Photos by Rachelyn Remz
Last Call is an interview series where I, Brittany Marino, ask talented folk all about their lasts: last time they did something, last time they felt something, etc. It’s been a while since my last Last Call, so it was a pleasure to catch up with friend of the site Haley Dahl of Sloppy Jane.
Haley Dahl has been gracing the stage for quite some time now. Performing under the moniker Sloppy Jane since she was just a teenager, the band has really evolved over the years. At one point in time, Sloppy Jane was just a 3 piece punk band, but now packs a punch with over a dozen members. Haley knows how to keep things interesting in the world of Sloppy Jane. At a dinner party a few months back, Haley told me about how years ago she wore a suit for entire year without washing it and now plans on eating it. We discussed the various ways in which she could do that over a Persian Dinner. We also talked about her album ‘Madison, ‘ which she recorded in a cave in West Virginia, with 21 bandmates over the course of 2 weeks. More recently, Sloppy Jane wrote and performed a song with former Sloppy Jane bandmate Phoebe Bridges for the A24 thriller I Saw the TV Glow. Talking with Haley is always fascinating which is why I wanted to hop on the phone with her so we could further discuss her song ‘Claw Machine’ and find out what else is on her mind lately.
Brittany: So this series is called Last Call and I usually ask people the last time they did something or the last time they felt something, etc and I definitely want to jump into those questions. But first, obviously, you have a part in I Saw the TV Glow. Let’s talk about that.
Haley: Yea, I wrote a song for the movie which features Phoebe Bridgers, and then we performed the song in a scene in the movie as well.
Brittany: That’s awesome. How was it working with Phoebe?
Haley: It was really good. I’ve known her for like most of my life. We’re really good friends. I wrote the song, she wanted to sing on it, and we just did that. It was very casual, very easy. The movie was kind of like a darkly tinged coming of age movie, and the song was written about a lot of personal experience from adolescence and it was cool singing that song, and being in that movie with somebody who I shared so much of my growing up experience with.
Brittany: Did you write the song specifically for the movie, or is this something you had worked on before and then it felt right for the movie?
Haley: I wrote it specifically for the movie. There were parts of the song -usually when I write anything, I have like a big bank of chord progressions that I like, melodies or song lyrics that I sort of over and over again try to contextualize. So there were pieces of the song that had been floating around in stuff that I’d been trying to put together for years, but the song itself was put together for the movie.
Brittany: Where did you record it?
Haley: I recorded it with Jonathan Rado. He produced it and did a lot of the instrument playing. We recorded most of it at his studio that he has at his home. And then we recorded some of the strings at a slightly bigger studio that I forget the name of. And then Phoebe recorded her vocals with Tony Berg at his studio.
Brittany: That movie has been on my list. It’s a thriller, year? Scary?
Haley: Yeah, it lives in kind of a ‘Donnie Darko’-ish horror.
Brittany: That’s a helpful example.
Haley: It’s not like jumpscares, or gore or anything. But there are things about it that are like deeply and emotionally disturbing or existentially disturbing. Really really beautiful movie, I could not recommend it more. 
Brittany: Ok now for my Last Call questions. Who is the last person you texted and what was it about?
Haley: God I actually need to check. I don’t text that much when I’m up on the mountain because I’m not really doing anything and I have a flip phone so texting is super annoying. I was texting the gentleman who is changing out my car engine, about when that would be done. [laughs]
Brittany: Do we have a date for that?
Haley: Should actually be done today, but I have to go get it from Los Angeles so I’ll have my car back next week.
Brittany: Are there any mechanics out where you are?
Haley: (laughs) I just have a mechanic friend who lives in Los Angeles, and I needed to get my entire engine replaced. And I’m getting it done under the table so I can pay him a rate we agree on. But getting this kind of work done at a mechanic in an official way, would cost like fourteen-thousand dollars, and that is not who I am. (laughs)
Brittany: I have fourteen dollars.
Haley: (laughs) Exactly, I don’t have a casual fourteen grand to replace the engine of my car.
Brittany: I’m a New York City kid so I don’t know anything about cars or costs associated with having a car.
Haley: It’s gotten so bad. Like it didn’t used to be as expensive. But during the pandemic, everything had shortages and supply chain issues so things just got really expensive as a result. And now those issues are fixed, but they just kept everything expensive. Just like with every other aspect of our economy it’s all just trash. (laughs)
Brittany: What’s the last song you wrote?
Haley: The last song I wrote… It’s not finished, but I’m working on a song that’s vaguely based on Jack the Ripper.
Brittany: Nice. How long have you been working on this? I feel like the last time I saw you, you mentioned Jack the Ripper. (laughs)
Haley: Yeah, I haven’t been working on it for that long. I have a note that I’ve been meaning to look into that for a second. Because it fits thematically with some things that I’m writing. Only this week, I finally did the research I wanted to do and I came up with something. But it’s not finished and it’s not officially on the album or anything. It’s very fresh.
Brittany: Is that undecided?
Haley: We’ll see. Right now I have a big list of concepts that I want to try to write. I’m just kind of working my way through them, and I’m trying to just write a lot. And not question whether or not a song is “good” until after a song is done. So I’m just gonna finish it, and then I’m gonna decide in a few months if I want it to be on anything.
Brittany: Are you someone who usually critiques things before they’re done? Are you usually a harsh critic of yourself?
Haley: I have trouble with that, yeah. I think that in between finishing ‘Madison’ and now, I’ve probably discarded four albums worth of material. Because things need to fit into a full vision for me. I don’t ever want to just write an album that’s like: a song, and a song, and a song, and a song. So, if I write a song, even if it’s one that could be good if I keep working on it- but what is the full vision of this concept? Is it something I’m interested in pushing into the world? Putting out music is very taxing; you have to really believe in it. You have to get a lot of people to play on it, and if you get a lot of people to work on it, you have to get a lot of people to support it, and you have to play it for years and years and years. You have to beg people to listen to it, and put money behind it. So when I’m writing a song, part of my head is always going like “is this good enough for all that effort?” and am I gonna want to put all of this behind this thing that I’m writing? Or am I gonna get embarrassed like half way through, and it’s just a huge waste of resources. It’s maybe not the healthiest way to approach creativity.
Brittany: Do you ever revisit some of the things you’ve shelved or thrown away?
Haley: Oh definitely. Earlier when I was talking to you about having a “bank” of ideas, nothing ever gets fully discarded. It just sits there, and if I decide I’m not using a song, everything about that song kind of becomes bones for me to pick at for other songs. Maybe I’ll like this one phrase, or maybe I’ll like this one melody. Then the next time that I’m writing something else, maybe this song will really need a second verse, and I can’t think of anything. I’ll look at what I already have and go back through the stuff I’ve discarded and see “does anything work here?” and so it’s not so bad. I’m having a good time writing right now. I feel more aware of my vision for the next record and the palette I want to be painting with so writing’s been coming a little bit easier. I think I know what I want the whole thing to feel like.
Brittany: When was the last time you cried? Are you a crier?
Haley: I’m a crier yeah. (laughs) I think the last time I cried, I was reading about the Jack the Ripper case. And I was reading about his final victim and the canonical five. There’s a lot of murders that may or may not have been him. Like the whole thing is still kind of shrouded in mystery but there’s something that’s referred to called the canonical five, which is like five women who are believed to be his victims. And the final one’s name was, I believe, Mary Jeanette Kelly. When they found her body, her heart was missing from the crime scene and she was buried without a heart. Something about that really stuck with me and freaked me out and made me upset. I had an emotional moment about that a few days ago.
Brittany: I’ll be honest, I don’t really know much about Jack the Ripper beyond that he’s a famous serial killer from London…?
Haley: Yeah England.
Brittany: So it was not a common thing for his victims to be missing their hearts?
Haley: Each of them were a little bit different. He did tend to remove organs. But I think she was the only one where something was actually missing from the scene. I’m not entirely sure, I just started reading about this so I’m not a historian. But that was impactful to read.
Brittany: I used to be into true crime podcasts, but after a while it got to be a little too much for me.
Haley: I kind of reached the end of being into them a long time ago. I feel like something changes when you’re an adult maybe. Like you have a switch. I used to really love stuff that was super creepy and gory and then I started like living as an adult in the world where horrible things have happened to me, and horrible things have happened to people that I know, and then the cases aren’t abstract anymore and I’m more aware of- I don’t want to get too graphic or too deeply into this but, I was attacked with a knife once. And I know what it feels like to heal from a knife wound and what that physically feels like in your body. And when I hear about women being slashed up, part of me understands that. So it’s not the same kind of abstract, goth, gory thing that it used to be.
Brittany: Yea when I think about my love for movies, I realized the reason that was more palatable was because it was based in fiction and absurdity even, and I liked the idea of playing with people’s fears. Whereas with true crime, these are real peoples lives and some of it can be a little too close to home.
Haley: Yeah, totally.
Brittany: What was the last note written in your notes app? You said you have a flip phone so do you not use notes app?
Haley: I do, but I have a notes app on my computer.
Brittany: Is that something you utilize?
Haley: My notes app note that I’m most constantly adding to is that I have a really long list of Edgar Allan Poe quotes that I want to steal and put in my songs. I read like one or two of his poems a week and I just steal lines for lyrics.
Brittany: Have you done that with other poet’s poetry before?
Haley: I don’t think with poems necessarily, but I’m always jotting stuff down. Even when I’m watching TV or something. Even if it’s a totally random show. I’m always fishing for words out in the world and I like to just have lists of them. If I’m writing and I need like one line then I look at these lists of random decontextualized stuff and I’ll just grab something from that. I have weirdly a lot of stuff from the show Cheers. (laughs) There’s randomly some pretty dark lines from the show. The show itself is not thematically dark but there’s like a few little tidbits of stuff that I take.
Brittany: I do the same except, I’m not a musician and I’m not making songs or anything I just tweet them. (laughs)
Haley: I also just like re-contextualizing stuff. Like taking all these random lines from these random things, and they have new meaning when you put them in something else.
Brittany: What was the last thing you obsessed over?
Haley: I’m always obsessing over everything.
Brittany: I know, I have a new obsession everyday.
Haley: (laughs) This is like the dorkiest thing ever but I feel very obsessed with honing my craft right now.
Brittany: That’s not dorky, that’s a great answer.
Haley: I’ve been trying to take more lessons. I’m back in voice lessons, I’m taking dance lessons, I’m just kind of practicing stuff by myself all day. I’m in a very “Honing my craft” mode.
Brittany: I think it’s awesome dedicating time to that.
Haley: I just always try to think about ten years from now, and if I actually start doing this everyday right now, I’ll be like such a master of it in ten years.
Brittany: That’s me with French but I’m not honing my craft. (laughs)
Haley: You’ll hone it for sure. You’re gonna be in Paris for a year, you’ll hone it for sure. I feel silly saying “as I get older” because I’m not even old but I feel like before I was twenty-five, everything was about this urgency about what I could get done before I was twenty-five. I had this abstract number. I just felt more urgency about age. And I feel like it caused me to truncate a lot of my learning and growing. But now that I’m about to go into my thirties, a slightly different section of life, looking at things at a slightly longer scale. And being like, it’s not about what I can get done in a short amount of time anymore. It’s just about how good I can get overall.
Brittany: I feel like that’s a great lead up to my next question which is: What is the last time you created something you were really proud of?
Haley: I didn’t create it that recently, but I am really proud of ‘Claw Machine.’ And I’m very proud of the movie. Just seeing it come out. I’m such a fan of the film and of Jane’s work. It isn’t the most recent thing that I created that I’m proud of, but it is the most recent thing that’s been released. And I’m having a big moment of feeling proud of that right now.
Brittany: Do you find that you’re often proud of the work that you put out? We talked about being critical, but when something is finally released, do you take a moment to be really happy with yourself and pat yourself on the back for the hard work that goes into making these songs, these albums, these ideas?
Haley: I usually feel proud when I finish something. I feel proud when I’m playing shows. And I feel proud like a month or so after something has been out. But the week that something’s been released I usually just feel stressed.
Brittany: (laughs) I think that’s a universal feeling.
Haley: I always feel like it’s important to say, because I feel like artists, and the music industry, try to o create this like illusion for everyone of releasing things and feeling really good, and we all know that it fucking doesn’t. (laughs)
Brittany: Most of the time it’s the stress leading up to the release. And then when it’s released, you have several more days of stress and then it’s like okay! We did it!
Haley: My thumbs and fingers will hurt from using the computer so much and my eyes will be burning from staring at the computer. It’s not that glamorous to release something. When I think about release week, I think about being hunched over my laptop just sweating. I feel proud later. (laughs)
Brittany: Blood, sweat and tears literally went into making this work. (laughs)
