San Diego based three-piece, almost monday, delivered their debut album DIVE on September 25th, right at the tail end of summer. almost monday consists of Dawson Daugherty (vocals), Cole Clisby (guitar), and Luke Fabry (bass); childhood friends that met in the surf scene, eventually going on to make music together in 2020.
Perfectly encapsulating the beachy, California energy, DIVE feels like sunshine in a bottle, full of breezy guitar lines and earworm choruses. Various sounds and subgenres are explored across the 11 tracks, jumping from funk to surf rock. All under the indie rock umbrella, this album has something for every listener, and cements almost monday as a band that embraces versatility.
Just ahead of the album release, I got a chance to chat with the band via Zoom as they prepared for a show in London, supporting The Driver Era on tour.
Brigid Young: Thank you for taking the time to speak with me today! To start off, do you want to introduce yourselves and your role in the band?
Luke Fabry: I’m Luke, I play bass.
Dawson Daugherty: I’m Dawson, I sing and play guitar.
Cole Clisby: I’m Cole, I play guitar.
BY: Perfect. It is currently album release eve, your debut record is out tomorrow! Can you walk me through the emotions you’re currently experiencing ahead of the release?
LF: Yeah, I’m excited! It’s also like, we’re about to do something we’ve never done before so there’s also [that aspect]. What will happen, how will it be received? I’m proud of it, so I can at least stand behind that. But yeah, excited, I’m excited to see how people receive it.
DD: Yeah, I’m feeling very excited but also nervous. You spend so much time and effort putting in so much care into each track, every moment, and the visuals. It all comes to a moment where you put it out, and it’s up to people being like “oh that’s cool” or “oh that’s not for me.” It’s so many emotions at one time. I think a bit of relief too, to finally have an album out and feel sort of like a band… I know it sounds odd, but just to feel like ‘oh, we’re a band, we put out an album’ and not just like putting out singles. It feels good. Relief, excitement, nervous… stoked. A lot of it.
CC: I feel like where my head’s at… whether it’s a single or an EP, I’m always thinking about what the next thing is, for some reason. It already feels like we completed it a while ago, and it’s just like, alright, what’s the next to come? My mind’s already kind of on the next thing. But, I’m excited for it to be out, and for people to consume it and enjoy it themselves.
BY: I took a listen and I love how it kind of has something for everyone, there are a lot of different subgenres and sonic spaces represented on the tracklist. I wanted to ask about a few songs, starting off with the intro “dive”, as it’s so different from any of your other songs. It has that Beach Boys, vintage sound and is such a perfect introduction to the world of this album. What can you share about that track? How did you decide on it being the intro?
DD: We knew we wanted the album to be called Dive, and we really loved this idea of diving into the world of almost monday. We knew we wanted to do an intro track to usher it in sonically. We wanted it to feel a bit… not out of place, but we wanted it to feel special. An arrival, jumping into the world. We’re just so stoked on the Beach Boys and everything like that, we knew we wanted to do something like that. We knew that we couldn’t do that, like stacking your own voice, harmony like that. That’s not how to get that sound. So, we hit up this group called The Four Freshmen, they’re this amazing doowop group. They did the vocals on it, and we love how it turned out. They’re ridiculously talented, to have talent like that on the album is really cool. But yeah, we just wanted it to feel like: okay, we’re diving in now, into the world of almost monday.
BY: Another track that stood out to me was “jupiter,” as it has more of a funk sound. What was the motivation to lean in that direction?
DD: It’s cool that you mentioned it at first, something that was intentional for us on this album was for it to not just feel like one song over and over. What was cool about what you said… that’s what we wanted. We wanted this album to sort of have something for anybody that is [into] any sort of an indie pop, indie rock. “jupiter” is maybe one of the extremes of that. If you play “she likes sports” and “jupiter”, they could be two different bands, honestly. That was the intention behind that, we all love different types of music and playing them live. We really wanted it to feel like “I’m listening to this album, I’m pleasantly surprised, I’m discovering there’s more to this band than just the singles.”
BY: My introduction to you guys was “can’t slow down,” it was on my Discover Weekly and I was into it. Then I took a listen to the album, and I could see the throughline but there is definitely a lot of variety, it’s a really cool listening experience. When you announced the album, so many of the comments on the Instagram post were like: ‘oh my god, finally we get “you look so good” I need to know the lore, is that one you play live often? A fan favorite?
LF: So we’ve been playing that one live for some time now. It’s cool to do it that way, to play unreleased music. Dawson says this, which I like: it’s like the OG algorithm. You get to play something and see if people react to it. That’s a song that reacted really well, and gave us motivation to have it on the album because people love it and connect to it, and can sing it back after like, one time. So I think that’s the reason for those comments. It’s fun, it’s like how they used to do it in the olden days before Tiktok and Instagram, every social media there is. Go and play a song live, put out the ones people like.
DD: I think that track to me feels very San Diego, for some reason. The guitar tones, the energy of it. If you go to some venues in San Diego… there’s a venue called SOMA, there’s a lot of surf rock bands and punk bands that play there. To me, that song is the song on the album that represents the scene of San Diego.
BY: I was actually going to ask you guys about the San Diego music scene, do you feel like growing up in San Diego influenced your sound?
DD: I think so. I think early on in almost monday, we were oddly enough trying to not be that: a San Diego band. From whatever pressures. What we sort of discovered… it’s so basic, but being yourself is always the best route. I think San Diego… you’re sort of a byproduct of how you grew up, the people you’re around. San Diego… a lot of people, and fans, will come up to us and say ‘almost monday is such a feel good band.’ I do really think there is a correlation, maybe how we grew up and the people we were around. San Diego is just such a community driven place. There’s so much to do, we all grew up surfing. There’s just a lot of, for lack of a better term, stoke-ness being from there. When you’re putting your guards down, being yourself, it just kind of comes out that way. I definitely think there’s that correlation with San Diego and almost monday.
BY: Absolutely. Circling back to the record, “life goes by” is the final track on the album, which you’ve mentioned that you view as sort of an all encompassing track that captures what almost monday is. I was curious about the decision to have that be the finale, the track you leave listeners with?
DD: I’m curious to see what the boys say, but for me that track… why I feel it’s almost monday is because… we end our show on that song, too, when we’re playing live. There’s something to me that’s so funny, it always makes me laugh that like, last month we played Madison Square Garden, we were opening for a band. It was like, playing a song with a lyric: ‘take me to the beach, cause I want to dip in.’ It’s so not profound as a lyric. In a cheeky way, it just always makes me laugh a little bit. We’re in these crazy places playing these shows and we’re just talking about wanting to go to the beach. That kind of is… for myself as a songwriter, it can be a struggle being like: we need to write something deep, so profound, that has never been said. I love that that song is just us being so ourselves, so on the nose. Like yeah, I would love to go to the beach and take a swim. That, to the point of it being the defining thing, I like that it doesn’t take itself too seriously. I really feel like as people, that’s kind of us. We’re not trying to be something too profound. We’re just trying to be ourselves. That’s kind of why I love it, finishing out the album.
CC: Yeah, I think that song in particular feels very San Diego. I think that song hits home for us. It reminds me of some of my favorite songs growing up, especially growing up in the surf world, watching a lot of surf movies and surf edits. It’s a song I could see being in one of my favorite surfer’s parts or something, hits home sonically and the lyrics really drive home… missing home, sometimes we’re out on the road for six weeks and we don’t get to be home for a while. It’s nice to be reminded of that.
BY: I love that, I think that there’s a really important conversation around art that’s purpose is to feel good and build community. Not everything has to be profound or some sort of statement, all music has some sort of value & serves a purpose. I also love that this album is coming out at the end of summer, we get to carry that summer vibe into the colder seasons. I was wondering what a typical studio session looks like for you all, especially since there is so much variety on this album. Does it always look different, or do you have somewhat of a routine?
LF: I think it does vary a lot, which I think is important to keep things fresh. Our song “sunburn” started with the title, while other times we’ll come in with a melody, or chords, or sometimes we’ll play references of songs we’ve been into to catch a vibe with everybody. It’s different every time, and I think it’s good to be different. It gets you out of the staleness, sometimes you write the same way with the same people in the same place and it doesn’t offer a lot of room for spontaneity, which I think is important.
BY: Looking back on the album creative process, do you have a favorite memory or moment that stands out? A memorable session, a moment where something clicked, any stories?
LF: I think for me it was when we wrote “she likes sports,” we were playing tennis with our producer. It was something we did to get out of the studio, get some sunshine. We came in after playing and wanted to write something fun, and not try too hard. I think when you don’t try too hard, sometimes things work out better. I think you can hear the fun we had in that song. It was a very authentic, real time, let’s just write a song about a girl who loves sports. And it’s on the album! It was a pretty fun process to write a song.
CC: Not to keep mentioning this song, but “life goes by” stands out to me. The song wasn’t an instant success, we reworked it a couple times in the studio. We completely reworked the verses, changed the lyrics on the chorus. I think that song was one that after coming away with a new chorus and verse, I was really proud of it. Really stoked to be able to go play it live. I was just really happy with that one.
DD: I think for me, a really fun moment in making this album was “jupiter.” It was kind of another one of those songs that sat for a while, and didn’t have a place, it was just kind of drifting on a hard drive. I remember we went back in and worked on it, wrote some verses. I was with our producer Simon [Oscroft], who we did the album with, he just came up with this crazy moment at the end of the song. It’s kind of an instrumental. I remember him… he put this bass line down, it was amazing, and he was like ‘oh, I wish we could do something like that.’ I was like, that was the sickest thing I’ve ever heard. We ended up using it. I thought that was a really cool moment, accidentally discovering some gold. His reaction to it was so funny, like ‘oh, that would be cool to do that but we can’t,’ and it’s like, why can’t we do that? It’s one of my favorite moments, not just on that record, but to play live. That moment is special for me.
BY: That actually ties into my next question, you are all currently in London on tour right now. What has that experience been like?
DD: Pretty mental. All the cities out here are so beautiful, they have their own personalities. To get into a city each day and be so inspired by it is such a crazy feeling. The European crowds… we played in Lisbon and Madrid, we played two shows in France as well. Just such good crowds, it feels like they’re all there to have a great time. No strings attached. It’s honestly been such a sick tour so far. We’re playing London tomorrow, I think it’s the biggest show of the tour. With the album being out on the same day… it’s been really sick.
BY: With your live show, what is your current favorite song to play live?
DD: Probably “you look so good” for me. “you look so good” is a fun one, even if people don’t know that song they’ll pick it up after the first chorus and just sing along with you.
LF: I like playing “cough drops,” the crowd sings along with the guitar line and bass line which just feels cool, it sounds pretty cool.
CC: I like when we add a new song to the set, because it’s not as routine as it once was. We just started playing “she likes sports” in our set, we’ve actually only played it like four times. I always like playing the new ones, it feels exciting and fresh.
BY: To wrap up, circling back to the record coming out tomorrow, which track are you most excited for fans to hear?
DD: I’m excited for people to get “you look so good,” and be able to sing more than just the ‘you look so good’ and actually keep singing with us. That one’s exciting for me to finally have out.
CC: Yeah, I guess we’ve been playing that song for over a year, maybe even two years? I don’t even know. It’s definitely a special one we’ve been holding back for the album. Probably another one I’m stoked for people to hear is “never enough,” one of the first tracks on the album I think. I just like the song, it gives a good energy. People will be stoked on it, hopefully.
LF: Yeah, I think “never enough.” I think that’s just going to rip live, I think it’ll be a really sick one. We’ll see, I’m excited to see which songs people adhere to. Let the people decide, you know?
BY: My current favorite is “seaside market!”
CC: “seaside market” is really special, it hits home. It’s kind of a song that we weren’t like, oh this is a single, but we’d love to put it on an album one day. It stuck with us. We’ve never played it live, but eventually we will. I’m happy for that one to be out as well.
Listen to DIVE here!
