JPG: The album title, I Can Feel the Night Around Me. I’m thinking that someone like you with a Philosophy degree that it might have something to do light and dark, love and longing represented. Is that where the title comes from and where the songs fit in with it?

DH: I’m not really sure. I actually conceived that title a long time before I wrote any of the songs for the record. I knew that would be the title of the album. I was having a psychedelic experience in 2013 or something and I was in Joshua Tree and that phrase came into my mind. I’m not the most experienced songwriter but I feel as you go along you learn what the signposts are, “That makes me feel something that I want to represent in music.” I just had a real connection with that phrase.

I definitely wanted to make an album that was unified in theme and touched on certain related phrases and images. It’s a very meditative mellow, sort of straight forward lyrically record. I wasn’t trying to obfuscate or grab the thesaurus ever. I was entering a new phase in my life and addressing what it means to be so terrified about our world but, also, how that terror and fear can inform your need for love and companionship and protection and how that actually makes those things even more important; like the imminent threat of nuclear war, how that makes your relationship with your partner even more precious and more important, not frivolous.

Sometimes, it’s easy to think, “What I’m doing is really frivolous. You’ve got this demagogue who’s running our country and what does it matter if you make a record? We could all be dead in a year” or “I should be out there picketing and volunteering for certain causes…” So, it’s easy to think that this is a diversion but I disagree with that. I think that outrageous and extraordinary political conditions necessitate outrageous and extraordinarily passionate art. If there is a unifying theme of the record, that’s what it would be.

I couldn’t delve into the title anymore than that other than knowing that I felt extremely at peace with picking it that long ago.

JPG: What you said reminded me of a recent interview I did with Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips where he was almost apologetic about referring to himself as an artist and the idea of making art. Granted, being a musician, being an artist, isn’t at the same level of importance as needing a plumber when your pipes just burst but at the same time it serves its purpose and is important for one’s being.

DH: And a lot of that depends on how much you mean it and why are you doing it. I suppose if you’re just trying to get famous and make money then what you’re doing is sort of embarrassing in our political climate. If you are doing because it’s in you and it needs to come out then I feel it’s a very valiant pursuit.

JPG: When you’re talking about having the album be thematic and saying things lyrically, the first half seemed a bit more mellow, a little more of a lush dreamscape while the latter tunes, starting with “Depending on You,” they’re slightly poppier and energetic. Is that the way you wanted to construct it and is it also a nod to vinyl’s side A and side B with “Depending on You” would being the start of side B?

DL: What sequence do you have because the sequence on the vinyl is…Do you have the CD or the vinyl?

JPG: I downloaded it and burned it on CD. So, my version goes “Lost Moon,” “Easy Does It,” “You’re Silver” “Love’s in Love,” “Depending On You,” “Fear of Flying,” “Only You Know,” “Moonbathing” and “Human Hearts.”

DL: Okay, interesting. Actually, the CD sequence is slightly different. I’m a fan of albums that clump together in vibe. There’s a natural human tendency to be like, “You don’t want to bore them. Make sure you have an upbeat song after a slow song.” That’s the natural insecurity in all of us but I disagree with that. I love a record that slowly ushers you from one vibe to the next. I didn’t want something that felt like you were slipping into a warm bath, like you’re floating down the river. It doesn’t just come out and smack you with something that’s a little more aggressive. Not that there’s really many flavors of aggression at all on the record. (slight laugh) It’s pretty mellow, in general. I wanted to have the turbulence to come a little later in the flight.

JPG: Also, the use of the major 7th chord gives it that sad and sunny feeling at the same time as well.

DL: Yeah. It’s my favorite chord.

JPG: It sounds like a musical but also an emotional choice, too.

DL: Yeah. I can always say that chord reliably makes me feel things that I love. It’s my favorite. If I had a greater chord vocabulary, I could create those feelings with other things (slight laugh) but I grew up on like Cream and Led Zeppelin and stuff, so…That’s about as sophisticated I get is a major 7th and I love it. It pulls my heart in two directions at the same time. That’s what I like.

*JPG: It works. Unlike Oak Island, you don’t play trumpet this time.

DL: Yeah. The honest reason for that is that during Lollapalooza when the Drugs were playing…We were on TV and it was super hot out, and I was playing my trumpet onstage. The valves stuck and it had been sticking over and over and over again and I just had a little rage out and smashed it. I haven’t replaced it yet. So, I smashed it and then gave it to my nephew; this tangled mass of brass.

So, that’s the honest reason. I didn’t have one. I should get one. I live in pretty compact urban area of Philly. So, it’s not the kind of thing you can necessarily open the windows and tune up. Your neighbors will get annoyed with you pretty quick.

JPG: In the press release, besides George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass and the Beach Boys’ Friends it mentioned Hiroshi Satoh’s This Boy. I’m unfamiliar with him. Who is that?

DL: He’s a Japanese pop artist. You should check him out actually and that is a cover of The Beatles’ “This Boy.” If you listen to it, it sounds like I touched on a lot of it. It sounds a little bit, especially on “Human Hearts” I wanted that song to sound a little bit plastic. It’s not ‘50s doo wop. It’s like a broken plastic toy version of that. I feel like his music has something of that; a little bit David Lynch-ian. You know how David Lynch would engage in doo wop or in ‘50s type music but it’s not on the nose. It’s almost like a memory of that.

Honestly, it was a few of his songs that I listened to hundreds of times while I was making this record. I put that in there hoping that maybe people would google him and listen to his records because he’s pretty unknown. He’s not on Spotify or anything. You have to dig a little bit to find him. His stuff is really cool. It probably sounded like horribly uncool for a long time and everything goes around in cycles now. I dj once in awhile and I’ll play some of his songs and people will be like, “What is this? Some new shit?” It sounds so current because it’s just the way cycles and trends go. What he was doing is very of the now.

If you find his records, they’re really rare. I have a Discogs wishlist and every once in awhile he’ll pop up on there and it’s always in the $200 or $300 range. I think some of those Japanese records that were only pressed over there, they don’t disseminate so they’re hard to find. If you see it, grab it.

JPG: Last time we spoke we discussed your original score to 2001: A Space Odyssey, Have you performed that again and how’s the experience of doing that?

DL: I only did it once and I declined to have it recorded. I was a little nervous it would be a trainwreck. It was not something that was super-rehearsable because a lot of it was improv. I was doing it with a friend of mine and we were improvising probably like 60 or 75 per cent. I had the structure completely nailed down but I was scared and I really regret that.

That’s a lesson, because it was improvised, I don’t think it could possibly be recreated the way. I really wish I had some balls and just been like, “Let’s record it” because I think it was special and there was only 50 people there. I feel proud of it but it’s something that I have to tell people about it. I can’t just play it for ‘em. [slight laugh] I’ll always be, “It was so great. I swear.”

JPG: When did you do it? Was it 2013 or 2014?

DL: I’ll say 2014. It was in the nether period between “Oak Island” and the Drugs gearing up for lift off. I had some time to kill and I got sucked into it. It was really cool. I hope to do something like it again. It’s my favorite movie ever. Maybe, I’ll do it again.

JPG: Well, there you go. Two things to remember after we hang up. Buy a new trumpet and do your original score again.

DL: The 2001 thing. Yeah. Sorry to let you down on both those counts. [Laughs]

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