Nashville rockers Those Darlins, made up of Jessi Zazu, Nikki Kvarnes, and Linwood Regensburg, are no strangers to controversy. The cover of their 2013's album Blur The Line, featured the band members' nude legs and torsos, which got them into some hot water after they hung it on a banner in front of a Nashville record store. Despite not intentionally wanting to stir up trouble, the content of their latest effort challenges gender roles and some of the outdated views still held in the South. With three full-length albums under their belt and extensive tours behind them, the group has begun work on their fourth record.
Music Times chatted with the band's guitar player and songwriter Jessi Zazu about their upcoming record, being vulnerable in her songwriting, Touring With Diarrhea Planet, and the labels they are tiring of hearing.
MT: You got some flak for your album cover banner, and a lot of the songs on your recent album Blur The Line push gender boundaries and promote feminism in a way. Are people still shocked to see/hear that sort of thing in the South? Has that influenced the topics you choose to write about?
Jessi Zazu: Yeah I would say that's part of the reason I like it there so much. There's some sort of friction to work against. There's definitely a lot going on in the South. I know the Northeast and the Northwest are some of the more liberal parts of the country, but the one thing that kind of is a little bit frustrating sometimes is that a lot of people are just kind of clueless about how things still are in the South and other parts of America. In a way, I sort of try to expose the reality of what's going on down there, in some ways. That's not my entire goal, but it is a factor in what I do, I would say.
MT: Are there people down there who hear your music and find it controversial? Has anyone confronted you as to the messages you are trying to get across?
JZ: Yeah, I mean I would definitely say that there's certain people who -- well I wouldn't say it's people getting mad necessarily -- I would say that some people, their feathers are kind of ruffled. I think for the most part, if people don't like a band for something they're doing, they usually just don't listen to them. So, some people might sort of be turned off by it. To me, I feel like, if I'm really offended by something, I usually try to investigate why I'm bothered by that so much. Is there something more there? Maybe other people don't think that way. It's going to go right over their heads, but I hope that some people might think about what the message is, or why they are having a reaction.
MT: You've relinquished the Darlin' surname, shown yourself naked, and told very personal stories. Was there a clear intention to be more transparent and vulnerable with this effort?
JZ: Yeah, I mean, it was my intention with my songwriting. I just didn't know where else to go, because I was stuck. I didn't want to be writing songs to write songs that were like, "Oh, this is a cool song that I wrote." You know? With just the intention of like, "Oh, this is fun." I love having fun, and I don't think that writing songs for fun is a bad thing. I just wasn't in that mode at the time because all the songs I was trying to write for fun felt kind of forced. I didn't want to put something out to people where people would say that it sounds really forced. So, my goal was just to try to be really honest in the hopes that it would create something more original. Honesty definitely opens up the vulnerability. So, it sort of became that after I finished a song or two, I started really liking where it was going and feeling really good. I kept going on that path, and Nikki was the same way. We both had a lot of conversations about it. I would definitely say from the beginning that those were some of my first goals.
At the time, I was kind of facing a lot of things I didn't really want to face. Instead of just writing songs that were covering up the way I felt, I went ahead and went straight into it and wrote songs about exactly where I was at. A lot of songs are darker and slower, not all of them, but different from what we had done before, different vibe. Putting myself in that position and thinking these are very personal songs, and I'm gonna have to sing these in front of people. It wasn't just the songs; it was the full body of work because I wrote a lot of stuff that didn't get put onto the album. The songs are just excerpts of the full body of writing I was doing.
The thing was a big growing experience for me and a lot of being honest with myself. I realized that putting myself out there and looking at myself in the mirror truly helped me become a stronger person. I will be able to go out into the world and sing songs in front of people, and I conquered a lot of fears, well maybe not fear, but a small portion of whatever it is inside of me.
Just finding strength through vulnerability is a big theme on the album. On the song "Ain't Afraid," I was thinking a lot about how there are a lot of people that are really afraid of a lot of things, and maybe other people will find some comfort in that. I was just making a statement, we're all in this together, we're all afraid of stuff. We are all human, which is part of the reason we chose the album cover. Also the theme that when you're nude, you're simultaneously extremely vulnerable, but it's also very empowering because you're like, "I'm putting myself out there right now." It's just like, to capture that, those two things in one, you know?
MT: You're coming up on a year since Blur The Line's release. Do you have a follow-up planned now that the tour is winding down?
JZ: Yeah, we're taking the fall off. I mean we're playing a few shows, but we're mostly going to record our new album and see what happens.
MT: Do you have any direction you're looking to go with it or is it more or less following up where Blur The Line left off?
JZ: I'm not really sure yet, because it's just one of those things that just happens as it happens. I mean, when we did Blur the Line, I was going through some things. I needed a lot of my own space. A lot of the writing was done more separately, probably more separately than a lot of any of our other albums. Now we're back in a place, more in a community again, you know? I think that I want to just start working together on the next album in a group more so. A little bit more collaborative. Not that it wasn't collaborative last time; it was just more collaborative after the fact that the song had been written. I am hoping that this time we can try at least a few more where we just play and go off what we play.
When we started writing our last album, we didn't have a fourth member; it was three of us. It was really hard to play like that, and we were kind of out of practice because we had taken some time off. Now, we're in a spot again where we're really tight together and better musicians than we ever have been. It just seems really exciting to get together and see what we come up with. I'm sure some crazy stuff will happen and we will be like, wow, we didn't expect this, let's go with it.
MT: You've had some time with your new lineup now as well. Are you all feeling comfortable now? Any challenges you're still facing? Has it changed the songwriting process at all?
JZ: We actually have an even newer lineup than when we released Blur the Line. Things didn't work out with Adrian; he didn't want to keep going with us. So, we have a brand new lineup since then. I mean, things ended with him on a very cordial note. He was like, "I don't know if this is for me." We were like, "Yeah, this is ok. You know, it's totally cool." It actually was kind of a good thing in a way. It was sort of like trying to force something that wasn't necessarily working as well as we thought it would. It was really easy. We've been playing with a new lineup since February, it's been awesome. I think we've gotten into a really good groove, and I think we're playing better than we ever have. I'm not really sure about what the future holds. Just going and playing and having fun, you know?
MT: Has your process been the same when writing these new songs?
JZ: You know, I don't know. I mean everybody changes things slightly. I think for the most part we have our system down. I think with the last album, it was different, but me and Nikki wrote the core of most of the songs. And then Linwood always contributes a lot as far as helping a song turn into real song, you know? When I say the core of the song, we might have a melody, some words, couple cords, maybe we have the whole song down, but for the most part it's still very skeleton/bare-bones. Yeah, so Linwood and Adrian [Barrera] added a lot to the songs after the fact that makes parts of the songs pretty crucial. That will definitely go on and whoever ends up recording with us will bring some more of that. I think everyone is going to be focused on making the songs as awesome as they could possibly be.
MT: Any favorite moments on this past tour, now that it's starting to wrap up?
JZ: Oh my gosh, so many favorite moments. This has been like our best tour. We had a blast. We got to stay with one of Diarrhea Planet's aunt and uncle in Tacoma, Washington. They took us out on their boat, and they took some of the boys golfing, and me and Nikki got to go shopping. They just totally treated us like we were their kids. It was awesome. They were super sweet. They all came to the show. Actually Evan, who is in Diarrhea Planet, his dad crowd surfed at the show; it was so cool.
Duncan [Shea], who is touring with us now, his family has a big place out in Arrowhead in California. We drove up there on our day off up in L.A. And we got to go waterskiing and swimming in a lake. We never do stuff like that on tour because we're always so busy. Then me Duncan, and Lin all had birthdays on this tour, so it felt like a big vacation, not really a tour. We just had a really great time.
MT: I was going to ask how it has been touring with Diarrhea Planet. Did you guys ever perform together at all during the tour?
JZ: Yeah totally, it's funny, the nights they play before us, their set gets fans like really pumped up; they have so much energy. I think it helps us when we play. They played like one song with us every once in a while. They're so game for playing whatever. We all have such a good time playing together. They're so fun, and they're all super sweet. We all have the same goal, which is to make people happy and to have fun playing music. It's really nice to be on tour with them every day. Even when we have like a sh*tty drive or whatever, it's like "Oh, you guys are here. Everything's better (laughs)." So, it's really fun.
MT: So LouFest is coming up. I was wondering what fans can expect at the show. Will you be playing any new material?
JZ: Probably, I don't know. We've got some covers and stuff we've been trying to do on this tour, so we'll probably break some of those out. We don't have any new songs that we're playing right now. So, probably just kind of the same thing we've been doing on this tour. It's kind of cool because it's kind at the end of playing a bunch of shows.
MT: Any acts you're excited to check out?
JZ: I think I'm gonna try to stay and see OutKast.
MT: On a kind of different note, I wanted to ask you about how the music landscape has evolved since you guys came on the scene. You are more on the rock side of the alt-country spectrum, but there was that period of alt-country/folk dominating the mainstream, which has sort of died down. Have you noticed that change at all? Were you guys able to ride that wave when it originally hit?
JZ: I mean, I don't know. It was crazy for a little while. It was kind of annoying for us. People wanted us to be more mainstream in that way, and we just weren't. Even when we were more country, we were still doing it in a way that was so ridiculous and not like reverent in any way. It was a little bit of a rub there.
MT: Now that the craze has died down, have people stopped comparing you to those sort of bands?
JZ: Yeah, I mean most times. Every once in a while we still get some people that are kind of like in that world. They kind of make weird references. But it was really bad for a while there. We were just like oh my gosh, stop saying country fried punk!
MT: It's like, what's worse being labeled country fried punk or having people point out you are females in rock 'n' roll all the time.
JZ: Exactly, those were the two things that were like just please stop. But yeah, it's definitely gotten better since then. I think people respect us a little bit more as far as musicianship goes. People know who we are a little bit more now. It has taken time. When we started, people were like, "This is who you are." And we were like, "That's not who we are!" But how can they know who we are until they have enough time to find out. You know? We learned a lot about what we want to put out there and explaining ourselves to people and all that.
You can check out Those Darlins' LouFest set on Saturday from 3:30-4:30 p.m. on the Shade Stage.
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