Ryder Cooley of Dust Bowl Faeries – Interview

Liam Sweeny interview with Ryder Cooley of Dust Bowl Faeries

https://dustbowlfaeries.com/

@dustbowlfaeries

RRX: Hey Ryder, can you hear me?

RC: Yes!

RRX: So this is Ryder Cooley of Dust Bowl Fairies talking to Liam Sweeney of RadioRadioX.

Let’s start out talking about what’s new…

RC: Well, Dust Bowl Fairies have a new EP, Magic & Mayhem coming out September 7th and we’re releasing a new video with it. The video is for the song Film Noir Double Feature. It’s our ten-year anniversary this year, so we’re going to celebrate on Saturday September 7th at our EP Release Show, which will be at Return Brewing in Hudson, NY. Melora Creager (of Rasputina) will be sitting in with us on cello and she plays on a couple of songs on the EP.

TICKET Link:

SAT. SEPT 7th, Return Brewing Hudson, 8-10pm

https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/6365666

RRX: Ok, cool. So in addition to having the most unique sound, you guys have a very unique stage presence. A dust Bowl Faeries show is unmistakably the Full Fairy, it cannot be anything else. So tell me about how the… what do I wanna call it?

How did the vibe evolve from when you started up? Were you guys always like this, or did this happen over time?

RC: The vibe came out of me doing multi-media performances. My background is in visual and performance art and I’ve always been into visual and theatrical presentations. When I first started working with taxidermy animals it was for my performance art shows. I would strap the animals onto my body and it started out as a macabre shadow theater. You would just see the shadow of my body and the other performers, the human figures, with the taxidermy heads protruding like hybrid appendages.  So it mostly happened within the realm of the shadows originally, then gradually I decided to bring it out of the shadows and integrate the hybrid characters with music and songs, but there were still shadows because there were video projections. Dust Bowl Faeries don’t work with videos projections very often these days because it really requires a specific space that’s hard to get. But we still work with the taxidermy animals, especially Hazel, who many people have met. Hazel is the band’s mascot spirit animal.

RRX: OK, cool. So you’re saying that you started in visual art before music, right?

RC: Yeah.

RRX: I’m asking this because I’m a visual artist, and more recently a musician. I just put out my own EP so I know where you’re coming from because I’m a writer, artist and musician, and I feel like it’s all one thing but I mean, I don’t understand people who like to stick to one of those things instead of exploring all of them. So you’ve explored at least two, music and visual art. What do you think it takes to be adept in more than one of the creative arts as opposed to being adept at one?

RC: I think it’s about being a multi-sensory person (or not).  Some people really focus in on one sensorial aspect, and there’s nothing wrong with that, you can really dive in more deeply and perfect your craft that way. But if you’re more of a multi-sensory person (like us), then I think it’s hard to just do one thing, because sound evokes images and images evoke sound. I mean, if you watch a movie without the sound it’s not the same thing. So they’re really linked and they really enhance each other.

RRX: Yeah, that definitely shows through with you, totally. OK, so when you are coming up with ideas for songs or for any aspect of what you do… I’m imagining two possible approaches. One is that you have an idea and then you make it happen with whatever skills you have musically and/or visually. The other approach is that you just enter into that free form zone and something pops out and you’re like, oh let me grab that. I mean, which one do you think more often happens with you?

RC: I think it’s the first one, say the first one again?

RRX: You have a vision and you use all the skills/tools available to try to hash out that vision.

RC: I think it starts with having the vision but then things morph and there’s accidents and surprises along the way. I’m not somebody where I start out with one vision and that’s what it has to be in the end, sometimes the result ends up being a lot different than what I thought it would be.

RRX: Ok. So yeah, so it’s almost like a combination of both then?

RC: Yes

RRX: Like in the media, our vision informs the media, but then the media informs our vision.

RC: Definitely.

RRX: So where do you play most often, geographically, in this area?

RC: We’re based in the Catskill/Hudson NY area and we play a lot of shows in the NY Hudson Valley and Capital District. We try to do a little bit of touring every year, I’d like to do more, but it gets complicated. Last year we went to Sicily, which was epic and amazing. But  we mostly play in the northeast and the majority of our shows are within a couple of hours from home. We haven’t been playing much in NYC since the pandemic since so much of the city moved upstate, but we play in the Berkshires and sometimes we tour to Atlanta or New Orleans. This is our second year playing at the Rochester Fringe Festival, we’ll be there September 13-15 at The Spirit Room, which is a very cool culty venue. So yeah, we kind of drift around.

Fringe Festival Tickets/info:

https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/6365666

RRX: So when was the last time you played in the metro capital district?

RC: Last month I played roaming accordion for a circus series in Troy.  Prior to that, the band played at the Linda earlier this summer and our trio will be playing on Saturday August 31 outside the Troy Music Hall in the “courtyard”. They close down the street, it’s a really series.

RRX: Yeah, I’ve heard of that.

RC: It’s called Summer Square, the performances are 6-7:30. We also played in Saratoga at the Tang Museum this summer and that was fantastic. They have a series called, UP Beat On the Roof.

RRX: Nice. So, you’re up on the roof line?

RC: Well, I don’t know where the roof begins and ends because it’s a very peculiar modern building, but where we performed seemed more like a lawn that a roof! I don’t know if the series started out on the roof and then shifted to the lawn, or maybe there’s a secret roof under the lawn, but it was really fun to play there, really great sound and there are always amazing exhibits in the museum. The Tang is one of my favorite museums in the area.

RRX: Ok. So I have a question here. When I was putting my album together I was also doing  an article for this place called Slab City and it’s out in the California desert and I was interviewing The Nomads and people like that, really cool. The person I interviewed, Simca, was up on Mount Shasta in California, they were doing drum circles and it’s supposed to be a holy mountain. And she said that she played my song up there. I was like, oh, that’s awesome. That’s great. That’s perfect. That’s beautiful. So let’s say, New York, anywhere in New York, where do you think would be the most spiritual, coolest place you could play? Doesn’t have to be a venue and I’m not saying spiritual like a denomination…

RC: Oh, I mean, because we’re right at the base of the Catskill Mountains there’s definitely a lot of very amazing places. Like peaks with views in the Catskills, like the whole Wyndham and Hunter Mountain areas. There’s also the Platte Clove, but actually I love just being along the Hudson River. Right in Catskill there’s a couple of parks, or points, one of them feels enchanted sometimes. It’s got a dreadful name (Dutchman’s Landing) but you can also call it Catskill Point and it’s basically where the Catskill Creek runs into the Hudson River. There’s a lot of past and future energy there, a confluence, a little bit of magic.

RRX: I wonder if they’d let you play there? That would be cool.

RC: Yeah, they do have a music series in the park area, but it’s more like cover bands. So we keep asking, why don’t you book Dust Bowl Fairies? And they’re like, nah, it’s too weird, but I would love to play there, and it wouldn’t need to be in the bandstand. It would be better right next to the water!

RRX: um, or…

RC: Maybe on a boat or something?

RRX: Just go there and play. Don’t even get permission, just go there and grab your stuff and play. Don’t even play for anybody, just play for yourself!

RC: There’s actually this amazing place where we’ve been playing, it’s called Widow Jane Mine, they have concerts all summer long. It’s a mine shaft in Rosendale NY, the acoustics are incredible. So if people are looking for interesting locations to hear music I would definitely recommend Widow Jane Mine. There is another amazing earthwork sculpture park nearby, Opus 40, where we’ve played last year. So there are some really goldmine locations around here that are also legit music venues.

RRX: Nice. OK, so your new music, let’s have a description of what this music will be containing

RC: The new Ep, Magic and Mayhem – I’d say it’s playful, and quirky. We’ve really been trying to have fun with the music so some of it is a bit more prankish and danceable than our past songs. I’ve gotten to a point of wanting to take myself less seriously and enjoy the music more and also write songs that are a bit more accessible, so there are some up-tempo tunes, I call them Gothic Polkas, and we’ve been trying to do a bit more of a swing beat sometimes. There’s also a lot of dark humor. There’s one song, Lovers of the Woods, that’s a dark fairy-tale romance gone awry (our specialty is tragic tales). There’s another song, Ringlet’s Roulette, that’s partly about weeds and flowers, even though you wouldn’t  know it unless you really listen to the lyrics closely since it’s also about relationships. But you will hear us sing about queen anne’s lace, roses, daisies, lavender and pockets of posies, which as you know is a plague reference. We’re till macabre, but we’re trying to be a bit more light hearted these days.

RRX: That’s cool, ok so I will give you one last thing, answer the question I didn’t ask, anything you wanna say

RC: I guess I’ll mention something about our process. The full Dust Bowl Faeries ensemble is a five piece band with  Jon B Woodin on guitar,  Rubie LaRue on lap steel, Jude Roberts on bass and Andrew Stein on drums. I’m the faerie leader so I write the majority of the songs, but it’s fairly collaborative once everybody starts coming up with their parts. We work on harmonies together, and sometimes someone says hey, what if we try this? I like getting other people’s input and seeing where the song can go with the group. Everybody is so talented and it’s really fun to take the song to the next level once we start adding in the musicians and their ideas. I like trying things, so there’s always an element of collaboration and surprise in the songs.

RRX: That’s awesome! All right, so I’m just gonna end it right here.

RC: Ok, thank you so much

DUST BOWL FAERIES, Dark Carnival Dream Music

Cyanide Hotel music video: https://youtu.be/62eAlZ1NTXg

Dust Bowl Faeries perform a faerie-tale fusion of dark cabaret and gothic polka music, infused with a dose of witchcraft and a dusting of woodland magic. Celebrating their ten year anniversary in 2024, the accordion driven freak-folk ensemble hails from the New York Hudson Valley and draws inspiration from sinister circus songs, murder ballads and Eastern European folk music. Singing saw, piano accordion, lap-steel, electric bass, percussion and acoustic guitar combine to create the Dust Bowl Faeries otherworldly sound. Dust Bowl Faeries was founded by Ryder Cooley (faerie queen) and her taxidermy spirit animal, Hazel the Ram.

IG: https://www.instagram.com/dustbowlfaeries/

FB: https://www.facebook.com/dustbowlfaeries

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@dustbowlfaeries

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