Two of the hottest, rising bands in rock, Dirty Honey and Dorothy, are heading out on the North American “California Dreaming” tour to substantiate their shared message that “Rock is alive and thriving.” We sat down with them to answer five questions for New Noise:
What prompted you to want to go on tour for six to eight weeks and play music every night?
Marc: I remember before all this (Dirty Honey’s initial success) happened, I was watching this piece on a wingsuiter (a person who wears a wing suit, a special outfit that is designed for gliding through air), and this guy was asked, “Why do you do this, it’s so dangerous?”
And his attitude was, “Listen, you have one life to do what you want,” and he said, “I can’t fathom how anyone could sit in an office from nine to five doing the same thing they probably hate every day of their life until they retire, and then they retire at 65 or whatever, and they live for 10 or 15 years, if they even have good years left; that, to me, is the definition of insanity.” And I really identified with that.
I decided a long time ago that I was not going to live a traditional life, and that I wanted to see the world. I also thought I had something to say, so when you wrap all those things together, being a musician fits in really nicely with that.”
Dorothy: Literally, everything he just said, like line for line I agree; that’s how I feel. And I feel like maybe that’s how we are, and that’s how we feel because it’s our destiny. I like to think that, but for me, it’s not just making music; it’s helping people and planting seeds for them in the lyrics, and they’re not getting beat over the head with it, but they’re in there. And getting to go out and do that, you’re giving people hope and joy. But I also wanted to see the world; I wouldn’t want to sit in a cubicle or office, and I probably would get fired; I don’t take orders from management very well. It’s not in my personality, and maybe we were just kind of built for this.
There’s this feeling of, “I’m about to go on the road.” It’s like you feel alive; you’re about to go travel; you’re about to go see things; it’s exciting. And then it also has its challenges. It can be really tough on your body; it can be really exhausting. After several weeks out there, you’re ready to come home, but that initial feeling of the breath of fresh air is super exciting.
What’s amazing is that every time I go on tour, amazing, supernatural, out-of-the-ordinary things happen out there because you’re in the place of being open, and you have an adventurous spirit. Then, when you’re at home, you’re like, “OK, 9 a.m., let’s go to the gym’ and it’s the same grind every day. There’s something magical about it. It makes us feel alive.”
Marc: “I remember working on Sons Of Anarchy (as a location scout), which at the time was one of my favorite shows. I was going to cool locations and seeing stunts happening on set, like cool car crashes, motorcycle chases, and guns firing. And I remember thinking, “Wow, I love this show, and I should really love this experience of being on this set,” but there were more days that I thought, like, “I fucking hate being here. This is taking up way too much of my time, and I want to be somewhere else.” And there was this ticking clock that I felt was bearing down on me, and I needed to get out of that.
Marc, I know you like to get down into the pit; what prompted you to do that?
Marc: Probably somewhere on the Joyous Wolf tour we did, that first tour back from COVID, I think I really wanted to make a connection with people in a physical way because we had been so physically separated for so long. And I wanted to prove to myself and to the crowd that I’m not scared of COVID anymore, that this isn’t something I’m worried about. I think there’s an actual physical connection you can make, but there’s also one that’s deeper emotionally and, philosophically, the idea of reaching out and singing to someone face-to-face and looking into their eyes, six inches away, and shaking their hand, that probably meant a lot more than just going to a concert and seeing an artist just stand on the stage and do their thing.”
Dorothy: I will not crowd surf, but, for sure, I will go down into the audience and hug people and touch their hands, give them high fives. I take peoples’ phones a lot and then turn around and film the whole thing; they love that. They freak out. Whatever I can do to make them happy, I’ll definitely go down and sing to people. It’s really fun.
What keeps each show fresh?
Marc: I think it’s the fact that every audience is just different, they give you different energy. Depending on what they’re giving to you, they can totally dictate how the show goes, and then I think, just as an artist, you want to perform at your best every night, and there are always people who are seeing you for the first time, and you want to make sure they leave knowing they just saw something special, so that’s enough motivation for me to bring my best every night.
Dorothy: We have an opener or headliner setlist as a template, but it tends to change every night or every few nights. Depending on the vibe of the audience or maybe how my voice is feeling at the time, I might take out some of the harder ones and replace them with something a little more easy to ride. So sometimes we’ll just switch it up, but there’s good and bad. You might get bored of the same thing all the time and just phone it in, but also, practice makes perfect, and your muscle memory locks in, and then you’re just super tight, and it’s like a no-brainer. It just depends; if I get too bored with something or feel a certain way, I’ll switch the songs up for sure.
Is there one show that you and your band have done that sticks out?
Dorothy: Oh yeah, there’s been several, and when it’s good, it feels like an out-of-body experience. The Greta Van Fleet show at the Masonic in San Francisco, we’d been on the road for a few weeks. I had a really nice, hot shower; I got really warmed up; I had this amazing silver sequin cape, and I don’t know what happened, but something changed, something took over, and I don’t know, but I felt like Aretha Franklin or something.
I had like an out of body experience, my manager was like, “I think you were floating, like, a half an inch off the ground.” But I was just wailing; I had such a good show, and the energy was fantastic. It was like this really strong, powerful connection with the audience, and everything felt perfect from start to finish. There’ve been a couple shows in Denver like that in a theatre there, Welcome To Rockville last year in Florida—30,000 people were chanting. It was really mind-blowing.
Marc: “Yeah honestly there’s too many to pick one. But I think Denver is always a great place to play; Red Rocks was amazing. I think, though, that the most recent one for me would have to be Milan with Guns N’ Roses; there was definitely this weird feeling. I speak a little Italian, so when I think the Italian audience knows that and appreciates my history with the country—I could tell before we walked out on stage that this was going be really fun. So they were amazing, getting to speak a little Italian. Because that was one of the things in Europe that really threw me was being in Sweden and Denmark, speaking English between songs, I didn’t really feel like the audience knew what I was saying.
That was definitely an adjustment for me, so being able to do say a few words in Italian and get that immediate feedback, I think some people felt, “Whoa, this guy is saying something real.” It was really special for me, and I think we were all so really surprised how engaged the crowd in Vienna was, we did not expect that at all. So that really took us by surprise too. Red Rocks was really great, any time we play LA it’s great, Detroit of course. Kansas City is sleeper for me in America; that is a great rock ‘n’ roll town. That’s like a real rock ‘n’ roll town that gets overlooked a bit on the tour schedule.
What are you looking forward to most about the California Dreaming tour?
Dorothy: Marc taking me to cool coffee shops. No pressure.
Marc: Getting to know everyone on a deeper level is going to be really cool. And who knows; you never know what can happen on tour.
Dirty Honey and Dorothy tour dates:
September 7 Revolution Hall, Portland, OR^
September 8 The Neptune, Seattle, WA^
September 9 Knitting Factory, Spokane, WA^
September 11 The Pub Station, Billings, MT^
September 13 Bourbon Theatre, Lincoln, NE^
September 14 Val Air Ballroom, Des Moines, IA^
September 16 House of Blues, Cleveland, OH^
September 17 Del Lago Casino, Waterloo, NY@
September 19 Club Soda, Montreal, QC*
September 21 HMAC, Harrisburg, PA^
September 24 Pine Knob, WRIF Radio Show, Detroit, MI+
September 25 Louder Than Life, Louisville, KY+
September 27 The Intersection, Grand Rapids, MI^
September 28 The Forge, Joliet, IL^
September 30 Apollo Theatre AC, Belvidere, IL^
October 1 Red Flag, St. Louis, MO^
October 2 Temple Live, Fort Smith, AR^
October 5 Rialto Theatre, Tucson, AZ^
October 7 The Catalyst, Santa Cruz, CA^
October 9 Aftershock Festival, Sacramento, CA+
* Mac Saturn will support
@ Dorothy will support
^ Mac Saturn and Dorothy will support
+ Festival date
