MILLY: Their Own Becoming

Photo by Gilbert Trejo
Los Angeles four-piece MILLY have released their anticipated sophomore album, Your Own Becoming, with single “Drip From The Fountain” leading the way. By far the most infectious song of their entire catalog with an explosive chorus and airtight melodic hooks that recall early Death Cab For Cutie, the track serves as the North Star for the entire LP. The album, produced by Sonny DiPerri (NIN, Narrow Head, My Bloody Valentine), is the band’s second for Dangerbird Records.

Work on this release started thanks to a revelation that can only come from a period of personal crisis. Principal songwriter and vocalist Brendan Dyer, who’s dealt with anxiety for most of his life, decided to go on long walks every morning where he’d process his emotions, clear his mind, and do something that got him out of the house. While these thoughts could have devolved into potentially overwhelming him, this daily ritual allowed him some space. He jotted down notes from his dreams and he used his dread to grab onto the sustaining force in his life: his band. While the band’s debut LP 2022’s Eternal Ring and past tours with Swervedriver were successes, he wanted to be laser-focused on both his songwriting and his bandmates in the following year as he’d never done before. 

While originally conceived as a solo project, MILLY embraced a newfound collaborative approach for Your Own Becoming, something that was only hinted at on 2022’s Eternal Ring. After a few months of painstakingly demoing songs, Dyer, along with bassist Yarden Erez and drummer Connor Frankel, decamped with DiPerri to East West Studios and Dangerbird’s Recording Studio in Los Angeles. (New guitarist Nico Moreta joined the band after recording). Armed with towering, surging guitar riffs, crystalline and inviting hooks, and a newfound collaborative approach, their sophomore LP Your Own Becoming feels like a total reinvention. This album is a document of how doubling down on your art in the face of serious fear and doubt can be grounding. Across 10 pummeling and undeniable songs, Your Own Becoming finds its power in channeling your darkest thoughts into something galvanizing and productive.

Special thanks to Nik Soelter at Grandstand Media for the coordination.

James Broscheid: What is up gentlemen?

Yarden Erez: Not much

Brendan Dyer: What’s going on, dude? Where are you located?

JB: I’m in Tucson.

YE: Hell yeah!

BD: Oh, nice!

JB: Yeah, you guys played here not that long ago at Club Congress and it was awesome.

BD: That was a fun time.

JB: Yeah, that was a really good show. Plus you got to play Club Congress which is a great venue.

BD: Definitely. And I mean, everybody there that was working was super nice and they gave us so many drink tickets after the show. There was a wedding party doing karaoke outside on the patio. Best night ever (Yarden agrees). We just like hung out with this wedding party. I don’t know. It was a good time.

JB: That is great! I just got back from the Midwest to see family.

YE: Whereabouts?

JB: Ohio. I was born and raised outside of Cleveland.

YE: Okay, we’re going to be there.

JB: You guys are going there on the latest tour, right?

YE: Yeah, we’re going to Mahal’s.

JB: That’s a place I haven’t been to yet.

BD: Yeah, our other guitar player went to Oberlin, which is like right outside of Cleveland. He said Mahal’s is his favorite venue of all time so I’m stoked to see it.

JB: Nice. I caught The Bevis Frond in Oberlin a long time ago! I loved a couple dives in Cleveland. Speak In Tongues and Euclid Tavern. I think the Euclid Tavern is called Happy Dog now. And Grog Shop too. The old Grog Shop was great too.

BD: We must have played the new Grog Shop.

YE: Yeah, in Cleveland Heights.

JB: Yeah, the old one was just down the same street. It was like a shoe box in size. It was such a great place. Most shows there was a guy that came in on roller skates with a tutu on and would skate around (all laugh). Death Cab For Cutie played there very early on in a half filled club and this dude on roller skates comes in and would spin and do twirls because he had tons of room The looks on the band were so funny.

BD: I hope that happens at our Mahal’s show!

JB: Welcome to Cleveland. So let’s start, I’ll say congrats on the release of the new album, Your Own Becoming.

BD: Thanks.

JB: Another one on Dangerbird Records. How important is maintaining that stability with the label?

BD: Well, it’s non-negotiable if you will, it’s a contractual obligation, (some laughter), but no, they’re great. I mean, they’re a super small label. They’re the only label we’ve ever worked with. So there’s not much to really compare it to from a personal standpoint. They’ve been cool and really encouraging of us. All the good stuff, you’d hope (for). I feel like they pay a lot of attention to us, which I really appreciate.

JB: For sure. I’ve been listening to music for a long time now and came up through the classic rock era as a kid where you had the record label pay for tours, paid for promotion and album advances. That model has seemed to have gone by the wayside nowadays, for better or worse. I think seeing a band maintain album releases on a consistent record label is super cool. And yeah, I’ve heard nothing about good things about Dangerbird.

BD: Yeah, it’s nice because they’re local to us out here in California. They have their office/recording studio in Silver Lake out here. Every thing we’ve put out, we’ve done at least something there at their studio overdubs-wise. So it’s kind of become an important part of the recordings and stuff. So it’s cool.

JB: Where do you guys do the base recording? Do you take them to Dangerbird in Silver Lake to develop them further?

BD: Yeah, it’s different for every record. This one we did all of it live as a three-piece band at the studio East West Studios in Hollywood. Sonny, who produced it, loves working out of this place and we took a tour of it and were immediately sold. You can look it up. All the coolest records have been done there. It felt appropriate so we did it live there. It’s funny in the past, I feel like with our previous LP, we’re really camped out a Dangerbird for something like two weeks, but we had booked it for eight or nine days. Time to do overdubs after vocals and things, but I think we only use 6 days or something. We got most of it done live, or if it wasn’t live, then I got to do some overdubs at East West.

JB: I’m if I’m wrong, let me know but wasn’t the first LP (Eternal Ring, 2022), wasn’t primarily you two?

BD: Yeah, we had a dude playing some drums that was our drummer, but then it was one of those things where he was playing in another band like on the same timeline and they were picking up way more than we were. So it’s kind of one of those things where he was home for the summer and committed to doing the drums on the record. He was classic one foot in the door, one foot outside the door kind of dude, (James laughs). So no hard feelings but we were like, “Hey dude, let’s just not do this anymore.” We had some fill-in drummers for like a year or so. But yeah, it was primarily us. That experience was just way different too because from a writing standpoint, it was just less of a group effort.

JB: Yeah, this new album was more of a group effort, right? Was it the four of you that I met in Tucson?

BD: Yeah, it was the lineup you saw in in Tucson however our guitar player Nico (Moreta) didn’t play on the recordings.

JB: So he’s a member of Milly, but he’s a touring guitarist essentially?

BD: He started off as the touring guitarist, he joined as we were already writing and we recorded it with the three of us and then post the record like being done, whatever, he sort of just we’d, he’s like now a full-on member of the band. This release is as much his as it is ours too. He’s fully in it.

JB: Awesome. I remember seeing the four of you in Tucson and thinking it was a pretty solid lineup. You seem to have a pretty good chemistry on stage for sure.

YE: Yeah, definitely.

BD: He’s a talented guitar player, he’s a late bloomer. Milly is the first band he’s ever played in so it’s been really cool to live through his experience. There’s been a lot of like firsts, so it’s been cool. And yeah, he’s definitely moving forward with us. Me and him have already written some songs together and stuff. So it’s great. It’s really cool.

JB: Outside of you two, could you give us a little intro on the other two that are in the band?

YE: Sure. Brendan, Which one do you want to take Connor and Nico?

BD: You should do both. I’d like to hear you do it!

YE: You want me to do both?

BD: Yeah!

YE: Alright, well, I guess let’s start with Connor (R Frankel). Connor was in the band at the inception but due to whatever, just life sort of happened, but now he’s found his way back in the band. Connor is a solid drummer. Very solid, dude. Amazing drummer. Hits very hard almost too hard some might say! Brandon you got anything else to add to that?

BD: That’s how we like it. He hits the drums hard (James laughs). He’s a good sport and like Yarden was saying, he was in the band before. We kind of circled back and found each other. A few years later, but we’ve been friends throughout everything. He kind of made his way back, it’s like a perfect timing thing. I think he was gonna move to like …

YE: Portugal.

BD: He was like, “Yeah, I’ll go on this tour and then I’m gonna move to Portugal, but then he just stuck around (laughs). He never left. Then there’s Nico of course, I guess we kind of gave you some background but he was primarily Yarden’s buddy for a long time. I think it seemed as if Yarden and Nico really connected especially around 2020 onward from like a point of sharing music with each other and stuff. When the time came to get you know a live guitar player it was around the time when he had moved back from college and I started seeing him around and I thought he just like, honestly looked really cool (all laugh). Yarden told me he played guitar. So I would kind of flirt with him in a way just in the sense of every time I’d see him I would be like, “Hey, so like what kind of guitar do you play?” Or, “What have you been learning?” Stuff like that and eventually we asked him and he was down.

JB: Yeah, I thought the guitar he played in Tucson looked cool.

BD: Oh yeah, his little Devo stick?

JB: Yeah (Branden laughs). You don’t see those anymore.

BD: Yeah, those are rare.

JB: So in speaking of seeing you guys in Tucson, it didn’t seem like it was all that long ago. So I was kind of surprised that this new record is out and because it feels to me like I just saw you guys basically a couple months ago even though I know it wasn’t. Was this record basically what you guys worked through on the road or was it as soon as you guys got off the road, it was right back to the studio?

YE: We finished all the tracking stuff in like mid to late August. So, basically a month before we left on the road, we finished the tracking so we just left the studio being really tight and just like in it, right until a month-long tour. So that’s sort of, that’s what you were catching right in Tucson.

BD: Yeah, Sonny was sending us mixes on the road when he was working on them. So we had it wrapped up pretty nicely by sometime in November, I think we’re all ready to go. Although we put out a single before we went on that tour, “Grab the Wheel.” That song was from the same session. He just did a quick mix of it and we got it mastered. Just so we had something to put out before going out on tour.

JB: He stayed in contact with you guys while you were touring?

YE: Yeah, a lot!

BD: He’s even hitting us up right now. He thinks we’re on tour already. (James laughs) He is like, “How’s it going out there?”

JB: “Oh, it’s going great. We’re dealing with the damn press again!”

BD: (Laughs) Well, he’s excited about all the press. He’s really invested in like the the way that the record, you know, gets put out there. Every time an article comes out I send it to him or if I you know, if there’s something funny in like an article, like a quote, I think is funny. I’ll like screenshot it and like send it his way.

JB: That’s cool. I always appreciate how a band comes across in a live setting and I thought the four of you really gelled well and it looked like you guys were having a blast doing what you do. I really liked that the first single off this new record was “Drip From The Fountain” because for me, as a fan, it brought me back to the age when I first started getting into underground, alternative and college radio. For me it was late 80s, early 90s and back then Nirvana broke that wide open. So I started hearing more bands that I never heard of before, whether it was down to them or not, you know, it just seemed to break out this big secret his out in the open which was completely awesome. And so I wanted to get from the both of you what is the story behind that track and and why was it chosen as the leading single?

BD: Well, first off, thanks for saying that! That was very nice. I really appreciate that. That’s cool that you could see us play live because Yarden and I have been through some situations together. So we feel really connected to this band, like the four of us have a great time together. So it’s cool that you could pick up on that. Just seeing us play a show or whatever. “Drip From the Fountain” was the last song that we wrote for the record and I knew there was something there that felt different at least to us. It’s obviously not like insanely different than the other songs on the record or the songs we put on the past but it just felt like such an elevated take on the sound that we’ve been working on for a while. I guess when all was said and done, it felt like such an obvious first single to us because it checks a lot of boxes. I think.

YE: Yeah, I’d agree.

JB: I’d say it’s a it’s a pretty good summation of what you were going for on this record.

BD: Yeah, we’re very conscious of how long the songs were and making sure parts were moving quickly and making good sense. You bring up Nirvana and I think almost any time I do want to do an interview or whatever I reference them and but it really was kind of comical towards the end of our writing process. Especially when we were just playing the songs a bunch of times. Or at least me and Sonny and even I got Connor and said, “Dude, just listen to Nevermind (DGC, 1992), today!” (All laugh) Yeah, the Nirvana thing is hard to deny, not that we sound like it. For what it’s worth, they knew what they were doing in terms of work ethic and everything around that. They were a hard-working band that gave a fuck and I think it paid off and that will always be inspiring to me.

JB: This record is definitely harder hitting, I agree. I don’t think it’s a Nirvana sounding album at all. I just think there is a harder hitting band that is definitely on display here.

BD: Yeah. Now the next album that one might be the Nirvana … (all laugh).

JB: You’re going to go for In Utero?

BD: Yeah. Yeah, just tear it all apart.

JB: No, I think you guys got a good thing going here. I wanted to see if, between the two of you, if there were any other interesting backstories on any of the the cuts that made the record,

BD: Yarden? You got any?

YE: No, I don’t. You got something? Maybe it’ll come to me.

BD: Yeah, I will say it’s not that interesting but it’s worth mentioning. Prior to doing this album. It was very much by the book. I write a song and I demo it on the computer and put the fake drums on it and stuff and it’s kind of like a blueprint and then we just would essentially record it. Not that differently than what the blueprint of the demo was but we were really not holding back on this album. We would show up with no plan, which I really liked, we just arrived. It’s like, no one has a song today. We’re just gonna mic some stuff up and whoever starts playing first, we’re all gonna join in. Once you feel it, you’re like, “Oh wait, something’s happening here!” We would stop and restart. And then we would try to go to this next thing or you’re like, “Damn, we’re not getting anything today and that sucks”, but whatever we’d go home and try again in three days. So, That was cool I think to all of us because here were some some pleasant surprises, I think.

JB: I read recently that you weren’t too happy overall about the debut album Eternal Ring came out (Brendan laughs hysterically). What didn’t you like about it? If that’s true and what changes did you set about making for this album?

BD: Well, I mean this with … I would never want to talk negatively about our previous producer because he’s a really good friend of ours. I had such an amazing time working with him and probably will in some fashion work with him again in the future. He’s a really awesome guy so it’s nothing personal. I think just his approach to making records is way different than Sonny’s and I think, to give him some credit, the band we were when we did Eternal Ring, it really did warrant the situation of just being a band where it’s very robotic and everything is you know, comped and you just do the intro to the song, a bunch of times and then the verse and so on and so forth.
And I’m grateful that that was the case with our previous recordings because it really did open our minds up to being like, “Why aren’t we fully happy with this?” and then the answer being, “Oh, because we’re a band, we should be recording ourselves playing live together!” We never got that concept down. I truly walked around thinking that we would never be good enough to do that because that was the impression I was getting or something. I just think, as a byproduct of that the effort that we put into Your Own Becoming, the commitment and the standard we were trying to meet. Honestly, having Sonny so hands-on with us throughout months of just the writing even, it was so much more involved. And I think that’s why it was working more, there was a lot more energy there. So with all that said I’ll revisit that record time to time. We still play some of the songs in our live set. I think there’s some great songs and the recording sounds awesome. It’s just night and day for me personally with the approach between the two records.

JB: Yeah, and you mentioned, Sonny. Obviously he’s a lauded producer. How did you two manage to hook up with him? Do you think Sonny was one of those producers that was able to coerce the best out of you guys during the recording process?

BD: Yarden you should answer this.

YE: Repeat the question one more time so I …

BD: Oh, come on (all laugh).

YE: Listen, I just want to get the best answer possible.

JB: Brendan had mentioned you guys worked with Sonny on this album. A lot of musicians like him and I wanted to ask, how do you two hook up with him for this album? And do you think the more positive the experience was the fact that he was able to coerce the best out of you guys during the recording process?

YE: Yeah, definitely. We met Sonny when we opened up for DIIV in like 2019 and he had produced their most recent record at the time. So he was at the show and I think he had seen us and sort of followed us on social media and we spoke over DMs. Then one day Brendan and I went to go get a beer with him the night Eternal Ring came out. We went to go meet up at a bar and we hung out and got along, the three of us got along very well very quickly. Me and Brendan looked at each other and thought, “Alright, I think this is good, I think we got it” and then just sort of took it from there. We got good things out of him. As I love to call it, we went to Sonny school where he would, uh, come to our practices and stand in the center of the room and watch all three of us play the same song over and over. Then he would just stop us and go, “No, change this! Go again!” He was giving us the whole runaround but for me, personally, I was able to play all those songs in my sleep. And that’s I think what we needed. It prepared us so much for going into the studio. We just sat down and tracked twelve songs in two days essentially. Maybe even less technically with all the breaks and stuff we had. It got us really in shape and I think that’s something that we needed for ourselves. It just kept us very focused and I think that’s why we’re really happy with the results because even if it’s not received well or whatever, blah blah blah, we all feel like we did a good job on our own so I don’t know. That’s my take on it.

JB: Nice.

BD: The dude’s a bad ass honestly (Yarden agrees). He’s very opinionated. He’s an East Coast guy which I get down with. He’s from Massachusetts or Connecticut. I understand him pretty well. He was never afraid to call us out on our shit, which I appreciated. You know, being a band and well, those guys are a little younger than me but we’re generally in our mid-ish twenties and I think we really needed someone who was older than us. Mind you, he’s also a dad. So I just think he was able to like really say it like it is while simultaneously encouraging us. I always felt taken care of in a way. It was just like a really good environment. I think one thing that was really important to me is he really made it apparent early on was he was never not willing to go the extra mile to like talk to us or text about very specific things. I just feel like some producers, and I’m sure this was sort of our experience in the past but it was never, “Dude, I’m not getting paid right now so figure out yourself.” He was very much, “Yeah, I’m open. Text me whenever or send me whatever you’re working on. If you have any questions, if you need whatever.” Like Yarden was saying it, if it wasn’t us going and meeting up with him at this one place called the Glendale Tap. He lives here so we just go over and hang out at his house and just kind of touch base. He’s a great guy and really good friend of ours now obviously. You walk away from that experience like, “Damn, how do we do this again but even better in the future?” Which is cool.

Photo by Gilbert Trejo

JB: Someone who is personally invested in the project to the point where they’re available whenever you need them and it’s not like it’s on the clock.

BD: Yeah, it made me feel like we’re not doing this, just because there’s money involved. You actually care. Now we’re months down the road since we’ve recorded and he’s still checking in on us when we’re on tour. He’s seeing how the record’s doing and the response, and in a personal sense, if something’s going on in my life, I know I could hit the dude up and he’d meet up with me and talk just to do that. Like, there’s no music involved, you know? He is just a great guy?

JB: It sounds like he’s the type of person that gets you to think about things that maybe you wouldn’t have thought of if he wasn’t around?

BD: Definitely. Yeah, he made us believe, I’ve said this before, but it’s really true or at least on my end, like he made us believe we were a better band than we were being or that we’d been up until that point. He really did see this potential and he kept referencing a certain standard that we should be meeting. I would send him a demo or I did the vocals and he would very straight up tell us, “This is good but …” His big thing he says is, “It doesn’t have the juice.” At one point, I wanted to call the record “Juicy.” I was telling him I’m calling the record juicy, and of course, everyone fucking hated that.

YE: Yeah, we were all, “Not now!”

JB: That’d be great on a tour shirt.

BD: Don’t you think so? It’s like, ‘Milly – Juicy’. Yeah, I think that was kind of funny, but anyway.

JB: Speaking of touring t-shirts, I love the shirt you guys had for the Eternal Ring tour with the hamburger on the front and onion rings on the back.

BD: (Laughing) Yeah, we’re proud of that one. That was our buddy Justice who does some of our music videos. He like made that for us. Talented guy.

JB: So it sounds like you guys are going to be working with Sonny again?

BD: Yeah. There’s more to be explored.

JB: I recently interviewed Jeff Martin from Idaho. (Both perk up) I’ve loved Idaho, since I was introduced to them back in the early 90s and they had been around longer than that! It is so great to see him back, putting out Idaho records again. Milly came up when I was talking to him about the pairing of you two at the Troubadour. I wanted to ask how you guys met?

YE: We both met him. Brendan has met him more than I have. But I I’ve hung out with him a couple times. He’s a good dude.

JB: Yeah, really good guy. How’d you guys meet him and you know how were you introduced to the music of Idaho in the first place?

BD: It must have been in 2018, there was a Numero Group playlist called … it’s kind of funny now, saying this, but it was called something like the Numero Group Guide To Slowcore and as I was shuffling it, this Idaho song came on. I immediately thought, What the fuck? This is so good.” It was this song, “Only In The Desert” (from 1997’s The Forbidden EP – JB) which is such a beautiful song. I’m just the type of person that consumes music like a maniac. Like, if I find something that I like, I have to know literally everything. I’m in a rabbit hole for like two weeks, just trying to get to the bottom of it. So anyway, during 2020 I kind of revisited Idaho. I knew they were an L.A. band, which obviously being someone who lives out here, I want to know. Especially L.A. music is really important to me and my connection with being here or whatever. So one day, I followed him on Instagram and he followed me back. So I sent him a DM and I was like, “Hey, dude, I’ve been listening to your music a lot, I really like it!” We were all locked down so I said, “It’s been this soundtrack to me chilling at home and it’s been nice to listen to.” And he reached out and said, some nice stuff like he checked Milly out. That’s why I like him. He’s the type of guy that literally has no ego. You could be anybody and if you’re showing him love, he’s gonna reciprocate that. I always see him commenting back to his fans on YouTube and stuff. He’s just a real sweetheart. We kept in touch just over the Internet and then when 2021 rolled around and we all got our vaccines, I hit him up. They play those guitars, he has all those custom four-string tenor guitars. It’s amazing and I was like, “Hey, I’d love to try one of those guitars out sometime like if you’d want to hang out” and he immediately replied, “Yeah, dude. Come over to my house.” He lives in Laurel Canyon. So I went over and jammed with him that day and how we’ve kind of kept in touch. I didn’t see him much and then over the years I would just text him every so often be like, “Milly, Idaho. Let’s do it.” And it would always be, “No, not the right time.” That tour you caught us on. You know, we had a couple dates at the end of it in San Francisco and L.A. I texted him back in September and I was like, “Hey dude, let’s do this.” He said “No, sorry, like still not there. Don’t have a drummer.” March of this year rolled around and I was just like, “Okay I’m gonna try it one more time because I really wanted them to play the Troubadour with us and maybe one other show” is what we were thinking so I texted the other guitar player, Robby (Fronzo) the newer guy. I wrote, “Dude! August 10th, Milly record release show. Idaho – yes or no. He just texts me back, “Yes! It’s the right time like Text Jeff!” I texted Jeff, and he just immediately wrote, “Yes, like divine timing. Let’s do it.” It was amazing. Of course, I didn’t know at that moment they were also going to be rolling a record out. I’m sure you’ve heard it by now. It’s a great record.

JB: Yes it is! I went and saw Idaho in Manitou Springs, Colorado back in 2021 And

BD: Right, they did that tour.

JB: Yeah, that short tour and I was up in Colorado at the time. I’m driving through the Rockies, I’m getting to Manitou Springs and I hadn’t seen Idaho since the year 2000. It’s one of those bands where you walk in and you hear that four string, even them tuning for the next song. You know. It’s got that sound that it just hits you and it’s like this is Idaho. I’m thinking, “I’m seeing Idaho again!” I never thought I’d see him again and you know Jeff is one of those guys, like you were saying, he’s down to Earth. He doesn’t give a fuck if he’s playing to 10 people or 10,000. He likes to play and it’s on his own time, not anybody else’s.

BD: It’s really cool. He will always, in my opinion, deserve more than he’s gotten in terms of recognition and I’m sure you definitely feel the same way. When I hung out with him, we did one of those talk house things. So we just ended up just chatting and he recorded the whole thing and filmed it, he’s just funny. Which by the way, one thing that he told me … it was more Robby saying this but Jeff apparently is the type of guy who’s filmed essentially his entire life. Did you check out that documentary (Traces Of Glory: The Musical Journey of Idaho)?

JB: Yeah.

BD: Dude, that thing was inspiring as fuck. Like so cool.

JB: He shoots normal day-to-day stuff and as it turns out, he’s got a great eye, number one, he’s got a great band, number two and you know that documentary put both of those things together. It is one of my favorite band documentaries, for sure.

BD: Same. The final thing I’ll say that I thought was funny was we were talking about Idaho as like this band. It’s one of those things either you get it or you don’t get it and he was saying that. The way that he looks at it is like the people who do get it are kind of like disciples of Idaho (all laugh). Which I thought was really funny.

JB: Just a couple more questions. I know you guys are getting ready for a tour. I like throwing this word out there to bands, just to see reactions, or hear reactions, and that word is shoegaze.

BD: Oh god.

YE: You hit the nail on the head buddy (all laugh).

JB: Obviously you guys know there’s a massive shoegaze revival going on. We’re getting some great, some good, and some redundant bands. I was really happy to hear Your Own Becoming with its more direct indie rock approach. Like I said earlier, it brings me back to the underground scene of the early 90s where it just poured out but between the two of you, was that a very conscious approach going into the writing and recording of this album?

BD: Yeah, the word I’d use is majorly, intentional thing. I don’t mean to beat a dead horse with it or whatever, but I think it’s cool. I’ll be positive for a second. I think it’s cool that, you know, there are a lot of bands that are like, “We’re a shoegaze band!” and they’re doing well or whatever, but we’ve been called that for years. It depends who’s writing about us though. I don’t know. We were just like, “Let’s just make a raw rock album and that’s that.” We’re not a shoegaze band. We are still getting called shoegaze. A couple of premieres and things said a couple of the songs were shoegaze songs and maybe I’m naive, but this sounds nothing like any shoegaze in my opinion.

JB: The first record? Sure there were atmospheric elements to some of the songs but to call it shoegaze? I wouldn’t.

BD: Right. Look, I love shoegaze. There’s some great shoegaze bands. If anything is gaze-y, if you will, it’s because we’re more informed by bands like Hum and Failure, but even those guys get called shoegaze and you know they’re not identifying with that. Like you just said, it’s atmospheric. There’s such a difference there I feel like.

JB: Agreed. I saw Hum back in the day for You’d Prefer An Astronaut (RCA / Twelve Inch Records, 1995) and they were pummeling. Definitely not shoegaze!

BD: (Laughs) I really wish I could have seen that.

JB: So heavy and Shiner opened for them. I don’t know if you guys know Shiner?

BD: Yeah. Our guitar player Nico loves Shiner. There’s some sort of a family tie there to somebody, I think. And that dude (Tim Dow) went on to play drums for Year Of The Rabbit, the Ken Andrews project after Failure. It has a couple Shiner members in it too I think.
I guess like from a Your Own Becoming side of things we were just like talking about rock bands all the time. We’re talking about Death Cat for Cutie or some of the Foo Fighters records or Saves The Day; things like that. That’s that’s where our heads were at influentially speaking. So it’s funny, you know, you get excited at an article came out and see shoegaze mentioned. It doesn’t take away from it, it’s just a word. So it’s not that big of a deal, but sometimes it does feel a little lazy I guess.

JB: Should that be the title of this piece “Not Shoegaze”?

YE: Please. Sounds great to meet.

JB: You’re about to go on some tour dates and so are there any venues you’re excited to play? Anything you guys are looking forward to?

YE: Yeah, definitely. I can speak for Brendan, we’re both super stoked about Philadelphia and playing Union Transfer. It’s going to be really, really cool. I’m trying to think. I’m personally stoked to go to Louisville to Kentucky. We’ve never played there before. Um, and we’re also playing Baltimore for the first time, which I’m a massive Wire fan. So I’m just very excited to finally be able to see Baltimore with my own two eyes. We’re playing at this DIY skate park, but it’s like a whole Extravaganza. Apparently, 500 plus people are pulling up.

BD: Wait, isn’t Wire a British band?

YE: The Wire. The TV show.

BD: Oh yeah.

JB: I was gonna ask the same question.

BD: I was thinking, “Are they from Baltimore?”

YE: No, no, no. It’s that HBO show that’s set in Baltimore.

BD: I gotcha.

YE: Yeah, but I’m stoked for those two shows. Those three shows I think are gonna be like extra special, it’s gonna be really fun.

BD: I’m excited I love Nashville when I’ve been. This is just me, but after six six years of spending my summers in California, I think that summer on the East Coast hits differently. A lot of greenery and things like that. I’m hoping to find somewhere to swim. I really love going to North Carolina. I grew up going there in the summertime for vacations. We’d go to The Outer Banks which is obviously a lot different than the triangle, being in Durham or Raleigh or anything like that. I am excited to be in that area of the country. It’s gonna be nostalgic in a way. I feel like I’m looking into that. I’ll speak for myself, I’m just such an avid music fan when I go to certain areas. I like to listen to the music that’s from there. So I know when I’m in North Carolina, I’ll be doing the whole Polvo, Superchunk thing. When I’m in, Georgia I’m going to be listening to a lot of R.E.M. and maybe some Gucci Mane or Migos or something, you know? Louisville we’re gonna be listening to some Slint, some Rodan. Gotta just take it all in!

JB: When you’re in Kentucky and you have time, drop by a place called Lincoln Jamboree.

YE: I’m looking it up.

JB: It’s a old school, Bluegrass, folk and country venue. You’re in the middle of nowhere Kentucky. It’s to the south of Louisville.

YE: Hodgenville.

JB: Yeah, that’s it. Johnny Cash and all all the greats from that era played there. I took my kids there on our way home this summer and they were super welcoming. The food was killer and it’s got this old-timey theater where bands still play to this day. I think they only play on the weekends but you can go in at certain times daily. They serve breakfast and lunch. They were so nice and let us roam around the theatre. They turned on the lights for us. I always wanted to go there. They let us go wherever we wanted to go so we took it all in and it’s been around for a really long time and it’s how the Grand Ole Opry should be, but it’s it’s more of like an underground type of place. It’s got that historical aspect to it.

BD: How far is it from from Louisville?

YE: I think it’s 40 minutes to the south?

JB: Maybe 90 miles south, it’s a mile away from Abraham Lincoln’s birthplace.

BD: Oh, I want to see that.

JB: It’s pretty striking. You walk up these these steps to get to this monument that houses a recreation of Abe’s first cabin. The park itself, the monument, the grounds are super cool. You can hike on an elevated boardwalk into the woods.

BD: I’m trying to hit this.

YE: Yeah, I’m down.

JB: If you can swing it definitely do it. It’s worth it.

BD: I just started eating meat again a few weeks ago, after not for a really long time. So that’s also something I’m looking forward to. I feel like there’s going to be some great cuisine out on the road.

JB: Thank you guys for your time and stay safe on the road for sure. I wish you guys were coming back through Tucson. I’d like to see Milly again!

For more information or to give Milly a listen, please visit their Website, Bandcamp or Label

Milly On Tour

Oct 3 – Brooklyn, NY at Warsaw
Oct 4 – Providence, RI at Fete Music Hall
Oct 5 – Philadelphia, PA at The Fillmore Philadelphia
Oct 7 – Toronto, ONT at The Danforth Music Hall
Oct 8 – Detroit, MI at Saint Andrew’s Hall
Oct 9 – Indianapolis, IN at HI-FI
Oct 11 – Chicago, IL at Riviera Theatre
Oct 12 – Lakewood, OH at The Roxy
Oct 13 – Washington DC at The Howard Theater
Oct 18 – Los Angeles, CA at Hollywood Palladium
Oct 19 – Los Angeles, CA at The Roxy Theatre
Nov 2 – Richmond, VA at Canal Club
Nov 3 – Raleigh, NC at Kings
Nov 4 – Jacksonville, FL at Jack Rabbits
Nov 6 – Orlando, FL at Will’s Pub
Nov 7 – Miami, FL at Gramps
Nov 8 – Bradenton, FL at Oscura
Nov 9 – Pensacola, FL at Night Moves Fest