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Let’s start with a bit of background. What musical path got you started and brought you to where you are today, Dmitry?
Dmitry: I guess it’s a question with many pages, and each page is a phase in my life. I guess it all started when I was 9, and my classical guitar professor had really long nails, and that completely made me hate playing guitar, up until my friends on the street showed the art of 3 chords and street songs of protest where everyone sang along while sipped on their life in their cups.
Then it was being an immigrant and being depressed starting my first band Table Dreams. Being half-Jewish knowing there is always someone against your somewhere, and being half-Christian fighting sins that are always waiting for you around the corner.
Then being a New Yorker and being surrounded by so much music at legendary places, then being Californian and riding the soft waves of the Pacific and falling in love with the garage surf sound. Finally, during the Pandemic I realized, after having 10 bands, I was finally alone in a room with my guitars, and I was screaming out to the skies I have a voice and I don’t need anybody to believe in me.
Your recent single, “Liberation”, is a sonic statement of defiance. Is there a specific event or idea that this is based on, or is it a more general statement about where the world is today?
Dmitry: So I wrote that first “Liberation” song initially when Trump came to power, and I felt the mad urgency to do something to speak out, so I was attending a protest, and we were surrounded by cops, and then we walked up and down 5th ave, and then I came home with a bunch of pent up feelings and penned the lyric appealing to a higher power to set us free from this earthly Bull Shit and only rising our vibration and uniting in a song like in ancient times on top of barricades can we create necessary motion for change, but then revisiting it now. It’s a song that one could apply to many situations of today, it really is the everlasting, us against them scenario.
The solo in the single was inspired by a particular musical reference. Tell me about that and how important that artist is to you.
Dmitry: Yes, you are right. That solo was inspired by the great solo by Mick Ronson on “Moonage Daydream”, by David Bowie. It blew me away the first time I heard it, that one note ripping and ripping and singing, and with that right amount of delay and pitch and pickups it was a reason for living in that moment, so I applied the same intensity and meaning on my song “Liberation”. I directed my whole being into that solo. All the pain and oppression and feelings of injustice and yet soaring above louder than the bombs.
It is a song in two parts, a classic rock groover followed by an anthemic sing-along. Tell me how you wrote and structured this mini rock opera.
Dmitry: Byron Frayne, my friend and my mixing engineer always kept repeating dude you need to elongate the songs, you need sing-alongs, so I felt that in this song this is the time to do it, so we worked it in and we took it back to the times when in the midst of dark seas, people started singing together. Nowadays, my heart aches for Ukraine how bravely they are facing the tyranny thrust upon them, how women in Iran stand against oppression for taking off their scarf and being beheaded, and how our own police get free reign over lives. Set us free is just 3 words, I put it for them, for everyone facing off impossible odds, love will rise and set us, them everyone free of their yolk.
Actually, it is now a 3 part Rock Opera, once the album comes out, you will hear the ending, Nick Cave inspired acoustic piano and strings epilogue.
The song touches on the idea of America being built through immigrants adding to society. Do you think that the American Dream is still alive for everyone? Is there more than one America?
Dmitry: Wow, great question. Thanks. Firstly, yes, it still is the country where you can and be whoever you want, and if your country is becoming a tyrannical place, America is still a beacon of light, not without its problems and internal strife, I still believe its purpose is strong, but it’s starting to go through it’s growing pains and self-destructing behaviors. I hope it remembers what it means to others abroad.
But now, yes, there are 2 Americas, ones that were already born here and consider it theirs with their own lifestyle, and others that are still coming and want to adopt it as theirs. But in Queens, I saw 130 nationalities living together, and no one cared; we were all just immigrants happy to have a chance. America has enough heart to accommodate everyone.
Tell me about your latest single “Sweetest Thing”, and your forthcoming album _Electric Souls.
Dmitry: “Sweetest Thing” is the last single released, and it’s a banger, that song lived a whole different life before being what it is. I first wrote it kind of like an acoustic version, but then I changed it to a more upbeat post-punk style. I just felt that my songs are like stories so one had to unfold itself fully to me to be told properly. It’s also about that feeling of fear that we hang on to and need to hear someone next to us tell us to let that go and stop coming back to fear’s dirty cave.
The whole album is about soul work, man. It’s special to me cause every song in there, I have lived through and each one helped me to heal and transcend various situations. It is all written from a higher place than myself but more in service to anyone who listens.
Tell me about your work with Tryst.
Dmitry: Tryst is a beautiful being; she is like a happy unicorn dressed in black, so no one sees her true self. Ha ha ha. Sorry C. So yeah, we got to meet through Byron Frayne, and I am a big fan of her music, her persona, her voice, the energy she brings to the stage when she sings, she is transformed, she is like an older powerful soul when I heard her sing I was like yeah I need Tryst on that song.
Also she and Byron have a production company together, (Strange House Media ) and they both helped me tremendously to put together this whole album from mixing to mastering, from filming videos to editing them and she even starred in here and there. In “Don’t Need Anybody”, she is a mean nurse and in “Sweetest Thing” she is a witch in cave.
I love working with those guys, they are super good people and just super beautiful beings. We kind of became a musical force together, we throw parties together, we help each other out.
With the music scene changing so drastically during Covid-related lockdowns, how has this affected what you do in terms of recording, playing life or otherwise? And how are you managing to spread the word about your music in the post-pandemic landscape?
Dmitry: I mean for me personally, despite all the horrible effects of it, it was the most life changing experience from physically moving upstate New York to building my own recording / rehearsal studio in the basement of my house to meeting Strange House Media crew. I mean being away from New York and everything that comes with it, I think pandemic allowed me to really focus on what is my sound, how do I get there? And who do I need for it?
I mean I virtually did the whole album by myself. I would craft ideas, send it to this amazing drummer, Matt Liptak who would lay down his parts. Then I would agonize over every solo and vocal parts. I would then re-record everything over his drums. Then me and Byron would send mixes back and forth, but luckily, he lives 40 min from me so I could go visit him. I mean nowadays, one can do it all, I just choose not to and like to separate song writing from the mixing process.
So nowadays, everyone and their mother went on tour, I mean bands that you haven’t even heard of go on big tours, and you know that’s all great, now there comes a moment from no music to oversupply of music, so it’s def hard to compete with bands with unlimited budgets but for me, Shauna from Shameless Promotions has been instrumental. I mean she really helped me to promote and take care of my online presence. Sometimes more than I would like but that’s the nature of the beast. Ha ha.
And where next for Dmitry Wild?
Dmitry: So yeah, future is always for me full of opportunities. For me as a song writer I move forward by albums. So following this release I will do a light release of another album called Venus I did with a colleague of mine, an upcoming producer, Eric Rosemann (aka Houses in Motion). It’s collaboration where I played minimal instruments, and it was all about the words and vocals for me. He took care of all the electronics. Think, “American Prayer” meets Radiohead meets Saul Williams. Very interesting album that will come out Early 2023.
Also, I started playing with bunch of cool musicians and I started playing under Dmitry Wild and the Spells, and we aside from doing my original songs from this abum Electric Souls we have taken a stab at some of my older material and we gave it a whole new light. It’s got that vintage raw sound that I love, think The Doors meets Black Keys meets The Cramps and even a few gipsy numbers. I mean it’s a beautiful rocking cacophony of sounds we already recorded about 7 numbers and I will start releasing them as singles very soon.
So yeah, lots’ work at my sweatshop but I love the motion. Also, I am planning a tour to England, I am making my affirmations, I gotta get there in 2023. It’s my year to go to my fav country. See you soon mates.
See you soon, sir, and best of luck with everything in the meantime.
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