Artist Highlight: Fust – Our Tradition

Fust is a band from Durham, North Carolina that started off because the songwriting undertaking of Aaron Dowdy. Earlier than shifting to a stay group, Dowdy home-recorded and self-released a number of EPs on Bandcamp between 2017 and 2018; they’re not obtainable on the platform, however you’ll be able to revisit that period of the band through Songs of the Rail, a set of 28 demos recorded throughout the identical time interval that got here out a yr in the past. After releasing their sun-kissed, soulful debut Evil Pleasure in 2021, Fust – now a seven-piece that includes drummer Avery Sullivan, pianist Frank Meadows, guitarist John Wallace, multi-instrumentalist Justin Morris, fiddlist Libby Rodenbough, and bassist Oliver Youngster-Lanning – decamped to Drop of Solar to document Genevieve with producer Alex Farrar, with whom they reunited for his or her astounding new album, Large Ugly. Named after an unincorporated space in southern West Virginia, round which Dowdy’s household has deep roots, the document is conflicted but aspirational: homey whereas grappling with the thriller of residence, hopeful when hope rests between the promise of a brand new life and relenting in outdated, sluggish, ragged methods. Because the title might recommend, it wrings magnificence out of probably the most sudden locations, honing within the band’s knack for making small emotions seem monumental – that’s, nearer to their true expertise.

We caught up with Fust’s Aaron Dowdy for the newest version of our Artist Highlight sequence to speak about his relationship to the South, the stress between documentary and fiction, making Large Ugly, and extra.

There’s a narrative within the press launch a few placard you noticed memorializing a gutter off the streets in Athens, the place I stay. I’m fascinated by how being away from residence or your roots can drive you to see them in a distinct gentle, and it feels like that’s one thing that was taking place while you have been in Europe a few years in the past.

Athens was such a particular place. I don’t journey properly – I’m form of a homebody. After I journey, I begin to get anxious or really feel out of my aspect, like I’ve strayed too far and I’m dropping my superpowers that basically solely exist after I’m at residence and cozy. However Athens was the most effective touring expertise I ever had. I believe possibly what I felt there – I used to be beginning to write in the direction of new music, and simply being round such a disparity between the traditional and the fashionable, visibly all over the place, this type of rigidity of time. What I actually beloved was not simply the main monuments, however how all the things, with time, turns into essential. Clearly, Athens is the middle of one thing the West has inherited, however seeing the gutter was the primary second the place I used to be like, “Wow, all the things has worth.” Even the forgettable element, the factor that goes ignored.

I began to suppose then in regards to the South. We now have mountains and landscapes which are very outdated, however when it comes to the supplies – the issues folks have made that you just see round you – you don’t get that sort of historic rigidity. So that you nearly must undertaking into the longer term the worth of issues. In my yard now, there’s a fallen gutter, and it’s nowhere close to as lovely or well-made, however you nearly must see it with that standpoint. You can begin to make monuments out of your individual world and see how the detritus would possibly belong to one thing in some unspecified time in the future, even when it doesn’t really feel essential now. I wished to take a look at my place with that sense of historical past – not simply quick historical past, however an enormous historic weight. I began to think about a few of these photographs – properties, buildings, trash – and surprise what it might appear to be in the event that they have been taken as invaluable.

You talked about issues folks make, however folks clearly additionally make artwork and literature, and there’s undoubtedly a lineage of Southern writers honouring that perspective – seeing the worth in issues in any other case misplaced to time. 

Yeah, that’s precisely proper. I are typically very fascinated with folks and human relations. I write about battle, disillusionment, pleasure – little emotions. Clearly, these emotions have been had properly past the South, properly past Athens. However by Southern music and Southern literature, it turns into clear that a part of our monuments are very particular sorts of human relationships – making one thing, a relation or interplay, that appears so unimportant, one thing anybody else would cross by, right into a supply of literary worth. If we don’t have that quick sense of huge historical past, we nonetheless have historical past, and quite a lot of it values human relationships and the poetry or dissonance inside them. I’m an enormous fan of Southern literature and Southern music, and I take these issues very critically. So after I say Athens made me wish to rethink the best way I view the South, it doesn’t imply we don’t have our personal monuments. It simply appears completely different, and it’s a must to change the best way you consider what we do have.

Past music or different folks’s poetry, how do you go about relaying the Southern expertise when folks ask you in day-to-day life, or while you spend time away from it? Or do songs make up for the dearth of language for that sort of factor? 

That’s an excellent query. I’ve all the time gravitated in the direction of track as the best way I have interaction the world. It’s a type that helps me piece issues collectively and make sense of my very own expertise. But in addition, after I hear different Southern music, it feels prefer it expresses or will get at one thing, and it’s usually very unclear what it’s about – there’s this ambiguiry, which I like and attempt to preserve in my very own work. I lived in New York for some time, I lived in Brooklyn, and I moved away from the South, from North Carolina, partially as a result of I believed different locations on the planet had a vanguard – it was doing one thing urgent and forward-thinking. Rising up within the South, I believed, possibly poorly, that there have been some backwards, conventional, or conservative methods of life. I used to be fascinated with what it might appear to be to be in a spot the place everybody was productive, all the time making issues, pushed. 

However after I was in New York, I instantly began utilizing types from the South – melodic types or references. It took me leaving to appreciate these Southern components aren’t backwards in any respect. They may be slower, however they’re really one thing lacking that’s lacking elsewhere – a sure ready, wading patiently. A sure slowness I grew up with and beloved, I embraced and embodied it. After I was within the South, I believed, “I’ve this different factor – I make music, I’ve this different aspect that’s not being expressed right here.” However the second I left, I embraced these components. I beloved being sluggish once more, embracing this down-homeness, this dirtiness, this factor I didn’t know was so a part of me till I felt it wasn’t round me. After I was somewhere else, I felt dissonant, and coming again made me wish to perceive what that was – what attracts you again and makes you wish to defend it. 

However I believe quite a lot of us listening, studying, taking critically what it means to be from the South – it’s about that rigidity. It’s not only a full embrace. It’s embracing it as a result of there’s one thing difficult that makes it invaluable. Once you learn Faulkner or Frank Stanford’s poetry, these tensions are all over the place – there’s hurt, harm, and ache lurking all over the place. It’s not one thing that’s usually mentioned; and whether it is, it’s all the time coded in one thing else. Saying a nicety that covers over one thing extra painful is a part of the language of the South – how do you say one thing so tough about a spot whereas saying, “That is the place I select to stay”? That’s quite a lot of what’s occurring on this document – a disaster of language, of with the ability to specific this worth.

Talking of slowness, one among my favourite traces on Large Ugly is from the title observe: “Even when generally I’m slowing down, I do know I’m slowing over you.”

Yeah, thanks. That’s a track, I suppose, about dedication. “They’ll must haul me off,” you understand, they’ll must take me out of right here if I’m going to go away. However what am I sticking round for? It’s this relationship to the earth, the place, the folks, and its particular lifestyle – the way it compels you and makes you relate to it, and act that approach, too. I like that track and that line. It’s an odd one.

I relate it additionally to the ultimate track and that query of “Have I been okay at residing?” The road that basically strikes me is the one which comes proper after: “Do I’ve coronary heart after I’m blacking out from residing?” I really feel like that’s quite a lot of what the album is in the end about: the issues that compel you to remain, to not take pleasure in escapist or dissociative behaviour.

Yeah, I believe so too. Lots of these things is about being overwhelmed, feeling incapable, just like the world is shifting within the mistaken route. So that you shut down – whether or not by staying residence and turning into extra insular, consuming tradition, or no matter permits you to shut out the world. Clearly, blacking out has a consuming high quality, nevertheless it’s greater than that – it’s an actual closing out of the world. Lots of what we see right this moment is, having coronary heart means being open, delicate, cautious. That’s good – it’s an excellent route and solution to be. However how do you do this while you’re born out of just about a repressive approach of approaching the world? If that’s your core, having coronary heart looks as if the factor you don’t have in that new sense of being open. I really like that rigidity – when the individual or character can’t do one thing, but it’s that very factor the place you anticipate it to not be that may shine by as essential. That’s what I like about Southern literature and themes – the kindnesses are precisely the place you don’t anticipate them.

I really feel like that rigidity is foregrounded within the title, which at first looks as if a continuation of the linguistic juxtaposition of Evil Pleasure, nevertheless it’s an actual place. Once you determined to make use of the mural depicting the realm round Large Ugly Creek because the album cowl, what position did it play for you? And extra broadly, how does the actual lineage, group, and private historical past you found function a backdrop for fiction and songwriting?

I’ve all the time been drawn to little couplets, two phrases that, when put collectively, really feel mistaken or like they shouldn’t exist. “Evil pleasure” needs to be unfavourable, nevertheless it’s one thing folks know intuitively, this badness that additionally offers a sort of pleasure. I believe “large ugly” is a extra developed model of that. I like beginning with one thing very unfavourable and attempting to exploit it for its magnificence, helpfulness, or sensitivity. Linguistically, it units me up for the narratives I like to inform: an unsightly state of affairs that has quite a lot of coronary heart. I believed it was a fantastic identify for these thematic tensions, nevertheless it’s additionally a fantastic identify for the spatial issues occurring on this document – small cities, an nearly documentarian sense of individuals residing their lives. I wished it to be actual, as a result of not all the things mentioned on right here is actual tales about actual folks, nevertheless it ought to really feel actual. I wished it to be an actual place that somebody might discover on a map. That rigidity between documentary and fiction, historic reality and narrative, is completely encapsulated in that identify. 

It’s not like I’ve a particular relationship to the small, unincorporated space referred to as Large Ugly, however I’ve a relationship to West Virginia and the Guyandotte River, the place my household is from. Large Ugly is a type of names that sticks with you as a spot and as a reputation. It’s humorous that a spot like that exists, and it’s humorous that the identify has lived on. After I began to look into it, I discovered that it’s really an extremely lovely place. What I discovered there was this mural and an entire historical past of individuals producing music and literature about this space. It’s very conscious of itself and impressed by itself, producing all this reflection on itself. For me, exterior of my very own investments and poetry, that turned an actual instance of expectations being completely undercut.

Equally, with my household, going to West Virginia, there’s an expectation that it’s not going to be nice. However then I went with my grandma, and he or she confirmed me all of the locations she went to, all of the love she had, all of the experiences and goals she had. She sees them as being there, and it undercuts it. You suppose one factor, however then you definitely go there, and it’s stuffed with goals and aspirations. All of that collectively made it such a robust start line or picture for me to maneuver by.

Are you able to inform me extra in regards to the expectations that have been undercut throughout these journeys along with your grandma?

Effectively, my expectation – and that is simply from residing within the South, even in North Carolina and Virginia, all of the locations I’ve lived and visited – is that these are locations in decline. Locations which have suffered financial crises, drug crises. These are locations which are hurting, and persons are closed off, conservative, cautious of outsiders. Despite the fact that I’m from right here, I anticipate them being rundown, struggling areas. However as a substitute, with my grandma there, strolling round, along with her vitality and speaking to folks – her private historical past is projected onto it, and he or she sees it come to life. If she’s doing that, if she’s bringing this place to life – it could look rundown and exhausted, nevertheless it’s not. It’s stuffed, by her view, with all these reminiscences and energies. And if she’s doing that, then everybody’s doing that. It takes a reconsideration by the lens of the individuals who stay there, employees, the individuals who stay on the land. Appearances are misleading. Clearly, there’s quite a lot of poverty and structural poverty right here, however that’s not the top. Restoring or emphasizing the hopes and aspirations there appears to be the inversion wanted.

I believe these items are additionally truisms. Each place has its issues, but folks stay. Folks look previous it and suppose ahead. I’m not saying something completely new, nevertheless it was large for me, as somebody fascinated about private historical past, to expertise it by my grandmother – to see her trying on the residence she grew up in, the steps she performed on, or the home she was born in that was torn down. She’s taking a look at this absent constructing – a constructing I can’t see, however she will be able to. It’s that historic reminiscence overlaid with appearances and expectations, rewriting these unfavourable projections with pretty ones – that was so profound for me.

You talked about being fascinated by human battle, these little emotions, and what I get from Large Ugly is folks being on the verge of vulnerability –  or folks on the opposite aspect of that vulnerability, attempting to dig it out. Is that interpersonal rigidity one thing that appeals to you?

Every of those songs has a personality – if not named, then it’s about folks, folks having emotions, crises, frustrations. It’s traditional, in a approach: ‘Gateleg’ is sort of a love story, ‘Spangled’ is a repressive, traumatic factor, and ‘Doghole’ is filled with pleasure. However none of them are so obtainable – it’s not simply the pure essence of pleasure or love. Every little thing is up towards the world in these songs. Like I mentioned earlier, with the thought of blacking out, quite a lot of it’s about being raised in a tradition with quite a lot of restrictions, and feeling that’s sort of essential: a quiet strategy to the world, not being weak, blocking issues out. 

Nobody’s put it this manner, however I believe it’s precisely proper: this being on the opposite aspect of vulnerability, having it break by in tiny methods. Whether or not it’s by language, with the ability to discuss one thing in a sure approach, or releasing the stronghold on expressing your self, like digging a gap – I really like that picture of a canine bursting out of the home into the yard, digging. That concept of pleasure, breaking by the barrier, having that be an expression of pleasure and love. Or in ‘Bleached’, trying again on the way you turned what you’re while you barely had ideas, barely might converse. You took up with mates and have become a particular approach since you have been attempting to match them, after which realizing it’s stored you from being extra weak – or no less than able to receiving new issues. I actually do suppose that will get on the core of it. I wish to route it by folks and interpersonal relations as a result of it occurs on the stage of individuals. 

Within the track ‘Jody’, you’ve received these characters who’re in a relationship, they usually each grew up in a tradition that’s possibly abusive, or about enjoying arduous, having a meanness. After which producing a very wholesome relationship out of that. Like with Large Ugly, these expectations – you suppose it’s this dangerous factor you’re outlined by, however as a substitute, it’s this breaking by that provides it the vitality that’s value listening to or placing right into a track or studying. That’s the factor that’s so invaluable right here.

Lots of that vitality and pleasure is captured in ‘Mountain Language’. I’m curious in regards to the extent to which it’s one thing you personally determine with it, or if it wavers for you, that sort of romanticism.

It feels private. Lots of songs on this document really feel extra private in that approach. Every verse in ‘Mountain Language’ takes up an issue in every verse I do know very properly from my life – socioeconomic restrictions or conditions that maintain you again, making you’re employed a wage job, have relationships that don’t really feel precisely proper, or have family and friends members in disaster. It’s so arduous to suppose that, regardless of these conditions, there are nonetheless these candy, lived resistances to all of it. But when there was another approach – the massive utopian query – we’ve received to carry onto that picture, nonetheless romantic or unviable it’s. That track and sentiment are ones I actually really feel. 

I’m somebody whose first precept is hope. It doesn’t all the time really feel crucial, and generally it doesn’t look very political, however my first sentiment is hope. I believe hope is a superb first philosophy to have – to look again on the hopes of individuals as one thing that’s value remembering, even when they didn’t materialize. Sustaining hope, no matter meaning – the factor that’s but to return – makes the current really feel purposeful. It’s a easy wish-fulfillment sort track, however I believe these sentiments are essential.

As you talked about, there’s characters all all through the document, however one among its most shifting songs is ‘Sister’, which has no names or no signifiers of place. It makes me really feel like that’s a track that hits residence for you.

It’s one of many solely songs I’ve ever written as a sort of elegy – a track about demise. I wrote it after the expertise of demise in my life. I attempt to not make songs too private as a result of then, each time you play or take heed to them, the private factor comes up consistently. You develop uninterested in it, or your place adjustments, and also you don’t wish to take into consideration that factor anymore, so the track turns into misplaced. However this was a uncommon instance of processing one thing in my life by a track. I wrote it straight by in about 10-Quarter-hour as a result of I used to be in a really weak second in my life. 

It’s much like what’s taking place in ‘Spangled’, the place one thing absent nonetheless has presence on the planet round you. In relation to demise, when somebody passes away, you see the remnants of their life, you continue to see the traces of life. It’s a wierd rigidity of presence and absence – experiencing somebody’s loss by what they’ve left behind. However I additionally suppose it’s a common track in a approach. I all the time really feel that as a result of it’s specific, another person can discover their factor by it. That’s what quite a lot of the characters and particulars do in my songs, or I hope they do. However right here, with out these issues, it’s purely a sense track, an inside track that possibly does it on a distinct stage. It undoubtedly feels prefer it’s an exception on this document, nevertheless it’s one among my favourite songs and recordings. Libby’s fiddle on it’s so harrowing – it’s droning and crying. There’s a lot on the musical stage that feels prefer it’s doing the work.

You recorded the album with Alex Farrar, and one thing that separates you from many artists I’ve talked to who’ve made albums with him is that that is your second full-length collaboration in a row. What was it like working once more with him?

Effectively, after we recorded Genevieve, it occurred so quick. I had come out of years of residence recording, and it was my first time in a studio. I used to be all the time towards studio stuff as a result of so many individuals in my era anticipate the sound of residence recording – it’s a part of our musical DNA. However with Alex, it was instantly gratifying. He had such a sound and contact, and it felt pure. I wished to do a second document with him as a result of we had extra time to work on it collectively, which he was very pleased to do. 

After I look again on recording Large Ugly, it was very structured – we labored 10 to 7. Alex has a child, and his accomplice, Larkin, is one among my favourite folks. They’re the definition of excellent folks. The folks at Drop of Solar are all so caring and considerate. It was a group effort with Alex. Additionally, he’s a fantastic reader. He reads a lot, and he’s so delicate to themes and philosophical ideas. We’d document, after which we’d discuss books and flicks. He’s so quiet and severe and cautious in the case of recording, but additionally capable of break free and have probably the most intriguing conversations. It’s not so technical – it’s very fluid. He’s on a wavelength the place we’re making music not as a result of there’s this urgency, however as a result of we’re mates, and we every have our abilities and capacities, and we wish to be round one another. And the music seems like a byproduct of that. After I suppose again on the document, I consider it like that: a doc of two weeks spent in shut quarters with good, caring, considerate folks, versus a transaction. 

The phrase we regularly use to explain how bands work collectively is “chemistry,” however I wished to ask what that means you’ve discovered within the companionship – a phrase that feels extra apt right here – of Fust as a gaggle.

Yeah, I don’t find out about chemistry. I believe any mixture of individuals would produce a sort of response, however I’m not somebody who firmly believes in that sense of chemical response. I’ll write songs as a result of I’ve been doing it for therefore lengthy. Fortunately, it was the primary undertaking the place strangers appreciated it. There’s the query: What’s completely different? Why do folks like this one? Is it due to chemistry between this group of individuals enjoying it and Alex? It could possibly be, however these aren’t the questions I’m tremendous fascinated with. 

What made Fust nice was that I surrendered to not being the one musician who performed all the things, to not recording and mixing all the things myself. I surrendered to complete management and made music not a valuable factor that needs to be precisely proper, however really a dedication to different folks. To Avery, who’s such an unbelievable and delicate drummer – a songwriter’s drummer. He performs with phrasing that provides me the momentum and stability I would like. Taking part in with Ollie and Justin, whose voices becoming a member of me is one thing I might by no means replicate. They’re the right choir to sing with. It’s this dedication to different folks’s hard-earned methods of performing and being round folks. Alex’s hard-earned approach of constructing music. Being very cautious and cautious with who I select to spend time with. 

I don’t want to do that – there are different methods of residing life. I don’t have to do all of this to place this document in entrance of individuals. What makes all of it value it’s that it means I get to have extra intense relationships with these folks, that I get to proceed investing in them – not simply the music, however these folks. I’ve received such a fantastic group – it’s nearly embarrassing how good the folks I’ve discovered myself gathered amongst are. So proficient, so particular. I really like the pivot you made between chemistry as just a few sort of symbiosis – this factor the place abilities come collectively and it really works – and individuals who like to be collectively. May Fust sound in another way with a distinct group? Completely. However that’s not what I’m listening for. After I pay attention again to Large Ugly, I’m listening to my mates, my folks doing issues I didn’t write, issues I didn’t know they have been going to do. I’m listening to traces of the folks I really like, versus the musical concept perfected by a gun-for-hire.

This interview has been edited and condensed for readability and size.

Fust’s Large Ugly is out March 7 through Expensive Life Information.