Interview and Photos by Lucie Day

Dan English’s ‘Sky Record’ is a gateway, an opening that spills outward. Toeing the line between analog and digital, flesh and fiber optics, the record unfolds on itself.

At Treefort Music Fest, The Ugly Hug had the chance to speak to Dan English about the influences behind the record, the strange experience of discovering new meaning, and work as a “distillation” of the self.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity

Lucie Day (The Ugly Hug): You’ve talked about growing up and using music, movies, and games as portals to other worlds. Do you think that Sky Record is a continuation of that, or is it more about bringing those imagined worlds into reality? 

Dan English: I think I used making the music as an escape, as a salve. Doing this thing that I know how to do and have been doing for a long time as a therapy or as an escape— you know, a drug or whatever you want to call it. Some sort of piece of work that both making it and experiencing it could be useful to somebody who needs it now. It doesn’t come from some sort of genius imagination of  “what if there was this kind of place”? It’s more of like a – not an expulsion, but like a spilling out.

LD: With that mythology that grows, is that more of an accidental immersion than intentional?

DE: Yeah, I would say so. Or just an explanation of the mythology of the self, you know? Even the mythology of your day-to-day, there’s an intensity and a heaviness to that that is monolithic, but it happens every day. So it’s kind of boring, but it does feel intense. And I guess it kind of has to do with that. It definitely was not me sitting down trying to be smart about it. The visuals and stuff all were just tapping with friends. I think we’re on the same page and like the same kind of stuff. Approach art in the same way. Don’t know why they do the things they do, but they really care about it. 

LD: Like a compulsion.

DE: Yeah. They’re just like, this is the way that I understand the universe, and so this is what I must do. 

LD: In a different interview, there was a comparison that you made to songwriting as divination. A following of intuition, which I think is very consistent with what we’re talking about. Have there been moments where in the process of constructing a song or a larger body of work, it’s surprised you or revealed something that you didn’t consciously know you were feeling or dealing with? 

DE: I’ve had conversations about this album that have illuminated it more so to me than I even thought about it or understood. It’s weird, especially today doing interviews. It’s a lot of looking at something from so many different angles. This is the first time I’ve ever thought: ‘Oh, I’m an artist who has a body of work’. In a hundred years, if I was dead and somebody was like, ‘Dan English’s work is about this’. I never thought about that until today. There are all these people that are like, ‘This is what my work is about‘ and they’re right. That’s making me think about things. There’s this thing being communicated, that it’s not that I didn’t intend it, it’s just that I didn’t expect people to pick it up. I didn’t, in some cases, know it was there. It just is a distillation of me. 

LD: Do you think that as time goes on, that’s going to mature and change or do you think it’s going to stay the same? 

DE: That’s also come up today— not in a conversation, but now that I know what it’s about or what I’m about, what do I do with that? It’s a big question. I would rather just hang back and see what comes out and hope that it’s meaningful. But there’s also a responsibility to do something meaningful and useful and practical with your life that I do feel— Or just making music does, because I was saved by music when I was a kid. I needed music more than anything. 

Making it doesn’t necessarily give me a pass or something, I still think there’s a lot more you could do for your world and your community. Hopefully, I can find a way to do that. I’ve been making this my work— my work has been my life— for however many years. Now that it’s catching a stride, and also catching a break, it doesn’t have to be so hard. You know what I mean? As hard as it is for a fat little 10-year-old who hates himself and all that shit. 

LD: You have a lot of the same references come up, namely Blade Runner and Zelda. What do you think it is about those that resonates with the universe that you’ve constructed?

DE: I think it would be the reverse, that my universe reflects those. They’re just geniuses. Incredible pieces of work by people who do it differently, you know? I’ve just always been drawn to that and I’m not trying to say that that’s what I am, it’s just the stuff that i like.

I was trying to think about it the other night, I don’t even know why. I don’t know what I was watching, maybe it was a movie, or a concert and I was just like, ‘What is it that makes good stuff good?’ I think it’s anything that does the opposite of turning your brain off. It makes you like to ask questions or it keeps you engaged. It’s not predictable, it commands your attention. I don’t know whether it’s like Cronenberg or just something different. I love Ridley Scott. 

I was talking earlier about thematic stuff too, I think attention to theme is also a way to keep people engaged. I certainly don’t do that with intention or anything, but when I watch a movie or even Zelda, it feels like mythology. The story might not be detailed or intense, but it has this universality and weight to it that hits hard. That’s just what moves me, and none of it in my music is by design. It’s just like gravitation, you know? I wish I could say it was from being smart and making decisions, but it’s not.

LD: If Sky Record had to be a different medium, and it wasn’t the music…

DE: I mean, obviously it would be a movie. But I hope I never make a movie because I just want to keep them as a special thing. Although, you know, I’m worried I’m running out of movies to watch. It’s got to be a finite number. But yeah, it would be a film. I don’t know who would direct it, but I’ll bet it’d be good. I think it would have a good arc to it. George Lucas, Peter Jackson. 

LD: When people listen to Sky Record years from now, what do you hope still resonates with them? 

DE: I think there’s a thread that I didn’t really realize when I was making it that was timely with AI. This was like 2018 when I was conceptualizing it. I was into Blade Runner and Pinocchio, too. There’s a thread of it that is not feeling human, but longing to be human. This idea of “I’m not human, but I experience what a human does”. It’s just being out of touch with your emotions. And, in a way, a lot of it is the dysphoria of modern life— having a digital life and also a body. Being alive and how different and, in a way, disconnected those things are.

I hope it’s evidence of what was going on at this time, being a young adult or a person raised on the internet but also longing for the real thing. I really didn’t do it by design, which surprised me, but also is awesome to me. It is a lot of electronic stuff and a lot of acoustic stuff. It surprises me when I even realize that. I didn’t do it on purpose, this weird Frankenstein that I created. 

LD: I think it’s very cool. It’s like a thing that’s alive that talks back to you. And you teach it, but it also learns from you. 

DE: It’s cool. I’m happy people like it. But also… time to make another one.

You can listen to Sky Record out everywhere now.