Get to know one of our favourite ‘new to us’ bands. Read the Q & A then give a listen to ‘Sycamore Trees’. You won’t be disappointed!
Hello Fuck You, Tammy!…. welcome to the DeClunk universe
Please describe your immediate surroundings, give us the time and what you are wearing so that we can all cosy up and get the right dress code.
Anthony: I am in my home studio and am surrounded by saxophones and guitars.
Devery: I’m wearing a black Mitski sweatshirt I got at a show in 2018, and black very worn-in sweatpants. I’m in my apartment in Rockaway Beach and the ocean is loud outside.
Nate: The time is 11:54 AM, and I am in my office in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. I share the office with up to 5 other people, but almost everyone else works from home so I often have the whole office to myself. Today is one of those days. Don’t follow my dress code! I’m at work where I am required to wear a collared shirt, so I have a handful of black polo shirts that I wear instead of my usual black horror movie T-shirt. I would prefer you wear something like that instead of a polo.
Bill: Medium-crowded Q train from Brooklyn to Manhattan. 10am. Navy slacks, pinkish dress shirt, brownish houndstooth sport coat, possibly too precious backpack, and dark brown dress shoes because I absolutely refuse to wear sneakers with dress pants.
Julie: It’s pretty weird actually, I’m at the Gateway bar in Bushwick, but it’s back when it was the Broadway, and they are having a night of tribute acts. I’m on the second floor watching a band play Guns n’ Roses songs and feeling kind of awkward because they said to come in a costume but no one is wearing a costume. People are looking at me funny. I don’t get it. Gandalf is a fucking hero, y’all! I mean just look at this staff! DON’T MAKE FUN OF MY STAFF!
Please introduce the band.
I’m Devery Doleman, and the lead singer; Julie Rozansky plays bass and sings backing vocals, Blaise Dahl plays lead guitar and sings backing vocals, Anthony Cekay plays sax and rhythm guitar, Bill Ferullo plays keys and Nate Smith plays the drums.
How did you all get together?
Devery: We all live in New York – Julie, Nate and I [Devery} were in a band together called Scam Avenue when Twin Peaks: The Return was airing in 2017, and we were all pretty obsessed. Julie had the idea of playing a Halloween show as Julee Cruise doing the Badalamenti material from Twin Peaks – in NYC (and probably everywhere) there’s a big Halloween tradition of bands playing shows as other bands. I was (and still am) another band called Les Sans Culottes with Bill our synth player and David, our first guitar player – Bill and David were also big Twin Peaks fans and fans of the music. We needed a sax player and Julie knew Anthony through the local scene, so that is how it started – but after the first show we played it felt like we had something pretty special and I asked the band if they wanted to keep going , should I try to book us more shows – and that led to where we are today! Last year David wanted to leave the band because his schedule was getting too busy and his other band The Ritualists was touring pretty heavily, and we knew Blaise from playing shows with *her* other bands, and asked her to join FYT! and she has been a phenomenal addition to the band.
The band name has a certain charm. How did it come about? Who is Tammy?
Devery: “Fuck you, Tammy” is a line in Episode 7 of Twin Peaks: The Return . Diane (played by Laura Dern) is telling multiple people to fuck off, and then turns to Chrystabell’s character, Tammy Preston, and asks “what did you say your name was again?” and when she answers “Tammy,” Diane says “Fuck you, Tammy!” and so we chose that as our name.
Were there any other band names in the hat? If so, please tell us, somebody might be out there struggling to think of one.
Devery: The Dougie Jonestown Massacre was the runner up – That was Nate’s idea
Sycamore Trees is available now. We love it. Tell us a little about the songs on the new EP.
Devery: These are our interpretations of 5 songs from the David Lynch Extended Cinematic Universe – as you journey through the EP the arrangements become increasingly adventurous. Our version of the title track is similar to the original (which is an incredible and perfect song) – the arrangement we had developed over years of playing live is much darker in some ways, heavier on the contrast between the guitar feedback and piano; and in the recording I wanted it to feel like you are following her into the dark woods and are completely taken aback by what she finds there. I feel like the song “Sycamore Trees in many ways mirrors the felt experience of entering a Lynch film or the world of Twin Peaks, and this record is the culmination of how we as a band have encountered and transformed these songs via years of liver performance. “Shadow” is very much built around that galloping drumbeat that Nate developed: and I feel like in our version the lovers actually DO leave town in a convertible with the top down, there’s a jubilant twist on the melancholy Chromatics original; and Our version of Falling developed from an arrangement over a loop with the sax playing the famous synth line, and in the studio we built it out so it’s this equal parts Luscious Jackson and Bowie’s “Tis A Pity She Was A Whore” from Blackstar – but still drawing from that Lynch-world of derangement and menace erupting through a glossy surface. We used to jokingly refer to this version as “Falling ’94.”
Bill: Sycamore Trees is so perfectly odd and haunting and iconic in its original form and context in the show. We were all really hyped to pay homage to that. But I especially love what it’s become over time, as we’ve made it more our own. It’s the song where we most get to just focus on the vibe—sitting back and listening and reacting to each other, and making it niiiiiice and creepy.
Our version of Falling is a good “necessity is the mother of invention” story. Nate had to drop out of one of our gigs one time, so for the most part we played songs that we could play well without drums. But on a lark, while we were working on Falling, I threw a simple sequence on the analog synth I was using at the time, to give us a kind of stuttery kick to play along to. We liked the bounciness and drive of that sound so much that we kept working on the arrangement when Nate returned and it turned into something really fun to play. Then, for the cherry on top, Anthony and Devery and Joel went saxophone crazy in the studio and really took the song to the next level. So satisfying!
And finally, for the deep-cut lovers out there (I’d imagine they overlap significantly with FY,T! fans in that particular Venn diagram), I want to highlight the vinyl-only track: our stripped down, vocals-and piano-only version of Blue Velvet/Blue Star. We only break this one out rarely—most recently to open a gig at Iridium jazz club in Manhattan—so it feels kind of special in our oeuvre.
Anthomy: To get to the various tone colors and overtones on Falling ’94 I used 5 saxophones with 8 different mouthpieces played into 3 microphones at different distances and angles.
Nate: Thank you kindly. The songs on the EP are all from the span of Twin Peaks, from our updated take on the theme song Falling, to the title track, which opens Fire Walk With Me, to the Platters and Chromatics songs which are important songs from The Return. Taken together, they help establish the tone and mood of the EP, which we hope echoes the eerie and powerful mood of Twin Peaks.
Julie: Everyone’s performances on the EP are outstanding. The songs are fantastic. I mean, really top notch. I wish I could say we wrote ’em, but we didn’t. Oh, well!
Is it possible to get the vinyl in the UK? We want one and so will many. Postage from the USA is expensive.
Devery: I am hoping to make that possible! I have reached out to a UK label about distribution and am waiting to see what they say. I know it’s so hard that postage is so expensive!! If you pooled a bunch of orders I could ship directly to you and maybe you can distribute?
Is there a tour and are you coming to the UK?
Devery: We would LOVE to come to the UK! I am hoping we can swing Europe next year – where in the UK do you recommend we play?
DeClunk recommends for you the following albums. Tongues by Tanya Tagaq, Braindrops by Tropical Fuck Storm and PF1 by Pill Fangs. Your turn.
Bill: Blood Incantation – Absolute Elsewhere; Molchat Doma – Belaya Polosa ; Inter Arma – New Heaven
Devery: I love the new album from Ghost Cop, Trouble; and I am still obsessed with Kristeen Young’s The Beauty Shop that came out in 2022, it’s exceptional.
Julie: The last full album that really became a favorite of mine from top to bottom was “Radiate Like This” by Warpaint. It was released a few years ago, but I haven’t found anything else since then that’s come close. I seem to be getting pickier and pickier about music as I’ve gotten older and regrettably, I rarely give full albums a good enough chance anymore. But Warpaint has been a favorite band of mine for over a decade so I never miss their releases.
Nate: Our good friends Ghost Cop’s new album “Trouble”, Pye Corner Audio’s “The Endless Echo” , The single “The Silence” by the totally underrated artist Lola Blanc, and I’m genuinely into Chappell Roan’s “The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess” and Charli XCX’s “BRAT”
Anthony: https://open.spotify.com/album/61ffDa7yVfZD3EpDCpyEtL?si=McsAVz7dTxm1frtZ0M3tcg
https://louisepost.bandcamp.com/album/but-i-love-you-without-mascara-demos-97-98
Do you folks have any hidden talents? You know, maybe an expert in origami or making the perfect Yorkshire pudding.
Devery: I can make an origami crane with my feet, I am an excellent ocean swimmer
Bill: Not really a talent, but a few friends and I opened a ramen restaurant in Brooklyn some years ago. We made a go of it for a good five years or so, but alas, it eventually went the way of all restaurants.
Julie: I can make a galloping sound by clicking my tongue inside my mouth while my mouth is closed. I am astonishingly good at Dr. Mario. I do a killer Gollum impression.
Nate: I grew up in Appalachia and my hometown had a month-long arts & heritage festival every summer, and I learned how to play blues harmonica one summer in my teens. One day years later I picked up a harmonica in my parents’ basement and started playing and my wife of 15 years was like, Uh when did you learn to play harmonica?
Anthony: No
My friend and I go fishing overnight a couple of times a year. It involves beer. A two-man disco breaks out around 11pm. This involves two blokes, in wellies, throwing shapes in the dark. What would be on your playlist for a drunken bankside disco?
Bill: Patrick Cowley – Menergy, on repeat
Devery: New Order Temptation, Blondie “Atomic”, the Xanadu soundtrack
Nate: The entirety of the Klaxons debut album Myths of the Near Future
Julie: ABBA….or whatever.
Anthony:
I have played a gig rather similar to this and it was mostly disco music. I can’t talk about it as it was a private party. Instead enjoy below:
There have been some notorious riders demanded by rock n rollers. For example, Marylin Manson requested gummy bears and a bald headed, toothless hooker. Van Halen demanded M & Ms with all the brown ones taken out.
Nate: at least five (5) bags of Bjorn Corn (popcorn with nutritional yeast) and a six-pack of A&W root beer; Hi-res TV with Blu-Ray player & a selection of 10 horror movies chosen from my Letterboxd watchlist
Bill: Keyboard stand that doesn’t seem like it might collapse at any moment. A big ask, it would seem, but we’re worth it.
Devery: Man, Marilyn Manson is always on that edgelord shit! Wasn’t the Van Halen story actually untrue? On my rider I would like a green room with a velvet chaise lounge and a makeup mirror with excellent lighting, Red Bull(NOT DIET) hot water with lemon, the tofu bim bim bap from Avalon lounge in Catskill New York, which is maybe the best meal I’ve had at any venue.
Julie: A pillow – in case I need a power nap
Thank you for taking the time with DeClunk. We look forward seeing you folks and having a beer.
Devery: Thank YOU so much for having us!
DeClunk 