Dale J. Gordon is an alternative folk artist from West Virginia that now lives in Nashville. We listened to his new album “It Doesn’t Light” and were automatically excited to interview him. Much of Dale’s music feels like it would be home in a film like “Juno” and is reminiscent of Bright Eyes. Check out our interview with Dale and listen to his new album everywhere you do music at the links at the bottom of this story.

BB: Where in WV are you from? 

Dale: I was born in Fairmont, WV and raised in Farmington and Mannington as a child. I moved to Clarksburg when I was a teenager and graduated from Robert C. Byrd high school there.

BB: How did you get into music and what made you decide this is what you want to do? 

Dale: I got interested in music and how recording worked before I ever learned an instrument. I must’ve been six years old when my Uncle Joe showed me how to record my new favorite song “Paint It Black” by The Rolling Stones from the TV onto a cassette boombox. When I was twelve years old, I’d ride my bike on the dirt roads of Farmington listening to tapes of Cheech and Chong, Alice Cooper, and The Doors on my cassette walkman. My friends and I would record our own audio sketches on tapes and speed them up or slow them down to sound funny. Around thirteen I started going through my step dad’s killer record collection. He had The Sex Pistols, Black Sabbath, The Dead Boys, 80’s metal like Anvil, Krokus and Saxon, but he also had John Prine and Jimi Hendrix records in there too.

My parents got me an electric guitar around thirteen or fourteen and I started practicing along to records. I’ve never had a formal guitar lesson but I learned a ton of priceless stuff from a Clarksburg musician named Guy Kemp, he’d keep me up until sunrise on school nights during high school playing me his record collection. Once I started learning to use 4-track tape machines I knew that I’d been bitten by something that wasn’t going to let go.

BB: Who are some of your obvious influences but who are some musicians that inspire you that people might not expect? 

Dale: Tom Waits, Frank Zappa, Butthole Surfers, John Prine, and Melvins would be obvious influences. But since I view my musical intake the same way some people inventory their food diets; I wouldn’t be quite the same without having ingested Billie Holiday, PJ Harvey, Leonard Cohen, early Flaming Lips, Jimi Hendrix, Robert Johnson, The Dead Boys, Captain Beefheart, Joan Armatrading, Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, Warren Zevon, Gang of Four, Cab Calloway, Eddie Murphy, Ween, Cheech and Chong, Laurie Anderson, Howlin’ Wolf, Kentucky Bill Monroe, Jim Carroll, Bobby Lane/ The Weedhawks, Clutch, Nektar, Rancid, Offspring, Epitaph Punk O Rama compilations, Local H, Nirvana, Sound Garden, Franz List, Chopin, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, Earth, movie soundtracks, and L7. I could keep going but let’s save some space.

BB: Describe your sound for someone that hasn’t listened yet. 

BB: How do you approach songwriting? Lyrics first? A riff? A melody?

Dale: I definitely do not have a go to formula for songwriting. I’ve had lyrics come out of nowhere and I scribble them down, then they may wait a few months for the right music. I’ve also made guitar parts that float around for a while before getting married to the right words. But I’d say my favorite way to write is to hit record on a handheld tape machine and just make everything up on the spot.

Sometimes I’ll have to go back and change some things to be happy with it, but every once in a while they will come out exactly the way they should without me messing with anything. Those are the songs that I’m inspired by most because I usually have no idea where they came from or how to perform that magic trick again—that’s the stuff that keeps me coming back. It’s like panning for gold, if I can just find a few nuggets to start with, then I’ve got something to apply my skills and work ethic towards.

BB: Where do you get your inspiration for what you write? Do you write from personal experience or do you write from the perspective of other people’s situations? 

Dale: I love writing from different character’s perspectives when I can, after doing that for so long and living my own life; the line in between gets thinner and thinner and I can’t help but to unload some of myself in there too.

BB: What are some of your favorite experiences that have come from making music?

Number one: Recording! The ritual of recording and mixing sounds together is what drives me the most. I work to achieve a textured, audio tapestry that is stimulating to the ear. After everything is mixed I love working on the track order for an album and then pushing “Play” and seeing if it takes all the right roads to get to the end.

Number Two: Having my music featured in films is always exciting because I usually don’t know what song they’re going to use or what the scene is until I see it and it’s always a cool surprise! 

BB: What is your favorite track you’ve done?

Dale: I’ve never liked picking favorites of anything but I’ll give it a whack.

My song “Mister Motel Soap” from my new album It Doesn’t Light is my favorite of that session. Personally, when I was starting to record those songs; I was struggling with my relationship with music, performing, and creativity in general. I hit a wall where I wasn’t sure if creativity wasn’t flowing as well as it did when I was younger because of age or responsibilities, or if I was just jaded and the same material that I would’ve gotten me excited years ago–just didn’t spark anything in me. So I was procrastinating about getting started on the album and one day I said “I’m going to start recording a new album tomorrow!”

Through recording, I realized that the old days of material pretty much “writing itself” were over, and that if I wanted a song to turn out as good as I could make it; I was going to have to put in extra work. Don’t get me wrong, the magic is still there–it just takes longer to get to it the older you get, or the more distractions and obligations that you have. So with that song the initial nugget that I was working with that did seem to just come from the ether, ended up taking a lot of wrangling and rearranging to get it to where it is now. And the guitar solo probably took fifteen tries to get right but it’s all one take with no edits and I’m proud of that–just don’t ask me to play it because I don’t know exactly what I did. 

BB: What’s next for you?

Dale: Promoting “It Doesn’t Light!” My wife Ashley and I have been shooting music videos for every song on the album for the last year. We have six videos in the can and three more to go! Currently booking fall and winter dates. I’ve been booking podcast appearances and radio/TV shows more than the traditional bar tours lately because you usually get a nice video of your performance and an interview as well. The videos are always up online for people to check out on their own time rather than rallying people into a small club at 11pm on a Tuesday night, having them pay a $10 cover, then pay for overpriced drinks, sit through bands that they don’t really like, and then hope that they stick around for your set and buy some of your merch too?!

I love playing dive bar shows–it just can’t be every night anymore. Call me sophisticated or call me old–what’s the difference? I’m having fun with the whole process again which is really important to me now. There are still headaches but they’re no longer from overthinking about unnecessary details or things that I have no control over.

Thanks for having me, guys! It was nice talking to you!

To find Dale and his music check out these links:

SPOTIFY: https://open.spotify.com/album/3sRY64DoQ4CnIiokyPfIjg?si=jowUqPodRIOwaryg5IRztA

APPLE: https://music.apple.com/us/album/it-doesnt-light/1754689877

BANDCAMP: https://dalejgordon.bandcamp.com/album/it-doesnt-light

YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/@dalejgordon

INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/dalejgordonig/

FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/dalej369

TIKTOK: https://www.tiktok.com/@dalejgordon?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc

Vinyl and CDs store: https://dalejgordonfactory.bigcartel.com/category/vinylhttps://dalejgordonfactory.bigcartel.com/category/vinyl

Email for booking: bookdalejgordon@gmail.com