Interview with Denver Band The Lost Dolls

After having been on a break, I’m getting back to chatting with people about music and the (hopeful) return of normalcy. Was happy to hear from a Denver band who I have not yet seen live, The Lost Dolls, and talk about what they have been up to during pandemic and their plans for the after times. Below is my convo with Blake (vocals), Matt (guitar) and Stewart (drums).

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Interview with The Lost Dolls

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Aimee:
So, tell me about yourselves and your band, The Lost Dolls.

Matt:
We’ve been going just about two and a half years, I guess, together. We started out around Christmas or Halloween of 2018 but we had a different lineup at that point and were under a different name, but we played around quite a lot. Then once the pandemic came into effect and changed everybody’s life, we decided to make some changes … a couple of the members in the band weren’t really working and didn’t have the same view and necessarily the same drive as us. So we decided to scale down to a three piece and change our name last Spring to the Lost Dolls and rebranded, really started dissecting our sound and everything.

Aimee:
You’re the first band I’ve met that started *in* the pandemic.

Matt:
Yeah, it’s been very interesting. We’ve been able to record a lot, but obviously miss the live aspect.

Blake:
We had a good foundation before the pandemic. We were playing out together for about a year. And then it all happened last March. We played, I’d say, like 45 shows or something together before COVID. In a way, in a weird way, it worked in our favor to allow us to ride. Like Matt said, we changed things around to make it fit what we wanted to do. And we’ve actually got a full process now for fully recording our own songs.

Aimee:
So you’re able to do that internally without having to go to a studio or anything?

Matt:
Yeah, because under our last name we tried the whole studio approach and it wasn’t bad, but things can add up money-wise really fast. So we wanted to become a little bit more self-sufficient so we could release more music more frequently.

Aimee:
Are you guys are from Denver originally or are you from somewhere else?

Blake:
Actually none of us are from Denver originally. I lived in Kansas City for a while, but I’m from Texas originally, just outside of Dallas.

Stewart:
I lived in Kansas City and that’s where Matt and I met and we started playing music back in 2015, after we met at a job that we were working together. I’ve been in Colorado for about four years now, I think. Yeah. Valentine’s day was four years in Colorado for me.

Blake:
You moved on Valentine’s day?

Stewart:
Yeah!

Aimee:
Welcome! I’m not native, but I’ve been here 27 years. So it’s been a wild ride watching the city change, but what made you decide to come to Denver?

Blake:
Craigslist.

Aimee:
Okay. You need to explain that.

Blake:
I’ve lived in everywhere from New York to LA, playing in bands for about five years before joining these guys.

Stewart:
We never knew each other.

Blake:
Yeah, we didn’t know each other. And then I was getting ready to actually go back to Los Angeles, but I came across their Craigslist ads looking for a singer and I liked what they had going on. So I moved here after a year of talking to Matt on the phone and we have very similar interests in what we like to listen to outside of just playing.

Aimee:
That’s awesome. So, okay. So I have to ask, I looked through your Instagram and do you really have a gigantic snake?

Blake:
Depends on what your definition of gigantic is.

Aimee:
Okay. For me, whatever that is in the pictures – that looks like a gigantic snake.

Stewart:
That is my girlfriend’s snake. And he loves Blake. I’ve been in the apartment for about a year now and him and I kind of mesh OK together. But as soon as Blake picks the snake up, it’s like a love connection from out of this world. It doesn’t make any sense whatsoever.

Aimee:
Wow. Okay. Yeah. I’m actually petrified of snakes. Well, so do you have any hobbies or interests – besides snakes, that are outside of music?

Blake:
We workout. We like to go hiking. Yeah. We’re very…

Matt:
Active.

Stewart:
Active. We go hiking pretty often when we can. Matt just learned how to snowboard. So we also may do that.

Aimee:
Yeah. Just be careful. Don’t get on any scooters. That’s all I have to say. I just broke my arm from a fall off one – in two places, actually.

Matt:
Stew was actually attacked by a scooter.

Stewart:
I was attacked by the curb while I was on the scooter. And I did a flip and landed on my face.

Aimee:
Yeah. I apparently I did a really spectacular roll, but I still broke my arm and had to have surgery.

Matt:
Oh my god.

Aimee:
Yeah. Hasn’t been fun. Anyway, when you guys were playing, you said you played a bunch of gigs. Have you toured or you played around town? Do you have any places that you’d like to play in Denver?

Matt:
Yeah, we played a lot of places around Denver. I would say Herman’s. They’ve always treated us very warmly there.

Blake:
We’ve traveled some outside Denver. We have plans hopefully to go Kansas City and then Texas, maybe LA and Portland area. We’ll see what happens.

Aimee:
What are you looking forward to most when we come out of the pandemic?

Stewart:
Playing shows.

Matt:
Playing live.

Blake:
We’ve been trying to get a tour scheduled down. We talk about that everyday. Because, as of now, we have a lot of music set to release. So now it’s just getting back to playing live. We have one show booked thus far for the Spring and we’re looking to fill up our schedule once it’s getting more consistent.

Aimee:
When and where are you playing in the Spring?

Matt:
We’re playing April 8th at a Globe Hall. (Tickets: Early Show | Late Show)

Aimee:
Oh great. I love that place. It’s one of my favorite places.

Blake:
Come hang out with us!

Aimee:
That’s what I’m hoping! I’ve shot two concerts since pandemic closed down. Both of them were at the Oriental and they were friends. And so they were very limited attendance shows. I did attend one show at Globe Hall and they did a great job of keeping things separate according to what was allowed at the time. But I’m like you. I can’t wait to actually be at a really crowded show again and having it feel normal, where I don’t get weirded out, standing next to somebody, you know what I mean?

Matt:
Yeah. All sweaty and everything.

Aimee:
Yeah. So, where do you get your inspiration for your songs? What is your music about?

Matt:
Oh, everything. A lot of personal experience or people that we look up to or an idea of something we see fitting. I don’t know.

Stewart:
We have a bunch of influences from like Cage the Elephant, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Kings of Leon. We’d like to think that we’re kind of in that realm as far as songwriting and feel of our songs. But yeah, most of I’d say the lyrics are definitely from our own experiences or people that we’ve met through life and all this crazy stuff that we’ve been a part of.

Matt:
So far, it’s been pretty concrete topics. Not anything unrelatable.

Aimee:
Well, it’s interesting because I, and I don’t like to compare bands too much, but I think that helps people understand influences and whatever. But I kind of heard a little bit of Goo Goo Dolls when I was listening to your songs.

Stewart:
Yeah. We’re not really thinking necessarily about anything specific. We just kind of jam on something. And we listen to a lot of bands like that. So, that’s kind of the sound that comes out. And then, Blake puts his magic to it.

Blake:
Yeah. Well, we will say this, every song is about something though. It’s not just some nonsense going on.

Aimee:
That’s good. And then I’m assuming some of these artists you’ve mentioned are some of your favorite artists, but are there other musicians that have really inspired you or you grew up listening to that made you want to get into music?

Blake:
Yeah. We’ll take turns telling you who we liked individually, because I think that speaks why we mesh because there is differences.

Stewart:
I grew up listening to a lot of punk music and then slowly evolved into the Cage the Elephant, Red Hot Chili Peppers, stuff like that. I think a lot of the times when I’m playing the drums and trying to calm down a little bit, not play too loud or too aggressive for some of the songs that we’re playing. But The Wonder Years, Pierce the Veil, bands like that. And then when I got older and started really getting to learning about music and how it’s played and stuff like that, some of the more mainstream rock bands became more appealing with The Black Keys. They’re another one that I love listening to, just to get the groove of their songs and just their songwriting ability. Incredible.

Aimee:
That’s great. Yeah. I’m one of those people that loves everything pretty much.

Matt:
Definitely kind of the same thing. The first album I ever bought was By the Way the Red Hot Chili Peppers. So they’re the foundation of everything for me, but then I bond off of that. And got pretty big into Jimi Hendrix, Radiohead. Yeah. Guitar playing wise probably, I’m a huge fan of Jimi Hendrix.

Aimee:
That’s like the law when you’re a guitar player, right?

Stewart:
Yeah. I think it has to be.

Aimee:
What about you, Blake?

Blake:
Singer-wise, I like Steven Tyler and I like Shannon Hoon from Blind Melon and Mick Jagger. I love Cher, Janis Joplin, all those people. But the big bands that I love are The Doors. I love Jim Morrison and Pink Floyd. I like the old stuff. Anything back in the sixties is what I get down on. James Brown. All that shit.

Aimee:
That’s great. And that’s nice that you can bring all that together to your sound.

Stewart:
Yeah, we do a really good job of being able to, the parts of our influences that do work together. And then when we see something that’s just sticking out like a sore thumb. It’s not hard for us all to come to an agreement to just take that part out or adjusted to fit a little bit better. We do have some pretty different influences when we get towards the end of our spectrum of similarities. But we all make sure we focus, when we’re writing just on the song. So there’s no real ego involved. Whatever sounds good needs to be.

Aimee:
Then all three of you work on it together or?

Stewart:
Oh yeah.

Aimee:
So when you’ve been recording, have you just been doing it at somebody’s house or, again, I’m hearing people trick out spaces or how are you managing to get that done?

Stewart:
Yeah. So I’m lucky enough to have enough space to record here. I built a DIY vocal booth for Blake to be able to sing into. So it doesn’t capture too many of the ring noises or anything like that. And then Matt, yeah. Matt directs in his guitar most of the time or he’ll record it his place and just send me over the tracks. And then for the drums, I have an electric drum kit and some triggers that I can use to make it sound like a professionally recorded drum kit. So it’s all pretty small pieces that come together to give us an actual big sound. Yeah. So if you’re lucky to be able to have a spot to do all those.

Aimee:
Awesome. Well, do you have anything that you would like to talk about that I haven’t asked about?

Stewart:
We have a new song coming out on Feb 26th, like we said, called “Stale Cigarettes,” which is going to be cool.

Blake:
I think we’re just excited to see all the effort and determination that we’ve had over the COVID quarantine finally coming to fruition. Ready to show everybody exactly what we’ve been working on and all the effort that we’ve put in to making our new sound come out. And just excited to be back on stage.

Matt:
Yeah. Just playing live again. Our live shows are pretty, pretty intense. So you’re going to have to catch one. Lots of energy.