle or punched in. I definitely know I wasn't writing that. It's just so in the moment and catching an energy and some things wouldn't have happened vocally if I wasn't doing it in two minutes. I think the coolest thing is being able to tap into that, and then also being in the headspace where you're finding 30 minutes as an artist to be on some “Every idea I have is the best idea in the world. Let's put that down on paper.” Sort of a rare head space to be in.
LUNA: You also recently released an EP, From the horse’s mouth. How does “mice band” fit into this new chapter?
DWYER: The EP was sort of a process of really dialing away from everything and focusing a lot on music. I was living in Beachwood, and I was just going on hikes every day and reading books and having that approach of not being very online. That's sort of what created the EP, is that world and taking that headspace and really being away from the world. I was reading the Moog biography about starting a synthesizer company and bro being broke his whole life. I think the overall energy of the EP is about that step back, and that's where the title came from. It's about letting the music speak for itself and letting that be the statement from me more than being online.
LUNA: Do you have any other dream collabs you’re hoping for in the future?
DWYER: I still want Dave Blunts because he was really loving it, but he’s a real hero to me. I guess mostly rappers, people who make music in BandLab mostly. Doing something with EDGLRD is my biggest dream outside of music.
LUNA: What is the ideal setting for listening to your music?
DWYER: That's a good question. With “mice band,” I very, actually purposely mastered it like sh*t, but it comes from the shift in the last six months of wanting people to listen to my music on their phones. I'm making most of my music in the kitchen, on my laptop through laptop speakers. That's how I want it to be consumed. I want it to be consumed on SoundCloud with the ads turned on, and I want it to be consumed in Roblox, and I want it to be consumed on the phone.
LUNA: What’s coming up next for you in the upcoming months?
DWYER: I think I want to make games. I think I want to be on Roblox more.
