Deep Voices #102: Amen Dunes
An interview with and a playlist from Damon McMahon
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Deep Voices #102 on Apple Music
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When I received an advance copy of Amen Dunes’ newest album Death Jokes from his publicist, she included a document that wasn’t available to the general public. Written by Damon McMahon, who is Amen Dunes, it was a combination of sample credits, notes about what inspired individual songs, and the kind of explanatory text you see on the wall at a museum. A nerd’s album breakdown, it enhanced the experience of listening to the music. I loved it. A few of my favorite lines: “A core melody written years ago and partially borrowed from a Buddhist chant I used to hear in temples during my time living in China.” “Mostly digital drums and bass samples on this one. Had a Roy Davis Jr. sample in there too but he asked me to take it out.” “Sounds like SNL.”
I was surprised by Death Jokes. Amen Dunes’ last album, 2018’s Freedom, was a precise and pristine rock record; Death Jokes is a jumble of ideas. It features clips of comedians, overlapping clips of folk and industrial music, the clattering of electronic drums. Instead of filling Death Jokes with the type of rock songs he’d become known for, instead McMahon made weird beats. Compared to Freedom, Death Jokes is a much more vivacious record, more wandering, more animated. But it’s almost certainly less widely appealing. It is the kind of music made by a guy who really loves music. His affection is palpable.
I thought I’d talk to McMahon about the album, its reception, its difference from Freedom, and how it came together, a heady brew served from a big cauldron. In addition to our interview below, he also sent along a playlist of music that was in the air as he was making Death Jokes. I’ve collected them above on Spotify and Apple Music, but he sent them over as unlabeled YouTube links, like a true freak. Note that two songs aren’t on streaming. One is Monte Cazazza’s, “Kick That Habit Man” and the other—actually, the other isn’t even a song, it’s all full album of harsh noise, The Tongue by the duo the Incapacitants. Talking about making Freedom, he mentioned being influenced by Tom Petty. Give a listen to the Incapacitants and you should get a decent idea of his mindset while making Death Jokes.
There are a lot of samples on your album, but most people who listen on streaming are not going to have any way to know what they are. How do you feel about having people listen without them?
I am such an attentive listener, a curious listener, and I've always been a student of music. So I would listen to records and be like, “What did they mean by that sound? They did that? It’s because they like this?” So I sort of mistakenly assumed that most people would hear something that's complicated, and be stimulated by that and say, what and why. That's what I'm discovering that is not the case. Which is fucking sad.
How did you find out that was not the case?
What a “duh” moment, right? Well, I discovered it after I put this album out. The way people gave me feedback or explained their engagement with the record was very passive. People didn’t discover stuff nor did they question stuff, and that was the most fucked up part to me, that no one was like, “What's that voice in there? Why'd you do that? Why is that album cover like that? What do you mean by that title? Did you really just say that lyric?”
The big question is: Do you tell them a lot or do you tell them a little? Let them in and let it be rich? Or do you make it like a jewel box and let them uncover it on their own? I didn't mean to but I ended up doing the kind of jewel box approach. People don’t have the roadmap. I actually wish I could have included it.
Let me give you an opportunity here—what are the things that you would hope listeners would question? What answers do you want them to have?
I would hope they would very broadly listen to the music and be like, “What kind of music is that sample? Is it a drum machine in the end?” But maybe that's not fair because some are not students of music.
Right. I’m a big music fan, but I’m not a musician.
But you listen to records, right? So you might be like, “Oh, that's fucking, techno.” Or, “That’s an abstract sound, that sounds like noise music.” I hope they’ll read the liner notes because they’ll see names like “Coil” or “Bill Monroe” which is an odd pairing that I found very exciting. Or they’d read the comedians names, or read the transcription of the jokes and be like, “Oh shit, that’s what Lenny Bruce was saying? Did Damon blindly put that on the album just because he was fucking drunk? Or does he think what Lenny Bruce said pertains to his message?” I wish that would be the case. I really wish people would realize this is a concept album.
I’m not trying to push it too much, but what's the concept?
Death Jokes has two meanings. The first meaning came to me during the pandemic. It was describing my songs as a series of death jokes, playful explorations of human existence as a spiritual existence clinging to one. Then as it went on, I put the samples on the album as a comment on the sort of things that bother me in society. And so the album started to become more of a protest album about public performance, public existence, the systems that we all exist in, and what that does to me and you, and what that does to art, what that does to love and connection.
The album is very alive with all these different voices. It’s one thing to be influenced by all these people, another to literally include them as a literal chorus. What made you want to do that?
They were less influences and more participants. They all just appeared on YouTube. I kind of looked for them, but they kind of appeared. They presented themselves in these perfect little soundbites. I’d plop them into the fucking DAW, right into the session. They’re participants. They're the band.
You’re still fairly new to digital music making. Was there something thrilling about being able to do that, to just chop up these samples and bring these people along with you?
It was exhilarating. Because I really am terrible at technology. I’m terrified of it. So I found all the workarounds. Another thing that this album is is a display of the sublimation of the internet. The nastiness of the internet, the glut. It was me making it human. I made Ableton a hippie device.
How?
By naively using it, by getting intimate with it. By enjoying it and being playful. I programmed drums naively, but I got good at it. If you’re someone who’s been doing something a long time, you’d better keep it interesting. You better present something new or challenging otherwise it gets boring.
Did you feel like you had to make a record that felt differently than Freedom?
Yeah, I did. As a consumer of art, I want my artists to give me something new. That’s really why I did it. I wondered what would challenge me and what would be interesting.
The last album had a picture of you on the cover. Did this one feel less “you?”
Yes. It felt less me, absolutely. Freedom was my attempt at relinquishing that guy on the cover. I was trying to be ironic. But this new album, I was really the little naive conductor in the background letting all these things from the internet play themselves out. The whole album is a wild digital internet stampede that I was shepherding.
You sent me an array of music that was in the air while you were working on Death Jokes. I was surprised, for example, to see that you said Lil Peep was such a big influence on you.
“Rugby Child” is straight up Lil Peep. I literally copied his sound effects on guitar. But the influences get abstracted. Most of the music that I like is made by younger artists because they are open minded, they're stimulated, they're curious, they're free, they're unafraid, they’re crazy. So these guys make horrible trap beats, with horrible Midwestern emo guitar, and it sounds cringingly interesting. My favorite music feels cheesy when it feels cool. That’s what makes industrial music so good. That's why I always feel like American dance music is never good, because Americans are afraid to be sexy. Whereas Europeans will be very funky and sexy. That's a broad statement. So, Lil Peep, he was mixing odd things and it sounds terrible and it sounds exciting.
I think you really made beats on this record. Is that fair to say?
100%. I had no real drummer. There are acoustic drums on the end of “Exodus” and on “Around the World” for 30 seconds. The rest is drum machines.
Did you think about being the producer for the album and having other people do vocals?
Vocals not really, but there are many people I tried to enlist to do the production thing for me. I had—I’m not joking, I counted—21 failed collaborators. I was in the studio with five of those different producers, and in each session I spent three to eight days. You can almost record an EP or an LP in that time. I had a bunch of artists in England send me music. I'm not going to mention their names because some of them are legends. Seriously. And it sounded like sh—not that great. This was the great discovery: If you're having fun and you’re free, the music’s going to sound a lot better than if you’re thinking too hard. But everyone will tell you— everyone told me—“Your music sucks, this album sucks.” I'm telling you dude, they were like, “This is fucking terrible. How dare you do this?” That’s essentially the energy I got from people. “How dare you make such sloppy music? What do you think this is, 1981? You sound like you're having fun. How cute.” That was the response I got. Then people would send me music back and it would be very conservative, very uninteresting.
Did you have experiences where you played music for people to say, “I want this feeling” and they didn't get it?
The music I sent you are essences. It’s unadulterated, unafraid, exploratory, wild music. So in that sense, they’re influences on Death Jokes. There are other things I could have sent you, like Bob Dylan, which is probably the number one influence, but these artists are all basically renegades. That’s where the connection lies.
Usually artists take an opposite trajectory than the one you did. They go from making music that’s more exploratory to less. You said making Death Jokes was exhilarating, but, after the success of Freedom, was it also scary?
It was disappointing. You know, the world often doesn't want to be challenged. That feels very sad to me. But no, I never thought twice. I am not doing this for a laugh, I am doing this because I care about making interesting art. That's why I fucking do it. There’s no other reason. I’m not doing it to be cool. I’m not doing it because I want to be popular, or to ride some wave. I do it strictly to appease the muse. I didn’t think I was fucking up the whole Freedom trajectory.
I met a really cool guy last night and he told me that he really loved Freedom and it meant so much to him. And I can disparage that album sometimes. I love it in many respects, too. But I've had albums that have not been unadulterated, pure, pure, pure, pure essence. And Freedom is one of them. I was interested in exploring styles of music. I wanted to make forward facing music. I love Tom Petty, I love Thin Lizzy, and I thought, “How wonderful would it be to have guitars that are pristine and forward facing?” Not just because it'll get me more attention, but because it'll be beautiful in a different way. [With Freedom] there was a touch of consciousness of the world around me, but with Death Jokes there's not. I was following the rules of what the art was demanding of me.
Have you always been such a deep music fan?
Yes. Ever since I was a little boy. I was a curious child. I was obsessed with dinosaurs, fish. I would have encyclopedias of aquatic life and I would read through them and memorize statistics. I think what happened, pre-internet, is you have few guides. It started with my dad turning me on to country music. Then, at a very young age, my uncle turned me onto Exile on Main Street; blueprint music. And then my friend’s dad turned me onto avant-garde music. He gave me Love’s Forever Changes and Brian Eno music in 1995 when I was 15 years old and that altered my neurochemistry.
I care about complex art. If you have an acoustic guitar and you're singing, you'd better be thoughtful or you’re going to be boring as fuck. That's what I discovered.