dba James on Favorite Numbers, Days Off, and Defying Rules in His Latest Single “7*”
Photo by Shervin Lainez
Massachusetts-born and New York-based artist dba James is thriving in a new era of his music fostered in clarity and rule-breaking. Released on May 18th, “7*” is James’ third release of 2023. The innovative and fresh track depicts the idea of how we present ourselves to the world, posing the question of who do you want to be today? James states that “It's a song about being challenged by your identity.” Navigating between the freedom and social antics of self, James articulates a finite, resonating experience in his lyricism while finding a chemistry between luminous instrumentals. After finishing up his residency at Heaven Can Wait in New York and releasing two other singles this year called “45” and “Comeback,” James anticipates exciting horizons where he can be found honing in on creating an outlet for expression through his music. He remarks that “I really believe in transmitting intimacy through music.” In a conversation with Unpublished Magazine, James dove deep into the notions of his evolving sound, discussing numbers, days off, and the inspirations behind his latest singles.
[UNPUBLISHED]: Thank you for sitting down with us today! How are you doing? What have you been up to?
[JAMES]: Yeah, thanks for asking. Today was great. I had a session every day this week writing music, which is my favorite thing to do. This is day five. Today's session was especially fruitful, it was with a producer I hadn't worked with before, his name is Frankie Scoca, really bright kid from upstate New York. I traveled like an hour for the session so I was really happy that he made the time. The song today though, I'm especially excited about. Sometimes there are songs that you finish and you're like, "oh, I could, you know, wait on this for a few months before we tighten it up and figure out where it's supposed to go." But, today, it was just two hours and we were done. We were both raging and so excited to have finished it so quickly. So, I've been great. I’m loving the city. The studio that I'm at most is in Union Square here in New York. So, it's a fun environment, just kind of getting used to being in the city. I grew up in South Shore Massachusetts. So, I don't have a whole lot of like urban DNA. So, it's been nice to sort of learn the city and be here every day doing that.
[UNPUBLISHED]: Can you introduce us to you and give us a little background on how you got into music?
[JAMES]: So, I've been in and out of the city since 2018 or 2017. I moved here for the first time like a week after I graduated college and then found myself on tour a bunch with an old band that I was in. I left the city, came back. I had a brief stint in Western New Jersey, kind of out by the Poconos. I moved back home for the bulk of COVID and then came back here in 2022. So, just a little over a year now being back in the city full time. And I've been interested in songwriting specifically since I was like six. My two biggest influences, for better or for worse, were like Aaron Carter and Britney Spears. And that's kind of how I started. My sister would have all of their merch and stuff like that. You know, to a six year old mind, a pop star looks so bizarre and interesting. And the way I started writing music when I was a really, really young child is I would just put my own words on existing Britney Spears songs or right over the thing that I wanted to write. I'd like put lyrics to Christmas songs like Jingle Bells and I would just add my own words. And then from there, it kind of progressed into just writing music, which I've been doing seriously for like five or six years now.
[UNPUBLISHED]: You’ve released a couple singles so far this year like “Comeback” and “45.” I read that you describe these singles as marking a new era for your music. Can you describe this era for us?
[JAMES]: I think for everybody who creates anything, there's always going to be eras defined by a lot of things. For me, this new era is defined by sort of forgetting a lot of the rules that I've internalized over the years learning how to do this stuff. And for me, the way it feels is that the resolution is higher. I think about it like it's a cable running from your head to the rest of your body and how high the resolution of that cable is defines how close the song sounds to the way they sounded in your head. And with "Comeback," "45," and the music I'm writing now, I feel like I've just developed the muscle so that I'm like 99% clarity in terms of how you hear something in the brain and then it comes out and it sounds almost exactly the same as it sounds in your head. For me as an artist, that was always the thing that I've been totally compromising with. Like don't put the song out if it doesn't sound exactly the way that you thought it would. So, this new era that I'm entering into now, I feel like I have so much more flexibility and so much more possibility because I finally know how to get the thing out to sound like it did in my dream last night. For me, that's been a practice that kind of affects every part of my life. It's made me more articulate. It's forced me to develop some emotional intelligence so that I can come off to people the way that I want to come off. I've been looking at it as kind of a holistic side effect of maturing. And a lot of the music I've written in the past has been, I don't want to say immature, but just not so dexterous in its execution.
[UNPUBLISHED]: Can you tell us more about your latest release “Comeback?” What was the story or inspiration there?
[JAMES]: That was a COVID write. As many people weren't, I wasn't really used to being alone that much. I think "Comeback" was like one of the first tracks that I wrote because I felt so lonely. I wrote the track for something to do, kind of. I was in a relationship at the time and the person I was dating is a big traveler, like has a really active lifestyle and would always mention like, "oh, I might move to Spain for a year" or "I'm gonna go to like Mexico City and set up shop there and try all these different places out." And saying that to a musician, I can understand because I'm used to being away a lot as well. Some of the lyrics in the song are about the conversations I would have. Or I'd be like, "Oh, that's cool. Like, you should totally go to Madrid for two years." Like being cool about something and it was one of the first times I was like, "Oh my God, please don't leave" in my head. I would never say that to somebody who has dreams of moving somewhere and doing something bigger with their life. But, "Comeback" was written about that feeling of just getting left behind. I was alone and a lot of my friends left the city and everybody was in different places on different schedules with different people. And I really had to confront being alone. "45" is kind of about that too. There's so much hyper individualism that's pumped into the culture these days of like you need to be self-sufficient, you need to be working for yourself, making your money. The goal is to live alone in a studio apartment that you can afford. And I've been feeling like I want to challenge that lately. I want to be okay being like, "no, I need my best friend. I need to call my mother at least once a week, I need to talk to my sister, I need these people in my life." Because that's like a human thing. And "Comeback" is about that theme of really dealing simply with loneliness and being like "I don't want to be an individual to that extent." You know, I want my family around me, I want people around me.
[UNPUBLISHED]: Your next single “7*” comes out on May 18th. What can people expect from this song?
[JAMES]: "7*" is one of the first tracks that I wrote talking about that new clarity. "7*" is one of the most realized tracks that I think I have from the production to the message of the song and what it's about. I'm personally really proud of it because it's just so clear. I was able to get it out exactly the way that it sounded in my head. I wrote it in like forty-five minutes when I was alone right after I moved to New York for the second time. It's about being in a place where you're surrounded by millions of people and there's so much social incentive to be somebody else. It's a song about being challenged by your identity. The first line is like, "I'm seven different people before I leave the house." That's kind of how the song started. I feel every day when I get dressed, you kind of see the wheel rotating like “who am I going to be today?” And "7*" is just recognizing that feeling and verbalizing it and being like, “okay cool.” The silver lining is I can be anybody I want. And the sort of darker side that I deal with in the song, really revolves around like “why do I want to be anybody else?” Like fuck what everybody else thinks, do I have to be somebody else to make myself happy? So, it was kind of a difficult song to write. I wasn't sure if I wanted to release it. You know, my goal as an artist is to get whoever is listening to be as close to me as possible. I really believe in transmitting intimacy through music. I think that's something I've been obsessed with for a long time. But, you gotta sacrifice a little bit. I showed my mom the song and she was like, "do you really feel like that?" And I wasn't ready for conversations like that to happen. So, I'm excited to release "7*" because I feel like it's the first time that I was able to let my heart bleed out a little bit and just be really honest.
[UNPUBLISHED]: You have a music video coming out for the song too, what was the filming process and vision?
[JAMES]: It was awesome. The process was so good. Noah Berghammer directed it. He's a fabulous, really talented director. The process was to find a DP who can shoot it and get some friends to help out. And everything I'm doing right now is teeny, teeny, tiny budget. So basically, we did it all in one day, picked a bunch of locations around New York and just did it. We started at seven-thirty or eight in the morning, which is the earliest I've been up in like six months. So, that part was interesting. We wrapped at like eleven pm and got the whole thing done. Basically, the video is about narrating those seven different characters. We had me dress up as a gym bro, a finance person, a kind of average Joe Bushwick kid. Basically just trying on all these personas and really goofing off. It was very playful. The whole experience of filming the video is very playful. It's just like people throwing clothes at me, trying things on, rearranging my apartment a bunch of times. My roommate was cool with it, which I appreciate. Thank you Sam. It was such a blast. Also, I was dressed up as these characters and I'm used to people in the city seeing me the way that I usually am. So, for me it was really fun to be walking around in a suit and tie with a briefcase and pressed trousers in Union Square. People were looking at me different and it changed the way I acted on camera because I didn't really understand how to navigate that character because it's not how I look. So, it was a really interesting experience getting that feedback from the public seeing you do something. Every time I shoot a video, I'm like “oh my god, I should start acting, like it's so fun.” I cannot act at all, probably could not ever do that for everyone's sake. But, it was a blast to shoot it.
[UNPUBLISHED]: I noticed that some of your songs deal with certain numbers like “7*” and “45.” I was wondering, what is the significance of these songs to you and do you have a lucky number?
[JAMES]: Yeah, I have a few favorite numbers actually and they do pop up in songs quite often. The way I know to include them in a song is if I just start seeing them over and over. Seven is a big one. I was born on 7/11. July 11th is my birthday. 7/11 just rhymes. So, I think I've always been attracted to pretty numbers. Another big number for me is 66. I see 66 everywhere I go. I think every person has numbers that are significant to them. And that's why I think it's a fun thing to play within music because it's like I want to meet other people who see 66 everywhere. I have a really close friend who just moved out to LA and she sees 747 all the time, everywhere she goes. She's a songwriter as well and it's probably going to pop up in her music at some point. But, I think the reason to include numbers is just another inexplicable bit of the human experience that's fun to just be like, “are you seeing like one-one a lot lately?” Then you can make all of these other connections based off that and it's just fun. It's just another aspect that I like to play with.
[UNPUBLISHED]: Your debut EP is about to be a year old in June. How are you feeling about where you’re at now compared to that time?
[JAMES]: I feel great. It feels like it's been like ten years since that came out because this year for me was really significant in terms of building a team and kind of finding those who are interested in working on my project and getting them together in the same room and putting stuff out. I feel like I really miss being in pastoral New England. That's where I wrote that EP, mostly. It's interesting to hear the songs because that EP specifically was an older era for me and it was very regimented and rule oriented. You know, you write verses this way and you write choruses this way and production is meant to hit like this and if it doesn't, then the song is not sound. So, I like to listen back to it sometimes and am like “wow, I really cared, like I loved rules, I must love being told what to do.” I look at the stuff that I'm writing now and think about how weirded out I would be if myself a year ago listened to the stuff I'm doing now. I'd be like "James you're losing it. Oh my god, what are you doing?" So, I like coming back to it. I feel good. I feel like I'm really lucky to have a little vessel that kind of marked that period that I'm happy with. It's also one of the few compilations that I've written that I don't absolutely hate. So, for me that feels nice.
[UNPUBLISHED]: You’ve held a residency at Heaven Can Wait in New York and your last show there is coming up. How has the residency been? Is there a song that you love performing?
[JAMES]: It's been great. I was really kind of skeptical at first and this is why I love my managers so much because they were like, "no, you should do it." It really helped me build a really trusting relationship with my managers because it is working out and they were pushing it pretty hard being like, "Yeah, you should play this. Why not?" And it's really fun. It's a classic small rock club in New York that has been called a billion other things and has hosted really interesting bands in the past. The first two shows sold out which I was over the fucking moon about. I was so excited. I feel really grateful to have an outlet to perform because I think at the heart of it, I am a performer. I love doing shows and entertaining people and making a spectacle for people that can enrich them. I hope there's a couple that comes and they're on like a Hinge date or a Tinder date or something. And whatever the vibe of the room is, it makes them comfortable enough to fall in love. Like the fog machine is right and the lights are right and the drinks are right and everything's right and they just have this incredible moment together that they won't forget. That's my favorite part of it and the venue itself is pretty romantic. It's so cute. That's kind of been my favorite part of doing it. Who knows who's gonna meet each other at this show? I'm just the band or whatever, like I love that vibe. But, in terms of songs, I've been debuting a ton of new music that probably won't even be released for the next six months. So, on a more technical, professional end, it's been really cool to literally see people's faces change for better or for worse when you play a song that has not been tested yet. We've been doing it for three months and it's really changed my songwriting. I want to have songs that will never be released, but I will only play them live because I know it's gonna go off in the room. Just giving people who are interested in my project, giving them that alternative experience and the only way they can hear it again is if they're recorded on their phone. I think being precious about shit like that is really cool. Overall, it's been amazing. It's given me a lot of great ideas. I've met a lot of people doing it, I've had a blast. I lose my voice every time I do it. So, I have to get a vocal coach. It's just fun. It's so fun.
[UNPUBLISHED]: You’ve been calling your live shows “days off.” Can you describe what a perfect day off looks like to you?
[JAMES]: So, I would say a perfect day off starts eleven am, wake up. To be like my best self, and I think everybody does honestly, I have to have like three hours in the morning where I just sit and I look at the wall. It's just peace, just silence. Yeah, wake up at eleven, do nothing in my underwear until like two would be fucking fabulous. Then there's this place in upstate New York called the Kaaterskill Mountain Range. It has this gorgeous waterfall and it's so un-hikeable, it's a really stressful hike. But, at the top of it there's this gorgeous waterfall. So yeah, I'd leave the house at like two or three, go to Kaaterskill, blow the rest of the day there in the sun with a couple of my buds and go swimming. And then find some dingy cabin to sleep in that we found on like Airbnb or something. That's probably my ideal day off if I had to think of one.
[UNPUBLISHED]: You live in New York which is a city rich in the arts. Besides music, are there any other passions that you have?
[JAMES]: It's a slow process because it's really technical, but I've been learning how to alter my clothes and buy thrifted pieces that I then alter to my body type. I'm not very good at it yet but if you saw my closet, everything is cut or torn and then kind of poorly sewed together to fit better. I'm learning how to tailor the ends of pants and stuff like that. I really love dressing for unique silhouettes and getting regular ass clothes and just making them fit a little better. So, that's another thing I'm really interested in. And other than that, I think a lot of my interest in art kind of comes in the form of subversive public art, whether that's sculpture, street art, projected installations, things like that. Things that I can see in the city, those things really inspire me. People shit on modern art all the time, which I think they should and it's funny to do that. But, I love seeing the most ridiculous thing in some tiny gallery in Chinatown here or something. An alternative day off is to go to galleries and just see the most far out shit you've ever seen before. There's an installation in Chinatown in this upstairs gallery where this artist planted this moss ecosystem. It's all different types of grasses and moss. There were trains and stuff running through it and these automated machines. This is one of my favorite exhibits that I've seen. The ecosystem wasn't fortified by a person and it was taken out of context from the earth. So, it ran for a few months and by the end of it, all of the grass and moss had started to decompose. So, it smelled awful in the room and it was really hard to be in there. But, it was interesting because it forced you to look at decay inside of a domestic space. Like this is somebody's studio that they're working out of. I love just really weird, creative things that don't really look like art, but say a lot and are really fun or really hard to watch. One of my favorite movies is called Victoria. It's a one shot film. It took them like three tries to do it. It's like a two and a half hour movie all done in one shot. There's no cuts or anything. I think it's set in Berlin. But, things like that. Even if it's bad, I really love watching people not care if they fail. That's what does it for me. I think outside of music you get a little more of that because I think music is mostly entertainment at this point. And people kind of want pop stuff and will make pop songs. But yeah, stuff like that. Like really creative cinema and physical art.
[UNPUBLISHED]: What have you been listening to lately? What’s been inspiring you?
[JAMES]: So Croatian Amor put out a new track, it's called "My Brother (Is a Star)." So I've been listening to Croatian Amor a lot. Got into Tove Lo last week. I can't believe I never listened to Tove Lo before last week. There's a band that is really small, they're called flyingfish. It's like instrumental, heavy, heavy shoegaze. It sounds like a downpour. Like it sounds just so epic. Burial has been a huge influence on me and my music. I also listen to a lot of hardcore and stuff. In Massachusetts where I grew up, hardcore is absolutely massive. And there's kind of been a resurgence recently in people making hardcore music stuff. This band called Nails I listen to quite a bit. There's a band called GEL. They're a newer hardcore band that I have been listening to. So, kind of everything. I'm a bit of a drainer as well. So, I love Bladee and Ecco2k and Young Lean and stuff like that. Kind of more aesthetic pop music that isn't really focused on sounding like a song. It's more for the aesthetic purpose of listening.
[UNPUBLISHED]: Lastly, what are your next steps? What does the future look like for you?
[JAMES]: Next steps are taking this live experience, this residency and just touring on it. The most important part of creating music is showing people in a live space what this feels like to listen to me. And if I'm lucky enough to have somebody who's listened since the start, the only thing I want for them is just to see it live and meet them and be like, "hey thank you and here's a bunch of stuff you've never heard before." So, touring is absolutely on the list. I want to start expanding my other artistic processes into a form that I can use in my music. I just want to continue to build a more holistic world that I can live in for myself. Just for me to be happy. That's kind of what I'm focusing on now. I already make all of my own album covers and stuff like that. I style myself. I just want to expand that and get better at expression and I want to be a place to start for people who are like "yeah, I don't like the way I've been expressing myself lately. Like I don't know where to start." I want to offer some sort of guide of “this is how you do it. This is how you live your most realized, truest form every day, you can just practice it.” I want to communicate that to people. I also want to do a full length album at some point. I've been working with a lot of really gifted producers and songwriters lately. And I just want to get them all onto one record and be like, "this is the new era, this is what rock sounds like now." A lot of them don't even really produce rock. I want to kind of connect them into a world that they haven't been in yet and make an album out of it. So, a lot. I also want to keep releasing a song every month. I love doing that. That's like fun as fuck to me.
