How did dizzybloom come together?

We were officially formed in March 1995 in Austin, Texas. Juliet and I met Stacey Evans through some other mutual friends and musicians that we all hung around with while she was the singer for Bittersweet June. We were in one of our many early groups and we were calling ourselves Love and a Question at the time. We didn’t really know who we were or what we wanted to do musically and we were just trying to figure out the great puzzle that was Austin and Sixth Street and that whole difficult mid-90’s/post-grunge music scene back then.

I think we first saw Stacey singing with her band on one of those late-night cable access television programs that would come on at about two or three o’clock in the morning. We just liked how she looked and how she had a very casual singing style that seemed kind of shy and unassuming. She had obviously dyed her hair raven-black and she never smiled or even bothered to look into the camera during that entire hour-long program. The effect of that made me think she was very sad and lonely and she was also very atypical for a vocalist in Austin, especially then. Her lyrics were interesting and seemed extremely thoughtful, which was also very important to us. And though she would literally kill me for saying this, she kind of reminded me of a female version of Morrissey when I first saw her.

So what actually happened soon after that was that three members of Bittersweet June and then two members of Love and a Question (us) became the original five members of dizzybloom. Steven Oakes joined the band about a year after that as a permanent lead-guitarist, when Stacey insisted on it and threatened to leave the band if it didn’t happen. She didn’t really like the fact that I wasn’t a proto-typical lead guitar player and that I mainly focused on rhythm and tight strumming patterns. I may have grown up listening to Rush, Led Zeppelin and Yes but I never really played the guitar like that. I was more into Johnny Marr and The Smiths, Elvis Costello and The Pretenders. Steve and I got along pretty well (still do) and I was more than happy to let him take 90% of all the lead parts and then just let me write and play rhythm, 12-strings and acoustic guitar.

Where did the undying flame to pour every waking hour into your craft come from? What are your inspirations? Motivations?

We were old-school all the way when it came to how we approached our quest for musical success. We played anywhere and everywhere, as much as we possibly could and we didn’t care about money or even how far we had to travel to get to a gig. We played as far away as Lubbock and Dallas, and also Houston, San Antonio and all places in between. We had boundless amounts of energy, at least in those first few years, and we felt like it was necessary for us to “pay our dues” as an emerging and unknown band from Austin.

We liked the fact that we could say we were from Austin and we believed it gave us a certain amount of extra credibility as a group that was from the “Live Music Capital of the World”. Never mind the fact that we would play to a crowd of five while we were actually in Austin. The crowds were always much bigger and more appreciative of live music in the other cities. You could always tell when other musicians, especially guitar players, were at your shows in Austin because they were the ones who would stand right up close to the stage with their arms crossed and just stand there and stare at your hands on your guitar, watching your every move and every riff. Then they would never clap or act excited after a song and usually within about 10 minutes they would just frown, look down and walk out of the club.

Austin, as laid-back as it wants to seem, was and still is extremely competitive within its hallowed music scene. Everyone is in a band and everyone writes songs and plays the guitar. I think one of our biggest motivations was just to prove that we belonged there and that we deserved attention and respect from our musical peers. We wanted people to know without a doubt that we worked hard and we were dead-serious about all of it.