After the release of their second album, Becoming an Entity, Detroit indie band The Doozers flexes their creative muscles and seeks to widen their audience.
Four high school friends from suburban Detroit are taking their collective musical passion to the next level. Astute listeners will notice that the band members have a rather wide range of influences, yet that does not diminish the uniqueness or cohesiveness of their sound. Fans of MGMT, Vampire Weekend, and Phoenix will enjoy this album from start to finish.
The Doozers are Sean Donnelly on guitar and vocals, Kyle Garland on drums, Melanie Kelley on bass and vocals, and Parker Grissom on guitar. Their latest album, Becoming an Entity, released on July 26th
Parker began playing music at a young age, progressing from drums to bass and guitar. His biggest Influence was his dad’s music. “I think sometimes in middle school maybe when I decided I’m not good at anything else might as well just try and do this for the rest of my life you know.”
Melanie was always singing at a young age. “Whenever anyone asked me what I was gonna be when I grew up, I would tell him I was gonna be a popstar.” Piano lessons, voice lessons, and guitar lessons would follow. She wound up playing bass in a different band with Parker, who wouldn’t join The Doozers until later. “I started playing bass kind of like a fluke through the afterschool music program that we are part of and then I didn’t start really playing bass until Park asked me to play bass in a band with him.”
Sean’s family was big on music, but he didn’t give it much weight until he started taking guitar lessons. “Music was always something that was heavily around me because [of] my family… I started actually taking guitar lessons, I got pretty much hooked on. I wanted to rock out and shred on the guitar and make that my life.”
Kyle says, “I feel like I got a later start than everyone else here. I didn’t start until middle school when I got in the percussion section and I didn’t start taking drum lessons till a year and a half after that and even then it was kind of just a more fun thing to do.” It wasn’t until he join the band that he realized he could make something serious out of something that was otherwise a hobby.
For their first record, there was no singular point of influence. They were simply driven by a desire to write fun, energetic songs. “I was really just being high energy for me,” says Kyle. “That’s all I can say. I was just playing as hard and as fast as I could. Really the only thing that motivated me.” Their debut record, aptly titled Full Length Record was released in 2019. And then the pandemic hit, just as The Doozers were gaining traction.
During Covid, the band found ways to continue practicing and writing together. They would meet up and play with masks on and the windows open in an attempt to stay together as a band while keeping safe. Several of the songs from Becoming an Entity were written in this period. However, shortly before their first show post-pandemic, in the fall of 2021, Charlie, one of their guitarists left the band. They asked their high school friend Parker to fill in for the show, and he’s been playing with the band ever since.
When asked how the arrangements of their older songs changed with the lineup swap, Kyle commented, “The structures of the songs mainly stayed the same but when we showed them to Parker and we’re like, these are your parts now you can do whatever you want”
“I just tried to play what was on the recording,” says Parker. “That’s probably morphed a little over time… I kinda wanna hear how I played it back then compared to how I do it now.”
When asked how they recruited Parker into the band, Sean replies, “We’re all friends from high school. There’s countless others that we played [with] in bands together… I always was greatly astounded by Parker’s guitar skills and writing skills.” Melanie adds, “We were big Parker fans before that, so it was quite a blessing that there was an available Parker.”
On their songwriting process, they say each song takes a very different journey. Some songs are written and recorded in a single day, appearing out of the ether and into the hands of the band. Other songs were labors of love that took the better part of a year to come together.
“I love the difference of the two styles of writing too,” says Melanie. “[with the song] “Milk::Time”, me, Kyle and Parker were just goofing and we just made that song kind of in a day, in one rehearsal. “Moontic” and “Keeping Form / Coming Loose” that was an ongoing battle with ourselves and each other, til the very end… I love those ones, those are always my favorites. I remember with “Lemon Poppy Seed”, one of our older songs, that was the case too. It took a year for us to decide how we should play that song [it] just lived so many lives and there were tears shed over it. But that’s what makes it so good.”
The new album, Becoming an Entity, has several tracks diverging from their earlier sound. “5/3” is an experiment in odd time signatures. “Tidal Song” is atmospheric and moody, with an almost shoegaze sound. “Milk::Time” opens with a minute of foreign dialog on top of fast instrumentals, before coalescing into slower, dreamy melody. But the band didn’t necessarily set out to create an experimental album. Each song was written by itself.
“I think any of the cohesiveness of the record would all be thanks to recording with Connor. When it actually came to make it happen and put it all together… I just saw the songs a little differently before we went in… but then after working with Connor and recording them it was just like, oh they all like fit together now”
–Parker Grissom
“I keep comparing it to like a journal,” adds Melanie. “And it’s like each song is an entry. They were all written at different time periods.”
The band partnered with longtime friend Conor Robinson to produce the album. Robinson lives in Nashville, and the band traveled from their native Detroit to record the album in Robinson’s home studio. The instrumentals were recorded over an eight-day period, with vocals recorded during a three-day followup. “Connor totally shaped the album and in so many ways he was… a conduit for all the things that we were bringing.” says Melanie
On the music scene in Detroit, Sean comments, “There’s so many different types of bands and it’s awesome… I feel like there’s bands that are friends with each other. That’s kind of the extent of the scene but we really will just have all sorts of different lineups like pop punk bands or some doom rock band. There’s so many strange places to play that will attract all sorts of different characters and it’s wonderful. Lots of friends, lots of cool people.”
Kyle adds, “Yeah it’s just a melting pot of a bunch of different things and everyone’s there for it. You could be playing with a death core band and then you go up and then there’s a folk band that plays after you.”
Listen to the full interview with members of The Doozers:
(If you hear an awkward pause about two-thirds in, a cat belonging to one of the band members video bombed our zoom. So you will hear a reference to “cat butt”.)
