Every day, new bands and artists are popping up with a great story behind their creation or a completely fresh approach to songwriting or a novel way of incorporating multiple genres into a seamless s
Every day, new bands and artists are popping up with a great story behind their creation or a completely fresh approach to songwriting or a novel way of incorporating multiple genres into a seamless sounds. There are all just fascinating from top to bottom and are joined by hundreds, probably thousands, of other bands equally as fascinating all for different reasons.
And then there’s Des Ark who’s intrigue could probably be best summed up with this unique name she bestowed on this sorrowful folk song: “If By ‘Gay’ You Mean Totally Fucking Awesome, Then Yeah I Guess It’s Pretty Gay.”
I don’t want to reduce the entirety of Des Ark’s musical identity to this one song title, but I think it does provide some initial insight into who she is and what type of music you’re really signing up for when you hit play on any one of Des Ark’s spectacular records. They’re all fascinating for every aforementioned reason too.
Musically, it seems to find its center within folk music, but there’s very real elements of punk and post-hardcore sounds in her music that makes a wall of dissonant noise actually sound at place within her sonic world. Story, she’s got that all and more with a clear-cut and relatable struggle that’s still on-going as critics are quick to criticize for being superficial, despite its growing relevance year to year.
Lyrically though, that’s where Des Ark really shines. There’s just a way the lyrics unfold in each song that really petitions your attention and challenges your perspective on a variety of subjects, most that are more relatable than people even care to admit.
While Des Ark is a band in a fluid sense, it’s the brainchild of Aimée Argote, an affable singer-songwriter who takes no prisoners and rejects popular fraudulent ideals not only in the music she creates, but the life she leads as well. It all comes through perfectly in the music making it a genuine extension of her identity with lyrics that challenge her listeners in a way that the best art truly does. As celebrated as her lyrics are though, Argote seems somewhat disinterested in talking about how others perceive it from a critical standpoint, even if she does champion for self-identification within her music.
“Do you know when you eat a really nice meal and you can’t figure out what the flavors are, but it doesn’t matter because it felt really nice to eat it? That’s what lyric writing is like. When you get it out on the paper, it feels right. I think other people go back and analyze that more than I would because I’m my only marker at that point for whether or not I’ve achieved what I wanted to achieve which is to make myself feel satisfied that the point I’m trying to make got across. I would never sit down and read over lyrics because I know at that time, it felt like it was the right thing to say or the right way to say it. When people ask me about lyrics, the way that they hear things like alliteration or phrasing, it’s not stuff I do on purpose or think about. A lot of times when people ask me about lyrics, they’ll say something like, ‘Oh, when you were talking about this in the song…’ That’s not at all what I was talking about! I think when you write really personal songs, it’s something you have to come to terms with and decide how to approach for yourself. A lot of people will think a song means a certain thing and I don’t want to take that away from them and it doesn’t really matter all the time that that’s not what I was talking about. If I’m forcing them to have my experience, then the song is going to be less meaningful to other people. A lot of time when people ask me about lyrics, I’ll just nod my head and say okay. It’s a new concept of what it means to somebody and it’s not what it means to me, but I think it’s extremely important to let other people own that.”
To Argote, Des Ark’s core lies in the lyrics of each song, but to her, there’s a lot more depth with her music that she wants people to take away. Her lyrics are deeply rooted in her soul and subconscious, but they’re nothing without a natural rhythm to move them from page to sound to reality in that sense. It’s a symbiotic relationship in that regard between the lyrics and the music, even if the lyrics ultimately get the attention and it’s something Argote herself covets.
“The lyrics are the most important thing to me, but they’re for me. My only goal ever in writing music is to get it out. I think that after a while, I start to understand why they could be important to other kinds of people, but in the moment the song is getting written, it’s just something I’m struggling with or something I need to just say out loud. I think they become the most important part, but there’s a reason I’m not a poet and a musician instead. I think that for me, the things that I’m writing about are so tied to my body and physical experiences. I feel things so physically and I live things in a physical way. Like, that rhythm that you feel inside your body from just the resonance a string makes a guitar. Well, the lyrics don’t mean anything to me if I can’t figure out a way to feel them with that resonance. The music and lyrics hold hands as they come out my body. The words are important to me, but they’re not living until they’re moving around. I don’t think one piece is more important than the other, but I do focus the most on lyrics. If lyrics are really bad, I can’t listen to a song. Like bands with crappy lyrics. I care about that stuff and I like to know what people are talking to me about and I think people who listen to me feel the same.”
So where do these lyrics come from? How does Argote make these lyrics flow so seamless and naturally across a wide spectrum of genres? Unfortunately, the big answer here is that there is no big answer. “There’s no planning. I have friends who sit down and play, like they have a daily practice or ritual. Meanwhile, I’m in the middle of dinner at a friend’s house and I’m like, ‘I got to go! Something is happening!” I have to rush home and figure that out. It’s there and you have to grab it. That’s how it works for me.”
As much as Argote stresses she’s not a poet, it’s definitely a poetic way of creating these indelible songs. For most though, it’s not an ideal way of being able to write music because for every great spark of inspiration that reaches completion in a fully realized way, there’s infinitely more that just get lost in the ether for whatever reason.
“There are thousands of songs that will never get played or remembered. In fact, all of our songs are written in different guitar tunings so there are songs that I’ve played for two months straight on tour, that I never wrote down or recorded it, and I have no idea how to ever get them back. That’s actually a constant struggle for me. I don’t write a lot of stuff down and I’m really slow about recording songs, but we have always toured a lot so there’s just so many songs that exist in half parts and I can’t remember the rest of it. There’s stuff that comes into my head and then it’s gone forever.”
It’s a crippling reality Argote has to come to terms with. This approach to songwriting that yields so many intriguing and cathartic songs, also completely erases potentially defining works of arts. But coming to grips with this as well as reality in general is something Argote is really becoming adept at, a point that’s strongly explored on her latest record, Everything Dies.
“Learning to let go in my life has been something that’s been a really important learning process for me these last few years. Learning to let go and relax and just let things happen. I’ve always been that kind of sketchy hard to pin down type of person anyway. But I think being able to come to terms with songs disappearing forever is okay and it’s been really important to me. If they’re supposed to play a really big role in my life, they’ll find a way to come back to me.”
Whether they like it or not, all musicians eventually need to learn to let go or, more importantly, learn to live without control at times. Argote didn’t fight this realization at all, but clarified by saying in a life so defined by its lack of control at times, you almost become obsessive and neurotic about the things you can control. To Argote though, everyone is really this way deep down, even if it’s more focused or subtle.
“There are things that I will never care about that people in my life that are not traveling artists care so deeply about and put so much value into. These are things I could not give two shits about, but then there are some things in my life that I really require like safe spaces. I require things that people with stable lives don’t requires. I think it comes out in really weird ways though. A silly example is my house is so clean, my bathroom and kitchen are spotless and the reason is that I’m always staying in other people’s spaces with their energy and dirt. These hotels and clubs with all this left over junk from other people. It’s not always disgusting and it’s not always physical. Sometimes it just feels weird in a space so my home is just super private to me and well-kept and that is a product of touring. I know people who work jobs and stay at a home all the time and people are coming in and out of their house all the time and their bathroom is dirty and they don’t care. It’s fine. It’s just a result of being on the road so long. My space is super private and clean. That’s a stupid example, but it can help you let go. It’s helped me. A lot of people get a complex about it. I’ve missed a number of funerals and weddings and gatherings and holidays and shit like that, and I’m pretty good about letting that stuff go. Other people I’ve toured with have really suffered from that emotionally. I think it all comes out as a wash. We’re all control freaks. We all have issue with it in some aspects of our life and I think we choose the careers that allow us to kind of control the things we need to control and not control the things we don’t care about.”
One thing Argote has really begun to take control over is taking herself out of potentially unsafe spaces. More and more, we hear about female musicians struggling with touring because of situations that arise on the road, many of which are belittled simply from lack of awareness.
Just in September, Argote gave an in-depth interview with After Ellen that bore the headline “I write songs for women and queer people” and talked in-depth about creating safe spaces. It was an insightful read, but unfortunately one that fell on deaf ears for a majority of male fans who are almost incapable of empathy for situations they’ll never encounter.
The backlash wasn’t overwhelming, but it was enough to show that it’s still an uphill battle for female and queer musicians alike. It’s a battle Argote is more than willing to fight too, regardless of the circumstances.
“As I’ve gotten older and done this more, I’ve realized that who I choose to be in a band with can directly affect my ability to say to my bandmates when I don’t feel safe. That’s a huge thing that I had to learn. I think a lot of folks in bands would just say, ‘Play the show no matter what’ or ‘Go on the road no matter what.’ I don’t give a shit about that stuff. I’ll find other things in life to be fulfilled by. I need to take care of myself. Like I eat a really crazy diet. I’m vegan and mostly raw food. So being able to take care of myself, whether it’s what I’m putting into my body or how safe the space is, that has become a priority for me in a way that it wasn’t before. I had to understand when people are coming in to this band, I need to be really clear with people that this is my band and this is the way we’re going to operate when we’re on tour. Number one, I need to feel safe at all times. We have a lot of conversations with bandmates about getting drunk. I don’t drink so I’m never going to be drunk and one of the reasons I came to not drinking on tours was I don’t feel it’s a smart idea to be a situation that’s sketchy and then to not have the full ability to be aware. I quit drinking, but there were times I would get drunk if I felt safe though, but there are conversations with bandmates about how there’s got to be someone else every night who’s going to back me up. Enough to be a point person for me if I’m stuck at the merch table. I need to know not everyone else is going to be shitfaced. If something on stage happens, I need to know I have allies. These conversations happen frequently in the band that wouldn’t happen in other bands. Most of the bandmates I’ve had are male identified so it’s awesome to see that men can learn that. They can really learn how to be supportive of bandmates. I think unfortunately the reason I figured out I have to be more vocal about it and be more committed about inciting that conversation is because I found myself coming home from tours really sick and scared. I came to that from crappy experiences, but I am in a place now that I know to have the right people in this band. They have to be willing to acknowledge the existence of unsafe spaces and I’m more likely to be forced into those situations than they are if they’re male bodied people. That’s a part that’s really been educational and sometimes exciting for me – learning that I can actually feel safe with my bandmates and the bands we go with on tour. It makes me a lot more excited and optimistic about this life than I ever have before.”
Des Ark brings her unique sound to Strange Matter Thursday night alongside RVA favorite Lucy Dacus and Baby Doll. Tickets are still available at $10 and doors open at 9 PM. For more information on the show, click here.
