Diandra Interviews Dizzyride: Transcending The Sounds of The World
Dizzyride are bringing their “other”-worldly sound to anyone eager to be transported by music. Yes, sound can take you into your mind, but not every song can take you into your imagination. Dizzyride are rising to bring music that is un-afraid of being strange and transcendent, especially when trying to redefine how we approach soul. While most see the Soul genre as spiritual, they are upping that definition into sonically metaphysical.
Diandra What do you feel about your music represents your home cities of Montreal and Venice?
Dizzyride: Nico can write some melodies that have a classic, retro Italian quality to them and Zoe might have a particular way of writing lyrics due to French having been her primary language in the past, but I think that our music reflects the time we have spent living in New York a lot more than either of those two cities.
Diandra: As a duo, how do you feel you creatively balance each other? What does the other do, artistically, that inspires you?
Dizzyride: Nico inspires Zoe with unexpected chord progressions and strange melodies. Zoe has a good ability to find hooks and make songs catchy but weird! Usually, Nico writes for Zoe and vice versa.
Diandra: Describe the first time you knew you wanted to be an artist, and how it differed or felt the same as when you knew you wanted to form Dizzyride?
Zoe: I went to public schools where art was a huge part of the curriculum and everyone was equally encouraged and good at creating in some form or an other. I never considered myself an artist because art seemed normalized. I see almost everybody performing everyday tasks in artful ways. It’s actually harder and less likely not to be an artist than it is to be one, I think! That being said, making art feels very natural and so did forming this project together. It’s been stimulating to narrow down our references and to be precise about our sound. It might be the first time for both of us that we really push beyond our comfort level of making whatever music happens to come out from jamming and trying to stay extremely focused. We both have a vast range of musical inspiration and it’s been challenging to not incorporate every single inspiring musician’s style or genre into our songwriting. We had to learn to disregard some of our inspirations to achieve a more cohesive sound. It takes discipline for us.
Nico: I was pretty good at calcio (italian for soccer) but soon realized the lifestyle was waaay far from my prospective. On my dad’s side everybody knew how to play an instrument so it was pretty easy for my character to get down and follow a more party-esque way of living.
Diandra: Your music has been described as “psychedelic”, transcendent, and astral. What do you believe in your sound has attracted such cosmic comparisons?
Dizzyride: Hopefully, not just the use of space echo! (hehe). Maybe, the lyrics because they tend to be a little absurd and imaginative rather than concrete or straight-forward.
Diandra: You base your music roots in soul. How do you believe the genre has expanded in definition, and what do you hope to add to its meaning?
Dizzyride: Soulful music to me has the attractive and relatable qualities of pop but is more weighted. It’s catchy, and glimmering but the content feels more important, even metaphysical. I hope that we can help the genre appear less dated or specifically about a sound, perhaps keeping it alive as a feeling?
Diandra: Being considered an “international duo”, where do you hope to travel and incorporate local sounds?
Dizzyride: I’d like to learn a lot more about time signatures. I want to study jazz music and am also interested in traveling to countries where popular music and dancing is performed to time signatures that differ from the more commonly used time signatures in North America.
Diandra: What do you feel is your ultimate message as artists?
Dizzyride: Simply, keep evolving and looking forward.
Diandra: Cite 3 Random Facts About Each Member of Dizzyride.
Nico has an intolerance for fingertips being rubbed against cloth or jeans material.
People can never guess where he’s from. He loves to go to the beach but doesn’t often swim there.
He loves to go to the beach but doesn’t often swim there.
Zoe would like to but can’t listen to harsh sounding music.
She can stand extreme cold more than extreme heat.
Her great-grandmother will be turning 100 years old this year!
Our band consists of 4 additional members now! One fun fact about each of them: Gary sends Nico one “any parties tonight?” text message a day . Andre becomes more Jamaican as he gets tired. Andrea knows how to make dough but won’t show it . Ethan is on a mission to reconnect with a palm reader he met years ago .
For More Information on Dizzyride Click Here.
