Joey Spurgeon & Bren Eissman, also known as DWLLRS, are musicians, collaborators, and at the core of it all: best friends. The two began making music together when they were roommates in college, and the artistic spark was immediate. Their passion and friendship is palpable in their music, shaping a comforting listening environment for anyone who stumbles upon their string of singles. Most recently releasing “Dividends”, a gentle indie-pop song with a whisper of Caamp sounding folk influence, DWLLRS is gearing up for a new era. About to head out on the road on their first tour, there’s a lot to look forward to.
Joining our Zoom call from a cozy cabin in Tahoe, Bren & Joey chatted with me about this exciting time in their career.
Brigid: Thanks so much for taking the time to hop on here! First off, I wanted to say congrats on the latest single release! How are you feeling about the release and everything that comes along with it?
Bren: Feels amazing. It’s one of our most heartfelt songs, and one of the most personal. Seeing the messages and the feedback… people are taking it and having their own experiences. Each person has an individual experience listening to it for the first time. We’ve had so many messages. It feels a little different than our other releases, for some reason. It’s the most stripped down thing we’ve released. It’s been awesome, it’s been rewarding. It’s nice to be up here in Tahoe, and just let it sink in. We’re marinating. It’s been cool.
Brigid: Totally. Can you tell me a bit about the creative process behind the track?
Joey: Bren showed me the original chorus for the song, and I think we made it in like, a day.
Bren: It came together pretty fast, which is always great. It felt pretty seamless, it was all pretty apparent, what the song needed. Something significant with this song was that typically, if there’s a demo I’m writing, we usually never keep the guitar line, or the original thing I wrote it to. I’m not the most experienced guitarist. But that’s what I thought was so cool about this song, when fleshing it out, Joey utilized the simple line that I did. He took it to the next level. I think it’s kind of representative of our relationship, in making music together. We always find a way to collaborate on our ideas for songs, and bring out the best in each other. He’s also my guitar teacher, he taught me everything, so it’s cool that he can take my idea and be like ‘that’s actually dope.’
Joey: Bren’s a great guitar player, he’s being humble.
Brigid: It’s awesome that it’s like a true partnership. Especially with this song.
Bren: Yeah, and we’re just best friends. Everything that we make feels like a direct expression of our friendship. At the end of the day, that’s the most rewarding thing for me: people are experiencing something, in their own subjective way, that was created by two friends, writing music and experiencing life.
Brigid: That’s awesome. Going off of that, how did you guys meet and start collaborating?
Bren: We met in basketball in fourth grade!
Joey: We weren’t friends.
Bren: Yeah, we played against each other.
Joey: We were then on the same team in seventh grade, and we were acquainted. Eventually we roomed together in college our freshman year. We were the only people we knew who were going to that school, so I texted him and asked to room together.
Bren: We got really close really fast, and bonded over our love for music and film. That grew into DWLLRS, pretty seamlessly. I’ve never really talked about it, but freshman year of college was the darkest time of my life in terms of mental health. But then spending time with Joey is what transitioned me into having a super valuable tool to express and deal with emotion.
Brigid: Yeah, music was an outlet.
Bren: Yeah, and I found that with Joey, who became my best friend. We also had this magical thing that we were doing, like, exploring our hearts and crying, and laughing. We were making stuff that feels like magic sometimes.
Brigid: For sure, that’s sick. I also wanted to ask you about the music video that you put out for ‘Dividends’, could you tell me a bit about it?
Bren: Absolutely! So the whole idea of the pot… is it a pot or a vase?
Joey: I think it’s a vase?
Bren: There’s a sequence with it, where it breaks, and it’s supposed to represent going through life experiencing hardships. You get broken, you cut yourself on broken pieces putting it back together. You go through ups and downs, and that’s what molds you into a person. It teaches you what true love is, because true love is acceptance in being broken. The core message of ‘Dividends’ is ‘I can’t hold myself together but I can hold you.’ That’s the beauty of the dichotomy found in a romantic relationship. With both individuals broken-ness, you can create something more beautiful in the end.
Brigid: You guys are also about to embark on your first tour, how are you feeling about getting on the road?
Joey: So excited, it’s a dream come true. It’s like, a week.
Bren: At the beginning of when we started making music, there’s always been a through line of what our show experience is going to be like. So now having the opportunity to experience that in person with people, it’s going to be amazing and really memorable.
Joey: A lot of the times, when we’re making music, we’ll have too many ideas, but we’ll funnel them into ideas for live sets. Which is cool, because we have that extra outlet, and the ideas don’t get discarded.
Bren: That’s been something we’ve done naturally since day one, we’ve dreamed of how they [the songs] would look in a live sense. To have that opportunity is going to be really fun.
Brigid: So you just had this awesome release, you’re chilling in Tahoe, and about to tour. Are you guys still working on new music, or is tour the main focus for now?
Bren: We’re getting pretty close to having our album fleshed out, that was one of the reasons we came up here. To stare at the trees, and talk around the fire. That’s the biggest thing for me, with our writing process. It’s 70% trying to get to the core message, and then the music side is seamless and comes easy. But yeah, got our album in the works, and some pretty cool singles on the way.
Listen to “Dividends” here!
