Last month, Glaring Orchid was the first of five bands to play a California wildfire show hosted by Julia’s War at Trans-Pecos. The event’s flier made its Instagram debut a scanty 24 hours in advance, though neither short notice or the evening’s harsh wind chill hindered a punctual turnout; the Queens venue was lively by 7:30 while Dana DeBari’s sugary vocals drifted in and out of heavy grunge atmospheres. As each gritty layer of Quinn Mulvihill’s project came to life, there were moments you could detect a pin drop and moments too brash to hear your own thoughts. Obviously, no one is hearing a pin drop at Trans-Pecos, but the control the band wielded as they oscillated between tender and heavy (and the fact that it was only their fourth live show) felt deserving of all the cliche hyperboles in my arsenal. 

Their first show was last April, playing alongside Ringing, Rat Palace and Pry at the TV Eye in Queens. For those unfamiliar with the venue, the stage features an opulent red velvet curtain that opens and closes between sets, “We made jokes about it for a while afterwards”, Mulvihill tells me, “We did a show in Philly after that which was really cool and intimate and we were like, ‘where’s the curtain? We need the curtain to set up” 

Mulvihill has been playing music since his dad gave him a guitar for Christmas at 12, spending his teenage years recording songs on a free version of Ableton Live and recruiting Dana DeBari to sing on them. “Dana and I grew up together, she was not that into music, but she was just naturally good at singing, I thought. So, I was like, can you please come sing on this song,” Mulvihill recalls of the two’s earliest collaborations. “Yeah, in his loft bedroom. We were like, 16 years old,” DeBari adds. Glaring Orchid began a few years ago to satisfy Mulvihill’s craving to put out music that he could make on his own while he was working on boats and moving frequently, his first release a drum and bass heavy lo-fi EP in 2022, followed by a cover of “I’m So Tired” in 2023. 

Last year Glaring Orchid released i hope you’re okay, a splattering of synthy lo-fi, grungy reverb and glitchy fragments that never present the same way twice. The release thickened the project’s identity, with production help by Tim Jordan and drum contributions from Jordyn Blakely and Alex Ha bending Glaring Orchid’s bedroom recording project roots into a charged experimental rock album. DeBari’s famously nice voice looms in nearly every track, chameleon-like in its tendency to adapt to the mood established by instrumentals it surrounds. In some tracks Mulvihill’s bristly vocals offer a dreamy counter-harmony, as the two drone about being under the influence in “buzzed in the basement”, eerie synths invading gradually as the song trickles further from reality. Though it frequents naturlistic imagery, i hope you’re okay is sort of like eating fruit in Sour Patch Kid form, processed in unpredictable ways to contort organic ideas into a surreal and potent experience. 

the ugly hug recently sat down with DeBari and Mulvihill to discuss music inspirations, their creative dynamic and the history of Glaring Orchid.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity

MB: How long have you known each other?

DD: Since we were 12, same hometown. 

MB: That’s awesome! When did you start Glaring Orchid? 

QM: Glaring Orchid started a couple of years ago. I was away working a lot, and I started getting frustrated that I hadn’t put any music out. I was like, I’m just going to do something that I can do on my own and release, and that was the first EP – the drum and bass lo-fi one. It was very different from what I had always made but I just thought, maybe I can try to do this on my own. 

MB: Were you living in New York then? 

QM: I was sort of in Florida, I worked on boats so I was kind of moving around a bit, but at that point mostly in Florida, and Dana was either in New York or Boston. So for that first single, the cover we did, she was in New York and did a voice memo and sent it over. 

MB: And then Dana, I know your involvement started with having a good voice. Do you feel like you’ve shifted how you approach music since the days in the loft bedroom? 

DD: I feel like I’ve learned a lot, which has been nice, but I kind of just do what [Quinn] requests, and then we tweak it. I’m always groaning about something, being like, do I have to do this right now? So, it’s like that kind of dynamic. 

MB: I’d also love to talk about I hope you’re okay! Quinn I know you mentioned you worked on boats, I was curious about the way you used the ocean and other eerie nature references in this record that often explores life and death. Was there an intention there? 

QM: Honestly, there wasn’t really too much intention. I didn’t realize until way after – I read something talking about the songs, and I was like, ‘wow. Every one is about life and death.’ I didn’t mean for that to happen, and I don’t know why it happened. 

DD: Your natural state of thought  

QM: I guess so… There were a couple of songs that I did consider a bit more. Definitely “swimmer”. It was just post COVID when people were starting to go back to work, and everyone was miserable and that struck a note with me. 

MB: Yeah that one definitely has a ‘post-covid’ feel to it. Have a lot of the songs on the record been with you for a while? 

QM: Some of the songs are from a long time ago. I definitely start songs and then I put them away for a while and then I come back to them. “swimmer” I started in 2022 and then kind of hit a roadblock and wanted to do something else. I started working with Tim Jordan in May of 2023, and he helped me finish it by December.

DD: I like watching the process, kind of from afar. I see the early stages, and they get stuck in my head. I’m like, ‘when are you going to finish this’, because I want to hear the rest of it.

MB: Was there a song you heard early on that felt especially antsy about being finished?

DD: “swimmer” was always on my mind for sure, I just thought it was going to come out really good. 

QM:  She kept saying ‘you have to release this one’. 

DD: Yeah, I was getting impatient. 

MB: What song off the record came the easiest? 

QM: I would say “blistered skin” was the quickest. I was visiting Dana in Boston. I brought my guitar and I just recorded a demo.

DD: And I heard it on like a loop

QM: Yeah that one I was really stoked about. “blurry2” too. That was when we were almost done with the record, it was one of the last ones and I was just feeling really inspired, so it came together easily. That one was Tim’s idea, like I brought it to him and he was like, ‘this is the first song’. 

MB: Okay, so besides from going to work post-covid, what are some of your bigger inspirations? 

QM: So much music! The obvious ones are Nirvana, and I love Sufjan. I’ve always kind of followed the local music scene. I love TAGABOW and all those Philly bands, all the New Moral Zine bands doing the grunge stuff, I mean all those bands are massively inspirational.

MB: The album has such a great balance of soft and heavy, that was really awesome during your show, there was so much control. Has there been any challenges with playing these songs live? 

QM: The chords themselves are all simple, the hardest parts are the stopping and starting, and trying to make it quiet. Also not playing “sweater” for the first two shows. I think it was fun to do that for Chicago and then for Trans-Pecos. It was just me playing guitar in the first two shows, so bringing in a second guitarist made a big difference. It’s also hard because I don’t want to tell people what to do too much, but I’m trying to find the balance of letting someone do what they want and keeping some sort of resemblance to the album.

MB: How long have you been playing shows under Glaring Orchid? 

QM: The Trans-Pecos Show was our fourth show, so it’s very new. The first two shows, we had a couple of friends from New Jersey that played with us, and the second was with some friends I met from here. It’s been kinda makeshift, the trickiest part is trying to get five people in a room together to practice and then play a show. 

MB: It definitely did not sound makeshift! The songs translate so well live.

QM: Thank you. We did practice, we both really tried to make it sound good, and we were really happy with how it was.

MB: So your third show was in Chicago, how was that? 

DD: So fun! 

QM: That was, that was a lot of fun. Chicago was great. We played at Schubas – perfect venue. The whole experience was really great. I think we were all a bit nervous, but the first show was definitely the scariest one. 

MB: Have you seen any good shows lately? 

QM: I saw Melaina Kol before the Chicago show, and that was something that really surprised me. I love their albums, but the live shows are a whole different thing – really great. Seeing TAGABOW live is really cool, probably like the loudest band I’ve ever seen. I also saw Greg Mendez, and I didn’t know him at the time, but I saw him play and I fell in love with his music. It was special. It’s been cool discovering music that way, where you might go to just see one band and then find another that you fall in love with.

You can listen to Glaring Orchid’s 2024 release i hope you’re okay out everywhere.

Written by Manon Bushong | Featured photo courtesy of glaring orchid