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Brooklyn-based Daisy the Great’s latest album, The Rubber Teeth Talk, explores self-perception, the subconscious, and finding clarity through dream-like chaos. Kelley Dugan and Mina Walker joined OnesToWatch for a conversation about the release, unpacking the making of the album, their collaborative dynamic with each other and producer Catherine Marks, the evolution of their work since certified gold “The Record Player Song,” as well as the surreal visuals that accompany their most expansive and introspective album yet. 

OnesToWatch: Just to set the stage, what is The Rubber Teeth Talk? If someone were to ask you, “tell me a little bit about your album,” what first comes to mind? 

Mina: The Rubber Teeth Talk kind of takes you through a dream. We start with “Dog,” a song about being in your head on a bad day, and then it travels through a daydream into real dreams into thinking about death and life and how it works. By the end, there’s a cathartic release of self-realization. We wanted to explore the feeling of finding yourself through your subconscious thoughts, and ultimately admitting some hard things about yourself. The actual title means a lot of things to different people. It’s intentionally open-ended; we always pick a lyric from a song to be the title. When we listened to the words “The Rubber Teeth Talk” we loved the way they felt. While it means something in the context of the song it’s in, we asked people what it made them think of—everyone had a different answer, but they all had to do with chatter. Rubber is also just an interesting substance. 

That was actually my second question, about the title. I really liked that answer because it kind of means everything and nothing which I feel perfectly matches the subject matter of the album. Do each of you have a favorite track on the album, and if so, why? 

Kelley: I have different favorites for different reasons. I really like “Dog,” the first song on the record. That song is special to me because I wrote it on a walk a while ago and I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with it, but I thought this album was a good home for the song. I also really love the way that it's grown while playing it with the band, like on tour and recording it with Catherine [Marks], who produced the record. It's had a big journey, and I’m really proud of it and excited for it to come out. I also think “Sue Me Alice,” which ends the record, feels exciting because we have not played that song yet. It’s only really lived in the studio, except for a few times playing it acoustically, which is just not the whole vibe. It’s a really huge song, it feels really massive and is the type of song that gives me chills when we sing it, so I’m just really excited to get on stage and feel it through a full live performance.

It’s funny that you say that because I do think those are my two favorites. I feel like, as an opener and closer, they make perfect sense. I don’t want to jump the gun because I’m a big believer in music evolving the more you listen to it, but those definitely stand out to me. Mina, do you have a different favorite? 

Mina: I’m like you, the more I listen to an album, the songs that aren’t my favorites eventually become my favorites. Now that we’ve been living with the album for a couple of years, my favorite has changed; it's different today than it was just a week ago. I took a break from the album for a whole since I wanted some fresh ears for conversations like this, and I listened to it the other day and “Dream Song” really stuck with me. It was so fun to write because we wanted it to feel like a real dream where it kind of abruptly changes direction, and you just like, go with it. Like in dreams, all these surreal things happen that you just go along with, and listening to the song, I really felt like we accomplished what we were going for. The structure was also really fun to figure out. I remember calling Kelley when we were writing it because we had structured it differently, and then while listening to a demo of it, we both texted each other at the same time, saying “this part needs to go like, [guitar sounds].” We just had these similar, kind of visceral instincts about the song. 

Something I noticed is that every song on the album is pretty different from the others, every track feels distinct and new. Was that intentional? 

Kelley: Definitely. Each song, we initially structure the sonic elements based on a live band setup of guitars, bass, and drums. We do eventually pull away from that and build up around it, depending on what the song feels like it needs. Sometimes that's grungy, punky, or whatever, and sometimes it's like something so delicate and light. We really enjoy letting each song have its own space in the world, even if it’s very different. Also, there’s a consistent double lead vocal and lyrically, I believe we have a strong line that exists throughout this record and our music in general, so we feel like we are afforded the ability to travel far into different spaces. We do have threads throughout each song, like, for example, a little weird thing that's in one song can show up in a new way in another song. We really enjoyed, like, weaving these kinds of secret threads through the record and letting it be expansive and go wherever it feels like it needs to.

Mina: It’s also a similar thing to what I was saying about “Dream Song.” This album is very dream-coded. Allowing ourselves to let the music go in any direction and figure out how to connect it all is part of that. I remember we talked to Catherine, and we realized every song kind of has a buddy in the album. I feel like every song has a song that is kind of its opposite, and then a song that is like its twin. I’m trying to put them together, but I guess it’s eleven songs, so someone must be alone.

Maybe there is one set of triplets.

Mina: There's definitely triplets. I also think the way we ordered the songs is important. You kind of go through a chaotic, playful journey at the beginning, and then you get into a sadder space towards the end, and then you have that bigger release of “Sue Me Alice.” The first loop sounds like the last loop, so at least the beginning and end go together. We've never really picked a genre that we are, so we just kind of go with what feels right.

So you’ve both mentioned your producer, Catherine [Marks] a lot. Tell me a little about your experience working with her on this project.

Kelley: It was such an honor to get to work with her. We got to spend so much time with her, which I really appreciate. This is the longest time that we've ever been able to spend in a studio—Studio G in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, we went there every day for a month. Catherine was in New York already and was coming to our drummer's basement to work on the songs with us. She's amazing and has such a unique sensibility that pairs well with us. One of her many strong suits is identifying unique aspects of the artists she works with. I’ve noticed it in the other music that she's worked on as well, and I really appreciate her pushing us to be ourselves. She's also super creative and fun, and we had a great time hanging out.

Mina: She was our first pick. We had made all these demos for the album, and we sent them to her and talked about the album together—we were all on the same page. She told us we should talk to other producers to make sure we wanted to work with her. We were like, “Yeah, totally!” and then we came back like, “Okay, so we didn't talk to anybody.” Her sound is so vast, you can’t hear something and know Catherine did it because she's like, so good at making everything specific to the artist that she's working with. She has her little touches and stuff that, if you're listening closely, you can hear her style, but she's really good at, like, elevating others’ vision. Kelley and I are very hands-on and always want to be a part of the entire process, and she helped us believe in ourselves. This is the first record that I played guitar on, because usually I’ll write guitar parts, and then give them to Nardo [Daisy the Great’s guitarist] since he is a little better at guitar than I am. I'll let him do the studio work. But then every song was being made, and it was like, “Mina, this needs your guitar on it. That sound is special.” I felt very capable, and Catherine definitely helped me feel that way. 

Moving past the music component, I do think the visuals are really important to this album. They're just insane. You said you both like to be a part of the whole process, so where is this coming from? Even the album cover is so striking. I didn't even notice it was a mask over Mina’s face until I blew it up big on my computer. I'd love it if either of you could talk a little bit about that process.

Kelley: Yeah, we are very into making music videos and art, and we also both come from an acting background. Music videos are our chance to make our movies for now. When we're writing, most of the time we’re immediately talking about what the music video is going to be like before the song is even done. Sometimes it just feels like there is a visual component that, most of the time, we agree on 100%. From then on, it's our goal to try to figure out how to actually make that video work. We have big visions. 

Mina: We’ve learned so much over the last, what, nine years that we’ve been a band. Like, how to make videos and what is within certain budgets. I feel like we dream big, but we also are constantly figuring out you know, how do we accomplish that? How do we find creative ways to make it happen on a tight budget? We've made a lot of friends and have a lot of collaborators that we trust a lot and have developed relationships with. Kelley and I have always just been like, if we want to make something happen, we'll figure out how to do it. Like, the last video [“Bird Bones”] we figured out how to animate these drawings our friend made and then project them onto us. For the “Mary’s At The Carnival” video, we made the masks and costumes. We've always wanted the videos to feel very tactile and homemade, but also dreamy and otherworldly. The video for “Dog,” which is the last video to come out before the album, is really awesome. We just finished it, and Kelley is dressed in a giant Winnie the Pooh costume. 

It’s admittedly kind of crazy for an artist to come out, right out of the gate with, like, a huge hit. Considering “The Record Player Song,” being your first single, how have you taken that and considered the evolution of your work? There's clearly a huge journey that you guys have been on since then.

Kelley: The first song that we ever released was “The Record Player Song.” We released it first because it felt really special in that moment, and it felt like a song that we really believed in. It was also a song that I'd been sitting on for a long, long time and was really excited about, but I didn't have a band, and I didn't know how to record it or anything. Pretty much immediately, once we were playing shows, that song just felt special, and we were like, we should record this and put this out. The life that it's had since is crazy, it was all very unexpected. The interesting thing about it is that we put that song out and then it started to gain traction very slowly. It wasn’t a massive hit immediately, it was growing and growing and growing really steadily. It wasn't until two years later that it had its moment when a fan put it on TikTok, and we didn't have TikTok, but a fan put it there and then messaged us, like, “Oops, this is really popular. I hope that's okay.” It just kind of felt like our baby grew up and went off to have a crazy life. The best thing about it is that it brought other people who didn't know of us before to find us and our music. I really appreciate the way that people have kept on listening and followed us to the next album. The fear with having a big song is that you’ll do shows and that's the only song anyone sings. I'm really, really grateful to our fan base for learning all the music and always singing really loud. That's really, really special.

Mina: It’s also fun to sing those older songs, because songs feel like living things, and like singing them now means something so different than when we first put them out. The perspective you have on them is so different, and it's really fun to perform “The Record Player Song” in the context of our other music. We sound completely different, it's so nice to be able to live in that song and breathe new life into it every time we perform it. I'm really grateful for that song, and I feel like it has a life outside of the band. Overall, I think our music has continued to grow with us, but we get to bring that growth to old songs through performances.

Yeah, you're touring this fall. Are there any dates that you're particularly excited for? Maybe other than New York City. 

Kelley: Yeah, I mean, we’re so excited for New York, obviously. 

Mina: We actually never have played there [Bowery Ballroom], not even as an opener. It's going to be really exciting that the first time we play there is the headline show for our album. I'm also super excited for Phoenix, because we've never played there. There are actually a couple of places that we've never played.

Kelley: I'm excited for Chicago, too. I always love playing in Chicago because when we went on our first ever tour, which was a DIY tour in our drummer's minivan in 2019—not how we tour now, but that’s how it was for that tour. We kind of just decided to tour and were calling venues, like, asking them to let us play and blatantly lying about what we've done before. It was totally just us pretending to be managers trying to set up a tour. When we got to Chicago, there were a ton of people at the show. We were like, “what's going on?” because the other shows were a little more modestly attended. 

Mina: There were like, people at it. 

Kelley: There were highs and lows, but Chicago was the high. Since then, I'm loyal to Chicago. 

Mina: I'm so excited to see Boston, too. Boston is so fun. Boston was our first show on the last tour, and everybody in Boston is awesome. We started playing, and we didn't know what to expect with the new album, and when we opened our mouths, everybody was singing all the words immediately. We were shocked. Boston’s also the first show on this tour, so it’s sort of a tradition now.

What's it like? You know, being in a band with your best friends. 

Kelley: I can't imagine what it would be like if we weren't. 

Mina: That would be horrible.

Kelley: It feels fun, and while it’s obviously a job, it doesn't feel like it; it feels like we're doing things all the time because we love to do it, and we get to hang out while we're doing it, which is even better. 

Mina: The other day, I was like, “I have so much work to do. I have to meet Kelley. We have to draw pictures all day.” All this stuff that is like, in my head, serious work. One thing is when we put out an album, we put out a zine with it that has the lyrics and chords and some tabs and games. So we have a deadline that we have to finish the zine by, and Kelley's sitting across from me and we’re making this personality quiz. We're just there doing these, Cosmo quizzes.

Kelley: The quiz is really good.

Mina: We work really well as business partners. I feel like we're super, super different, and I think that's why the band works, and also the other members of the band, too, like we're all besties. We were friends before this, but we weren't like super close. We realized we have the same writing brain, and so we just started writing stuff together, which is kind of how we became friends. I think that's a big reason why it's worked for so long, is that we kind of introduced ourselves to each other by collaborating and noticing each other's strengths and weaknesses. I just feel like we complement each other really nicely.

So, by the time of this interview, we’re two weeks out from The Rubber Teeth Talk being out in the world. Ware you most looking forward to about the release? 

Kelley: I guess I'm really excited to just talk to everyone about it, and I hope everyone likes it. I'm excited to imagine people listening in their houses. I also hope people message us or comment on stuff and tell us what they're connecting to and what songs they're liking. It’s nerve-racking as well, but we've been working on this thing for so long and talking about it for so long, it feels so exciting for it to live in the world and not be just in my brain anymore.

Mina: I'm excited for people to hear the whole project. I have a bittersweet relationship with singles because of what we were talking about earlier, like how different all the music is. Picking individual songs to share before the album comes is so difficult when every song has its own little world. I really feel like this album is like a whole piece. 

Last question is what's on your music rotation right now, and is there any new music that you're really excited about from other artists? 

Kelley: Yeah, I am listening to Dora Jar a lot. Also, not new, but Mary Hopkin’s record, Earth Song/Ocean Song, I really am listening to that so much. Also, Samia’s record [Bloodless]. 

Mina: I really like the band Wombo. Also, a band called @, they only have like one EP and a record out, but I think their music is awesome. Lastly, I really like Youbet, they're our friends, and I think that they make some of the most creative indie rock music.

Listen to The Rubber Teeth Talk below: