"PEOPLE NEED TO ESCAPE .
WE'RE A PRETTY HEALTHY ESCAPE ."
KELLY OGDEN
SEPTEMBER 2024
'EAT MY HEART OUT'
20TH ANNIVERSARY
for 20 years, the dollyrots have been our guide
our chaperone
our reference manual for positivity and openness and honesty
for saying 'yes
doing it for business owners
doing it for diy-ers
doing it for you
doing it for me
doing it for themselves
a community of beautiful people
hosted by beautiful people
a lifeboat where everyone is welcome
no sugar coating
it hasn't always (ever) been easy
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tough, lonely moments
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but when the needle drops on Everything ....
...a thrilling hook
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...a monumental harmony
...an uncontrollable smile
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...turn the volume up
...don't fight the urge to pogo (creaky joints permitting)
​
​
...that's a pretty healthy escape
Let's start with how much Kelly + Luis love promo stuff
LUIS
Haha it's like, hey, yeah, there's a show happening. Here's a new way to annoy people (laughs)
Giles
(laughs) oh my, there's a huge amount of pressure to, I dunno, be different, try to stand out from the crowd, especially as a new artist trying to make a mark, but how do you guys go about it these days?
Luis
Yeah, it can look like they're trying too hard. We just want to let people know something's happening. That's all we care about. We don't need to be clowns and go out there.
Kelly
I feel so self conscious as well. I feel like people know that I'm cringing inside when I tried to do more than what I usually do. Like, I'm good at doing what I'm doing. But when I push too far for social media stuff, I'm like, 'they know I hate doing this'
Luis
I don't think it's a self conscious thing for me, (influencer voice) I just want to be cool! (laughs).
Giles
Oh, I've given up trying (to be clear, I haven't given up given up, I've given up trying to put myself on social media. And being cool. Not that I ever did try that. Nope). I just can't do it. I just get in a proper mess.
Kelly
Me on a stage singing and playing guitar... that's a different part of me to the one that ends up going to a kid's birthday party. I'm just a shy person.
Luis
I mean, in a classic musician sense, you're allowed to be a musician and a shy person. It used to be normal. And now, within the last eight years, it's become 'no, no, you have to be really outgoing and gregarious'. And we're never gonna be like that {laughs}
Giles
I wonder if, to a degree, when you have a big following like you do, there's less pressure on social media - to kinda prove yourself? On the other hand, maybe the pressure's just different in that you still need to be seen, keeping people involved and stuff like that, so perhaps it's a bit double edged.
Kelly
We just draw on the art, not us as individual beings outside of the art.
LUIS
But I think it's also like, you just do your day to day, every day. And there is some obligation to keep people up to date. It's like, 'oh, our kid had a birthday', you know? I know that there are people that have been following for a long time. So you kind of have an obligation to be like, 'hey...
Kelly
...it's wine time and coffee time!' But, um, but we do try to keep people up to date with what's going on. Because otherwise it'd be confusing later. You know, like, 'Hey, this is happening', 'we're bringing our kids on stage' or 'we're doing this thing'. It's like a family thing because, I mean, we're obviously going to do it together, so it would be confusing if they didn't know the steps in between. With social media, I like posting. I like posting band stuff. I like posting songs by the band. I like posting music videos, and I like making music videos. I like playing shows, but I don't like getting in front of my phone like this and trying to be entertaining in a way that just doesn't come naturally to me.
Giles
I completely agree with you on that. I remember when we did the podcast, Kelly, which was about 18 months ago, I remember we touched on this, you know, need to tell people what's going on, but at the same time, maintain some privacy over your life. I think there can an expectation from some people that they should know about everything, and whilst I understand that, that can be quite invasive, can't it?
Kelly
Yeah, I can see that, but it's pretty cool. I mean, we don't have trouble saying no, or keeping things separate.
LUIS
Another thing is, we don't really have anything to hide. I mean we hide things that might be dangerous. But we don't have to hide any of the day to day dynamics. The dynamic is we don't have anything to hide because there isn't anything weird going on. I was watching the news earlier, because I do that when I wash the dishes....
Kelly
....he does it twenty times a day, you know.
LUIS
They always use dishes! (laughs). And so I'm down there doing dishes again. And there was this thing on the news where this (puts on news presenter voice) social media influencer has been sentenced because she was like, being terrible to her kids.
Kelly
Oh she was disgusting, I know which one you're talking about.
Luis
Anyway, this was on the news all day. And I'm thinking, well, she was trying too hard number one, and number two, she probably had a lot to hide. If you're not shitty, then it's easier.
Kelly
I think not being shitty is better. And easier.
​
Luis
Apparently, you can do whatever you want in the United States. But the thing is, we're so Attention Deficit Disorder, so if you do something wrong, the best move is to just not say a thing. People forget and then everyone will be outraged about the next thing the next day. It's crazy. But, you know, having integrity and people knowing they can trust you, is still important.
Giles
I completely agree with you on that. With the attention span, and I don't know how you've experienced it with your kids as they're growing up, but I struggle more now to read a book than I did, even, I don't know, two or three years ago. It's wild.
Kelly
Well, reading is my escape. So as long as I get, like, 20 pages into something, I can just zone into it. But honestly, I was an unmedicated, more than 90% likely ADD child, but learning how to play music taught me focus. And so, when I play music, my brain can think of all sorts of other things at the same time. It gave me control over my brain in a way that I don't think I would have otherwise had.
Luis
Music and watching baseball.
Kelly
Watching baseball, yeah (laughs).
Giles
Big question, but what's been happening and what stuff is exciting you at the moment?
Kelly
I mean, we had the March tour. Two weeks before it started and we hadn't planned anything. At all. No flights. No transportation.
Luis
We did order the merch earlier than usual. I guess.
Kelly
We are very last minute people. No matter how hard I've tried my whole life, I'm always last minute. Though, that was the first time I ordered merch on time. I did it! I did it! I did one thing early for me.
LUIS
That is true.
Kelly
I feel kind of proud at that. So yeah, we got a lot of planning to do for the US summer tour, which is exciting. which means lots of travel.
Luis
So we put out the last record in October, so we're gonna try to integrate new stuff into the set, which is always like a thing
Kelly
Which means we need to agree on what songs we're gonna play before it's too late. Right?!
Luis
Right. And then, in addition to that, it's like we want to put out a single in the summer, right?
Kelly
So I guess we're gonna write and record an A and a B side. In addition to that, we're working on a cover for a movie that's coming out.
Luis
Oh, yeah, we got to do that. And in addition to that, we're coming up on the 20th anniversary of our first record, Eat My Heart Out. That was our first record. And so we want to do some kind of release to celebrate that, and also do something with the tours to celebrate that. So, there's all these things
LUIS
happening, like, you know, stuff that came out at the end of last year, stuff that's going to come out later this year, re-issues. I feel like we have so much catalogue at this point, that almost every year or every other year, we're celebrating an anniversary of a release. There are a lot of people that have been following our band since the beginning. I saw some posts on the internet today. "Oh, Eat My Heart Out. I've had this record for 20 years". I'm like, "were you like, six when you got it?!?!" So to us, it's like, you know, we're still the same people inside....
​
Kelly
I mean, a little of it is because we've stunted ourselves together, to be together (laughs). Like, we are literally the same people (laughs). I mean, we're parents and things now, but we're still the same people at the core
​
Luis
We've grown like this, but to be told, like, "Hey, your record changed my life when I was like a teenager", and this person is now, you know, an elder, emo millennial person it's like, 'Oh, my God, that really that means a lot to me". It gives you motivation to be like 'okay, cool, let me acknowledge that', you know. And it's like the old and the new has to constantly be happening at the same time.
L
Kelly
Fortunately, Luis is really good with dates and stuff. He remembers everything. So he knows when stuff happens. Otherwise, I would just be like 'lalalalala'.
Luis
In February, I was like, you know what, hasn't it been like....and then I looked it up....and I missed it by one day, but it was 10 years exactly to the day that Barefoot and Pregnant came out. I was like, 'she knows something happened!' Every record means something different to everyone and everybody has their favourite songs. And sometimes they end up coming out at a time and then you come back around later on, and you just have to be like, 'hey, acknowledge it, you know'.
Giles
It's mindblowing just to say the words '20 years'. The mid 90's doesn't feel that long ago either and that was 30 years ago!
Kelly
The thing that blew my mind was, like, when The Wonder Years came out - '87 or '88 maybe - so if they made that show for right now, it'd be the early 2000s. Oh. My. God. Does everyone feel this way or is it special for us? No, I think this is a special for us...(laughs)
Luis
{laughing} No, dude, it's always the same. It's always been the same, man. We just happen to have lasted a long time. You know?
​
Giles
So, your catalogue goes back 20 years now.... How does that make you feel? And given your journey, living through the party times, doing the crowdfunding, becoming parents etc, how is what you've done previously influencing and shaping the new stuff that you're writing?
Kelly
Yeah, I know what you mean. But (laughs)... well, I still feel kind of the same.
Luis
I think that the themes don't need to change that much. They're kind of universal themes. I think we've always wanted to write music that's just kind of timeless.
Kelly
When Night Owls first came out (October 2023), we did talk about how it did kind of reflect the years that had just passed, you know, like the COVID years I guess. There's a slight maturity to it, but the subject matter still isn't that different.
Luis
That's why some music lasts and some music doesn't. We've not been informed too much by, like, the current thing. So, we just kind of play rock and roll that we like. So there's kind of that approach or that perspective, right? You want to always put together something that's going to live up to people's expectations of what they built up in their mind.
Kelly
I feel like I have to get better and better and better, for sure.
Luis
The last thing I wanna do is let people down. I mean, you're not doing it just for them, you're doing it for yourself, too. There was this interview or clip - an Instagram thing, I think - and it was David Bowie talking about his philosophy on how you should create. And it was never do it for the audience, you should always do it for yourself. You
know, always just try and do what's inside of you. And don't pay attention to what anybody else would think about it. Right? I kind of disagree with that.....
Kelly
I disagree as well. I feel like if we weren't making this - (to Luis) okay, right now, if we were only making music for ourselves, would you go write a song right now?
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Luis
No, I'd be not motivated at all. Because the only people that we are letting down is us.
Kelly
Yeah, right. And we'd get over it and do it later.
Luis
I'd be like, 'whatever, I gotta take my kid to soccer practice, I got other shit to think about, I got other shit to do for other people, I'm not gonna just think about myself all the
time'. You know, like, we're doing this for the people that give a shit about us as much as we're doing it for ourselves.
Kelly
But I think that by feeling like we do owe something to the people who care for us, we're forced to
continue something that makes us happy. You don't make yourself do stuff that makes you feel happy all the time. You do the things you have to do. But, because other people care, we have to do it. So, we end up...lucky.
Luis
I mean, there are times where I feel like it'd be cool to not give a shit and we could do our
electronic, deep, dark wave album (laughs)
Kelly
I would make some depressing ass folk music (laughs)
Giles
Ahhhhh, the deepest secrets are coming out. You heard it here first, dear readers! I've heard that Bowie quote. I think Rick Rubin has started talking about that in all the interviews he's been doing for his new book.
Luis
Yeah, Rick Rubin has one that is basically saying the same thing - you do what you want, then people will follow and there is some truth to that. You should never try to please them. Having pressure to do what you want is good, wherever you get pressure from.
If it means that you don't want to let the people that care about what you do down, you're not doing it to acquiesce because you don't want to let them down. I dunno, maybe some people think their job is to let other people down (laughs)
Giles
Because of what I do, I just kinda go straight into wondering how people's psyches work when they are creating. Like, how you approach it if your natural tendency is to be a people pleaser, or if you lack self belief, or if you are an extrovert or an introvert...and how much you have to battle against those natural tendencies to create the art that you are happy with
LUIS
I dunno, maybe they've just got a lot more money than us (laughs). Maybe we should be completely all about ourselves! (laughs)
GILES
Has what you want from life changed significantly over the years?
KELLY
Well, we have wanted a family together since we were 16. The band accidentally happened. So we're kind of getting to do all of it in a lot of ways.
LUIS
Right now there's very, very little time for self reflection, because we're spending trying to keep up with these elementary school age kids.
Kelly
Yeah, the kids are seven and ten and they want to do a lot of activities (laughs)
LUIS
There's no idle with their brains. But we're musicians, we've always just wanted to make music, we want to make rock and roll. And so, of course, yeah, we'd love a hit, you know (laughs). When we first started out, we were a baby band and it was like, 'oh, yeah, let's get signed, let's get on the radio' - back then it was a different time, y'know what I mean?! And then, like, unless you're a viral person, or unless you're an industry creation. I won't mention what those examples might look like, but you know what I'm saying? Or just, it's.... 'rock'...or it's...'pop punk' (fades away and laughs), you know, but there are times when a song breaks through, and it's unexpected, and it's for some random who-knows-what reason, we're looking for that breakthrough.
Kelly
Yeah, I would want that too. We want as much success as we can achieve whilst trying to do more.
LUIS And while still relying on our back catalogue.
Kelly
We do have something to be very proud of. And I just realised it today because I'm following something on Instagram. So our song "Because I'm Awesome", has been used in a very important scene in a film that's Oscar nominated.
Luis
Oh, I didn't know that.
Kelly
Yeah, the film Nimona was an animated film that came out on Netflix, and it was Oscar-nominated for best Animated Feature Film. All of a sudden, they became really active on Instagram and our song "Because I'm Awesome" is played almost in its entirety in this epic action scene.
Giles
That's really incredible!
Luis
Yeah, right, these things sometimes just come along. And you're just like, oh, well, that's cool. You have to always want to progress.
Kelly
You have to continually want more
Luis
You have to want to, like deliver and you have to want to get in whatever that part of your brain is, like, creates something. Whatever that thing is. I don't know what that is. You can't formulate a song. You
can't like engineer a song. It just, sometimes... happens.
Giles
It's like your instinct and intuition, isn't it? It's an intangible thing where that idea or feeling comes from.
Kelly
You kinda have to let it happen. I mean, you're not always driving when you're songwriting. And the times that we have, well maybe it hasn't been so natural.
Luis
But occasionally, you get one, you know. Like, our song, "Everything", that went pretty far. And we'll get a message saying "that was our wedding song". And we're like "Oh, my God, are you serious?!" Occasionally, you get that spark. And
you feel - I don't want to say (in influencer voice) blessed, hashtag blessed #blessed. But like, you know, you get whatever that thing is, you get hit by lightning. And it's great. And so, yeah, we're always looking for that.
Giles
Those are lovely moments where somebody says that this song of yours represents a really special moment in time for them. I mean for a piece of your work to be that special to someone is kinda cool. I mean we love a bit of nostalgia don't we and for your work to be a part of that nostalgia......
Kelly
Hashtag blessed!
LUIS
I mean it's becoming harder and harder to put a setlist together. We used to play 30 minutes sets, you know,
Kelly
We'd bang out the first record, pretty easy.
LUIS
And now it's like, we just finished our eighth album. And that doesn't count all the B-sides, covers and stuff and it's like, dude, packing that into an hour and 15 minutes, or whatever it is....it's hard. It's like you want to encompass everything. And now it's like, 'well, now we have to drop a couple because we got to bring new shit in'. You know, it's like...
Kelly
....."so you're not going to play 'My Best Friend's Hot'?!
LUIS
Bruce Springsteen played for three and a half hours....
Kelly
We went - we got to go to the first show in Tampa - and I was STILL like, "But he didn't play this or this or this!" (laughs)
LUIS
We put our records out through Stevie Van Zandt's label, right? And I was expecting like, okay, it's gonna be a long show, whatever. Dude, it was three and a half hours. But I felt like I was there for only like an hour and that is a true testament to an awesome catalogue. So, when somebody comes and sees us play and say we're opening, right? I mean we did a support tour with Bowling for Soup earlier this year, right?
Kelly
We did Bowling and Lit in the southeast. So the same tour we did in the UK.
Luis
It was awesome. It was amazing. We all get along, it's always such a great show from beginning to end. But, we're the first band
Kelly
We're playing like 30/35 minutes
Luis
Right....30/35 minutes and what 10 or 11 songs do we pick? We've got eight records to choose from so I think that's why it's better to at least make sure you have a little more time for your set, do the headline shows, whatever ....
Giles
Setlists are always the biggest bone of contention amongst fans, oh my god, people are INTENSE when it comes to setlists - 'I don't want to hear that new shit. Give me the old stuff!' And it's even harder when you get a catalogue the size of yours.
Luis
It's always such a personal thing but then also the true fans always have their deep cut that they want to hear, you know, so we'll try to throw in a couple of those you know, but, honestly (knowing look), Google....
Kelly
Google Dollyrots songs. Or look on Apple or Spotify. Look at the top songs and then YouTube place because like we're not the best deciders about what our set should be. If we played a setlist that were our favourite songs, no one would ever go (laughs)
Luis
(laughing) It'd be like the most obscure shit, right, cos your favourite songs is not the same as mine.
Kelly
(laughing) We'd play "Nobody Wants U" every single night!
Luis
See, that's the thing about putting music out - what you think is gonna be the big one, isn't always it, right?
Kelly
Did you know Luis didn't want to put Night Owl on the album?
Luis
Yeah, I was just like, "Uhhhh, I dunno."....(he's stumped for words!)
Giles
Well, this is where you compromise, isn't it?
Luis
(regains composure!) Well, if you decide to pursue music as what you do, you will obviously have bad judgement to begin with, like, why would you be the person picking the songs? (laughs). I mean Radiohead didn't play Creep for I don't know how many years (Giles: Somebody worked out that there was an 8% chance of you hearing "Creep" live. According to Wikipedia, Radiohead performed it as the opening song of their headline performance at the 2009 Reading Festival. They did not perform it again until their 2016 tour for A Moon Shaped Pool, when a fan spent the majority of a concert shouting for it.), you know, but like, yeah, like people ask this
Kelly
People ask us every single night to play Rollercoaster....we've never played it (laughs)
Luis
We did it live on a TV show one time or something like that. Acoustic with drums or something, I think.
Kelly
We don't often get complaints about setlist, though. We get wishes usually, but they know wishes don't come true (laughs)
Luis
I feel like the setlist is usually pretty well engineered. Unless we're opening and then obviously people wish we would play for longer and I get that. You can try so hard but the thing is like, the social media platforms are like the modern pay to play. Because your organic reach doesn't reach even.... dude, bands that I love, you know, I never see their stuff, or if I do, it's only something that happened to get a lot of "engagement".
​
Kelly
Which usually happens when there's an argument about something to create this, I dunno whether it's controversy or fake controversy even... Actually that happened today I saw like a crazy post on a Bowling For Soup fan page today. Fascinating. Ready for this? Okay, so somebody had written this long post about not having children in the front couple rows of the shows and asked people for their views. Holy crap. It's like 600 comments, like, the craziest discussion I've ever seen. It's crazy, we're talking Bowling For Soup, we're not talking like, you know, NOFX, or, you're not gonna see Fear or something.....
Luis
Yeah, it's not like a hardcore show!
Kelly
Yeah, yeah! You're not going to like mosh around....it's pretty safe.
Luis
I mean don't children end up on stage sometimes? Like, it's a welcoming atmosphere.
Kelly
I don't know, it depends on the band. But in that environment, you should assume that there are children there - I mean, 10 years old children
Luis
You're drawing from so many different types of audiences with that sort of band. You do get some hardcore punk people, I guess, you know? I mean, you could say the same about our band. It's like, we will have a lot of like, 7 to 12 year old girls that are there because they wanna see how to rock.
Kelly
And a lot of them are there with their parents.
Luis
But then you'll also have an older dude who's all tatted up and he's been going to punk shows since 1990 and he's gonna like swing...... (laughs)
Kelly
And he looks like he wants to break your face. When I go to a show, I find the section that I want to be in, you know, sometimes it's in the pit, but adjacent to the pit usually
Luis
Now that you bring it up, I feel like that's something that you have to deal with if you're a band that carries a diverse audience. You know, I don't mind being like that, you know, it's pretty awesome.
Giles
I think having a diverse crowd is a great thing. What's the point otherwise? Stay in your lane?
Luis
There are some genres of music where you'll go to the show and everyone is within the same seven year age range. And they're all here to do the exact same thing. And they all have the same outlook. For the most part - 80 to 90%. There are other shows you go to and it's like, wow, this is like really diverse and really cool. I like that where it's multi generational and multi cultural. We can have, like, a NASA engineer at our show, and then we'll have a crust punk at our show and I feel good about that.
Giles
I think a lot of credit should be given for artists that build that kind of environment. Where people know that they are going into
a welcoming, safe space. Too many scenes haven't done enough work on that.
Kelly
You know, a lot of people come to our shows alone...
Giles
Which is a big thing.
Kelly
Yeah, it doesn't matter. Like, as soon as you're there, like, everything's cool.
Luis
Yeah, it doesn't matter, you can just come to the merch table and say "Hi', you know, it's like, we're all here. Because, the philosophy is like, 'Okay, we came to your town, we're in your town's venue and we're putting on a rock show and we're kind of throwing a party. Like, we're there with you....'
Kelly
But you can get situations where you can see a band in one place and the crowd is one way, yet you see them in another place, and the crowd is different. For example, we're in Florida now and I saw one of my favourite California punk bands play here. And it was a little bit scary and weird. Kinda heavy confederate flag waving like weird. But when I see them in California, it's totally different. Kind of depends on that, too, a lot of the time. And it's not necessarily what that band wants to see in front of them when they come to Florida either.
Luis
Yeah, you can put out the best energy you can and you still never know who's gonna show up. We try to remain overwhelmingly positive. Because we just figured, like, there's enough of that other side in the world. Like, we lived down in California for a long time, you know? That's where we went to establish the band. In 2002, we decided we gotta move to LA. And we lived out there until we had River, and then when we moved back here, so it's like, okay, we live in Florida now, cost of living a little better, whatever. But, like now, the Gulf of Mexico is 101 degrees. And there's category 6 hurricanes coming straight off. So, it does make you pause.
Kelly
But, we don't make that part of our music and we don't get political in our posts.
Luis
There are artists that I totally respect that bring political stuff up as
they should, because maybe some people aren't as informed about certain things, you know, so it's good for them to come together and coalesce around things that matter. But that's not our job. Our job is to provide a place for people to go and celebrate life and celebrate music and feel good.
Kelly
Feel what is good.
Giles
Yeah, I hear you with that. And to be fair, you're talking about your own lived experiences, based on what you see. And, you know, if you've got certain feelings or experiences, it's likely that other people will have those as well. So it kind of helps with this, that kind of connection with your audience, that relatability.
Kelly
Yeah, people need to escape. We're a pretty healthy escape.
Luis
Yeah, what you're saying makes sense, too. Because like, I feel like the music or the whatever it is, I don't know what it is, maybe it's the whole thing just attracts people that want that feeling. I never feel like it's like a bad vibe at our shows.....
​
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.....anyway, I'm going to watch the news while I'm doing the dishes for the .....10th time
RESOURCES
all original photos courtesy of Jen Rosenstein
stills taken from Everything official video