You know Dasha, right? The 22-year-old alt-pop artist who’s been all about the rockstar life for as long as she can remember recently released her debut album Dirty Blonde. We sat down and had a chat about it, so check it out below!
Hellooooo Dasha!
How are you?
We meet at last.
We meet at last, darling.
It’s been so long. I remember when you dropped “Don’t Mean A Thing,” and I was like… shook…
No. Yeah, it’s been a hot second for sure.
So let’s look back at some of the things you’ve accomplished. We’re two months into the year, and you just released an album. It’s been a long time coming!
Oh, god. Yeah. It’s been two years that I’ve had the concept of Dirty Blonde, the album. January 2021. So it’s been two years.
Two long years.
Crazy. Oh, my gosh, I can’t believe that. Like, if you would have told me at the time that it won’t come out for two years, I would have been like.. you’re kidding!
Noooo!
But that’s what I needed. With first albums, so much development goes into them. You don’t know exactly what it should be like, and you’ve never released an album before. You don’t even understand the wall of work that’s about to hit you. So when it hits you, you’re like… I need a few more months.
It’s not even a procrastination thing either, I could imagine. Time just moves too fast!
It’s art! So it’s like, you’re putting out the best art you can. Sometimes that just takes time, and that’s just the role of it. You have to trust yourself in that.
Totally. Did you ever see yourself going back and thinking, “this is cool, but it’s not cool enough. I need to re-do this?”
Yeah! Definitely. When I was writing the album… I think I wrote over 200 songs for the album.
WHAT.
Yeah. And then the crème of the crop was about 64 songs. I had them all in a link, and I remember looking through and listening to them and saying, “Oh my God. What’s missing? What do I want this album to sound like?” I had so many songs, sounds, lyrics. Going through it, I realized how much I wanted to tell a story with the album. My final selection process was insane. I went back and forth texting my family and friends asking them which ones the liked best. Which one is it! I had it narrowed down to 25 songs, and was like “which are the ones? Do I put them all out or what?” Then I realized you know what… I need to be really specific with my vision and leave people wanting more. So more is less, I feel like in these situations. I still put out a 17 song album. I didn’t give too less. But yeah, I’m really proud of the selection process, and it was kinda crazy. It was nutty.
I bet! What was the vision in the beginning?
So the vision in the beginning… I had a song (or had the title) “Dirty Blonde.” At first I thought that was a song title. When I was in Nashville in January 2021, I took it into like five or six sessions. I was like, “We have to write a song called ‘Dirty Blonde’. It’s gonna be my next single!” Then I kept trying to write it, and they were all really, REALLY bad. I was like, “What is happening with this title?” So then I realized… this is not a song title. It’s my ALBUM title. It makes sense! “Dirty Blonde” means so much more to me than just a hair color or you know, a way to identify someone. It has a lot to do with where I came from, my roots, and it has a female tie in my family. My whole family is just blondes, we’re all dirty blondes. Growing up, I used to get made fun of by girls who were like, “Well I’m blonder than you!” It’s a stupid thing to say, but it hurt so bad. (That’s just kind of a funny fact.)
So the original version of Dirty Blonge was going to be, the album was going to have an A side and B side. The A side is the dirty side, and the B side is blonde. The dirty side was going to be Eyeliner, “F**k you,” “Dramatic,” all the upbeat kind of pop-punk side. The B side, the blonde side, was going to be “7 Minutes in Heaven,” “Olivia,” etc. When I was writing the songs, I definitely separated them out. I had a lot of fun doing that on the creative side, but the whole vision of the album, it’s all about the track listing and the story behind it.
It starts with “Dirty,” and it ends with “Blonde.” You can see the structure right there!
I went back and forth with the tracklisting so many times. But I think when I print vinyl, hopefully soon, I’ll put all the dirty songs on one side, and all the blonde songs on another side.
That would be so cool.
Right?
I’m just imagining it right now. This is a little crazy for me to say, because people who know me really well know that I love my solid black vinyls. When I buy a vinyl, I’m going to listen to it. I’m not really trying to display it or anything, I just want to play it. But I could really just envision black in the center, and on the outside it’s glitter… or vice versa.
Not pink and brown? The colors I’ve been going with?
Pink and brown works! Maybe you could have some yellow streaks, or some gold glitter sprinkled around.
I do like glitter. Have you seen the see-through glittery vinyls?
Yeah! I do have one, and I’ve seen how they make them, but I’m still like HOWWWW.
It’s crazy and cool. I think it would be so cool to print vinyl.
Ideas evolve over time. I feel like that was the case for this project. You started with one idea in mind…
I think it really naturally evolved. I had originally envisioned one half dirty, the other half blonde, but then I realized that was forcing something upon the album. That’s not really how it was written. That’s also not how I view the whole situation the songs were written about. You go through phases in life, like your feral phase – that’s what “Dirty” side was written about. Then you have your little heartbreak phase, but it’s not all one constant emotion. There’s a lot of peaks and valleys and other things in there. I just wanted the album to feel like what 2022 kinda felt like for me. I killed it! My personal narrative was there. That’s my life in an album.
Totally! Now, I want you to choose your favorite child. I want you to pick your favorite song from the album and spill a story on it.
Oh god…
This is my favorite part. Every time I’m like HAAA!
I have an answer, which is kind of f*cked up because like, I know they’re my children… but I have an answer! (At least right now, this is my current answer.) So my current favorite child right now is called “You Said.” I think that song shows off my songwriting chops very well. I’m really proud of the lyrics of that song and the melodies and productions. The story behind the production on that one… I wrote that one with Louis Castle from The Gifted. It was just him and I, and he’s a dad. I think he’s like 50, but we’re songwriting soulmates. I had this idea because, I don’t know if you’ve ever experienced this, but when you’re in a relationship with someone… it can be even a friendship, but what they say, what they do, their lifestyle becomes like a Bible to you. It’s almost like you’re worshiping it, and you’re in their world… and you’re fine with that, because you adore them so much that you want to be in their world. After a while, you take a step back, and you realize you have no control. Like, everything you say goes.
I got out of this relationship. My first love… oh goodness I feel so stupid saying that… my first love. No. Okay. My first real heartbreak and looking back on it, I realized how much of him he was like a Bible to me. I was obsessed, and I thought he was the coolest person on planet Earth. I was just set in stone, but I was like… yeah, this is my person. Then when it all crashed and burned… I look back and go, that’s f*cking hilarious. I was being so silly.
That’s what “You Said” is about. The first lyric is, “God, you could have told me bullshit, told me that the earth is flat. And looking back, I’m sure you did.” That song was about to not make the album, it was on my maybe list. I was like, I don’t know. I just had a piano vocal of it from the day of, and I showed it to my brother Bardo who produced a lot of my album. He was like, “Dasha, this song. I hear something, let me produce it.” I told him to go for it, so we hopped in a session, and he starts going after it. He makes this buildup, and there were tears. It was exactly what the song felt like to me. Now it’s my f*cking child, I love that song.
There we go. Oh, and live?!
It’s so fun playing it live.
You must have those songs where you’re just like, I want to be able to play this live every day… for the rest of my career.
Especially because I’m starting to think about touring more and opening for someone. I need to have songs. I love performing. What’s your favorite song on the album?
Probably “Make A Scene.” Or “Love Me Til August.”
Those are good ones.
If there’s one thing that you could go back and change about the album, making process, what would you do differently?
Oh, that’s a fun question. What would I do differently? Okay honestly, so there’s a song called “This Is A Song That I Wrote” on it. It’s like a voice memo of me as a kid. My dad found those voice memos, and I was like… I have to put this on here, because it shows people who don’t really know my story that I’ve been doing this since I was literally six. I’ve always wanted to do this. I love that history piece. I turned that song in the day before the album was due, so it could come out in time. I was rushing, and I’m the one who mixed it and made it like… I’m the one who chopped the memos and put it in order. I produced that song. That was kind of terrifying, but also really fun. Honestly, I don’t know if I would change that. I’d probably get a better mix on that. This was from 2006.
Of course, and back then we didn’t have iPhones.
It was like a little voice recorder. Songwriting wise, I’ve always been curious to do an album with just one producer. Kind of like how Taylor Swift did with Jack Antonoff, and having one core group of creatives through the whole album process. I’m kind of curious to try that on my next album that I’m working on now. But I don’t know because I love writing with so many different people. I love all the different things that people bring to the table. So we’ll see.
It’s cool to get a bunch of different people’s perspectives, but it’s also cool if you can grow a relationship with one person (or one solid group of people) while working on the same project. That also seems interesting.
Yeah, exactly. I mean, even if it’s just on the production side. I’d be fine writing with different people, but having just one person who produces it would be kind of cool.
Looking ahead… what’s next? I know you just mentioned you’re already working on another project.
What’s next is… hopefully fingers crossed… going on an opening tour with someone this year. Love that. Or maybe several! I write so much, kind of a scary amount, and I have like half of the next album done. We are working on that ferociously, and I’m excited about that because there’s a little bit of a genre change. We’re going more towards my roots and where it all started for me.
I’m so excited Dasha!! SO EXCITED! So the next time Olivia Rodrigo tours, are you gonna be like HEY HEY HEY HEY HI HI.
Do you mind putting me on there?
You know I’ll be there.
I’ll text her right now.
Dirty Blonde is out now! Listen below.
Dasha’s manifestation from our chat: “I’m manifesting a nomination for Best New Artist at the Grammys in 2024.”
