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Sir Chloe, the fast-rising rock band fronted by Dana Foote, continues to carve their own space with the forthcoming release of their debut album, I Am The Dog, out May 19. Foote wrote I Am The Dog between tours, under the sudden pressures of rabid fans and a record contract, ripping the songs from her chest as she grappled with newfound attention, thematically returning again and again to the violence of the natural world.

Thrilling paradoxes are the backbone of the I Am The Dog, using simultaneously candid and ambiguous lyrics to create songs that straddle the line between expression and concealment—an attempt to establish control in a chaotic world only to opt for chaos once again. Working with producer John Congleton and co-writers Teddy Geiger and illuminati hotties' Sarah Tudzin, Foote's songs explore power, cruelty, and desire through an oddly kaleidoscopic lens.

Formed at Bennington College, Sir Chloe had been gigging around Brooklyn for a while after graduation when their tracks "Michelle" and "Animal" went viral online. Soon after, they found themselves with millions of monthly listeners, touring with acts like Alt-J, Portugal. The Man, Pixies, and more all over the world.

Now, the band will set out on an extensive headlining tour throughout North America and Europe this spring and will be supporting Phoenix and Beck later in the summer. Ones To Watch had the chance to talk with Foote about the upcoming album, its creation, and how the band finds its center amid a chaotic world.

Ones To Watch: First of all, congrats on the upcoming release! How are you feeling knowing people will be listening to I Am The Dog? Which unreleased song are you most excited for people to hear?

Sir Chloe: We're really looking forward to it. It feels good. There's anticipation, and we don't know what will happen, but we're looking forward to sharing the record. I'm most excited for people to hear "Obsession." We've got a couple of slow weird ballads on the record, which I don't think is represented by what we chose for the singles; the slower ballads are definitely my favorites on the record. 

I was a massive fan of your last record, Party Favors, especially "Michelle" and "Animal." How do you feel the two records differ?

A lot of changes happened between the first record and I Am The Dog. The first record we put out was more of a mixtape, or an EP, which was a collection of songs that had been written over a couple of years without the intention of making a body of work because there were songs that had been written in college. We were kids and didn't really have a master plan, necessarily, and then we tied it all up into a body of work, which became Party Favors. And, you know, the first four songs we recorded for Party Favors were "Michelle," "Animal," "Too Close," and "Walk You Home." Those were recorded in one live session during finals week at the college that we went to, and then the rest of the album was recorded in a warehouse that belonged to a friend of mine, who let us camp out there for a little over a week and things fell into place. We got a sponsorship from Warm Audio, who sent us mics and interfaces, and that was how we recorded stuff then. Still, you can hear the youth in those recordings and even in the way that we were playing our instruments, and also how the songs are sung, it is just... it's a lot younger, and the songs that had been written were stuff that we scraped together from—like the song "Wrath" on Party Favors was a school assignment that I had gotten three years prior in a music theory class.

We were scraping together whatever we had to get a body of work, whereas with I Am The Dog, we sat down two and a half years ago intending to write an album and wrote a lot of music with a body of work in mind. The album had been named because the first song I wrote for the record was the title track, "I Am The Dog," so the album had, from the beginning, a much clearer idea of what we were going for. Also, this time we were working with a label. When we were recording Party Favors, it was just Teddy and me, and then we had instrumentalists in our band, which was in flux because everyone was graduating and moving away. So it was like, we're getting whoever could play on the album. This time, it was much more intentional, and we had more resources. We self-produced Party Favors and not in a studio or anything. With this, we were able to work with John Congleton, and he produced the record with us, and then we recorded it in studios while writing songs with John. We also got set up on these fancy writing dates. Overall, it went from scraping songs together from music being all our hobbies to a full-time job. A lot of growing up happened, and the sound is more mature, with more textures. Before, it was just voice, two guitars, and bass and drums. Now, we have those elements, but we also added quite a lot of synthesizers. John has an arsenal, so we have quite a few textures and more percussion. And also, I think more with guitar as well. We just broadened our sound. We wanted things to be a little bit more lush and dense.

You worked with some fantastic people on this album, including producer John Congleton and co-writers Sarah Tudzin from illuminati hotties and Teddy Geiger. What was the origin story of your creative collaboration relationship, and what was it like working with them?

Well, working with Sarah Thompson and Teddy Geiger, they're two very different experiences. What we really loved about working with Sarah was how quickly she worked. We wrote with her at the very end of our writing process. We were about to go into the studio to finish recording the album. At this point, we had so much back and forth, to being told that the album was approved, and then it wasn't approved, and we'd gone back and forth so many times, and we were honestly pretty desperate to finish the album. We went in and listened to everything we had, all of the songs we had recorded, and we talked about what we felt the album was missing. We had been told by higher powers that we needed an urgent song, and when we were listening to it with Sarah, she agreed and then proceeded to go into Logic and program a really fast beat, and then within like three hours, we had "Hooves" written. It was effortless, quick, and similar to how John works because John works very quickly. And with Sarah, I just liked it. There's no space and time for cork sniffing. You get one verse down, and you're on to the next verse like it's forgotten. There's no sitting around or nitpicking at words and chords because that can turn into a three-day-long process. But Sarah works so fast, and she's so matter of fact, has really fantastic ideas and we wrote with her twice. The second day that we came in, she came in with a prompt, "You know, this morning, I was thinking about like a heart-shaped lollipop. Like, what if we wrote a song about that?" and then that was how the song "Center" was written. It's great when people come in with ideas, especially because me and Teddy O'Mara, with whom I have written all the songs since the beginning, we were pretty green with having a third party in the room with us. So people coming in and leading and directing sessions was always much appreciated.

And then Teddy Geiger... what Teddy Geiger is, she's like a mad scientist when you're writing with her. She's got all these gadgets that she's always working with, and you know, I think she's just one of those people who's like, down to do whatever. You can go in and say, "make something really catchy and really fun and exciting." Or you can go in and make noise garbage, and she will have the time of her life either way, and that's really fun. It feels so casual when you're writing with her, which is so great, because I think there is this unspoken, massive pressure when you go into these sessions and you have to walk out with like a certain thing, and if you don't, then people are disappointed. But because you walk in and it feels so casual with her, it feels like you're hanging out with a friend and messing around on guitars and piano and whatever else she's got going on that day. With her, it just felt like anything. We could make anything with her, and all parties will be happy. 

What does the title I Am The Dog mean to you, and how does that meaning carry over into the record? 

There certainly is an element of it being the favorite name of a song. I think it is the coolest name of all the songs we have on the record, but we didn't know that when we named the album. But initially, the premise of that song was that I was living with this rescue dog at the time. She had some behavioral stuff. She was very reactive, and living with her was very dangerous, and... it's hard to talk about this stuff without revealing more than I want to reveal. You know what I mean? But I wasn't physically safe in the house. I was getting injured quite a lot, and the dog was a lot bigger than me. I wrote this song because I had felt like, at that point, I had turned into the dog of the household because she had become this very all-consuming presence.

It was like she owned you.

Yeah, it wasn't a companionship thing. I think it was like a dog in how people classically refer to dogs, you know? I've always been a dog person, and I love animals so much. I prefer my time with animals much more than I prefer my time with people. It was definitely, a really confusing relationship to have with an animal. It was one of my first times really spending a lot of time with a dog who had been very hurt, and getting to know her and getting to know her perspective and how she walked through the world was very interesting. I felt for her; that song was about how I had become like the dog. In the beginning, this was originally going to be the concept for the album. It started out as a concept album but did not end up there. Anyway, the concept, when I wrote the songs for the album, every song at the beginning mentioned had the word dog in it. I think the second or third song I wrote for the album was the last song called "Feel Again," and the chorus is, like, "Be my dog, I want to feel again," so you have, "I Am The Dog," and then you're turning it around and turning something else into the dog. That song was about feeling like I had no control and no agency over a desperate situation and how I think you grasp at control when things feel very chaotic. I'm using that particular living situation as an example, but there were also massive career changes, and the shutdown happened. I had just moved across the country, and there was a lot of crazy change going on, and it was scary, and then over the next year or so, I think a lot of what I was writing about was just exploration and trying to find control.

How did you center or ground yourself while dealing with these challenges and the rapid growing up you had to do during an objectively uncontrollable and chaotic period of time? 

I think there are little things. There isn't one consistent thing I've done. There's a lot of, there's just a lot of like feeling like you've got agency and a community. The band has been a real anchor for me, and working with John during the album was great because he's a very grounding person. Also, you know, just your basics: exercising, having a schedule, and making a bullet journal. Although it might be lame stuff, it actually really works.

What would be your favorite track on the record if you had to pick? My favorite track on the album is probably "Salivate!"

Oh, that's great! I do like that one a lot. That one was really fun. That was the last song we wrote for the record. My favorite is "Obsession." I really like that one.

There are a lot of powerful moments in this LP that explore complex themes like power, greed, and desire. Of course, music is subjective, and everyone will get something different out of it, but what is one thing you hope people take away from it?

This album, we really love playing live, and the entire album was written with the live experience in mind. So I think the ideal takeaway would be people feeling drawn into the music and like they're there, you know? If they go to a show, I'd like it to be something that feels, like, I want people to have a good time while they're listening to it and feel held and understood by the music. In a perfect world.

Which song are you most excited to play live?

We just had three shows in Los Angeles and played through the whole album, and we're about to have one in New York. We're doing a release show where we'll play through the entire album front to back. I hate to say it, but honestly, "Obsession" is a really fun one. There are three-part harmonies on it that are really cool. "I Am The Dog" is also fun because there are a lot of big harmonies in the middle that rub against each other, which are really fun. But honestly, the fast ones are the most exciting to play live, and it's just fun to see the kids open up, bobbing up and down, you know? I think "Salivate" is a really fun one and was probably one of my favorites to play live.

What would you like to experiment more with in the future?

Adding more textures has been great during this past album, and I think just continuing to experiment with that would be great. And also, as we, fingers crossed, ideally, get further along in this process, I think really making the live show a more immersive experience would be so incredible. It would be great to have a physical set where people come in and feel like they're there at the show in a recognizable kind of environment, which would be something that I'd really like to execute.

If you could give a piece of advice to your past self from the beginning of your journey as an artist, what would you say?

You know, I don't think I'd say anything. I might just let it play out. There are probably a couple of things that would have been nice to have been prepared for, but I think, ultimately, it's just better to figure it out as you go at the end of the day