Diandra Interviews People Museum: Turning Sound Into An Aesthetic

When we go to an art museum, we go to observe the framed works of humanity by humanity. We are fascinated by how sculptors, painters, and photographers mold the human spirit through figures. People Museum may not paint or sculpt but they do shape their sound according to a vision, and in our interview, they discussed how their debut, I Dreamt You In Technicolor, was a visual experience that led your sonic one.

Diandra: You are about to introduce your debut album, I Dreamt You In Technicolor. What inspired the album title, and how do you think your music is a Technicolor dream?

Jeremy: We had a song called Technicolor Dreams, and it did not even make the album, but I was obsessed with the word technicolor.The band is about taking a lot of acoustics and processing them and putting a lot of filters on them, and it made me think of “technicolor” in a way.

Claire: We also worked with this photographer, Arielle Bobb-Willis. She was really amazing. We were really inspired by her photography and how colorful and vibrant it was, and how it matched our music.

Diandra: Speaking of images, the way you pose and move in photography feels like art; as if your sculptures. Was that purposeful in association with your name: People Museum?

Both: Definitely!

Claire: We met Arielle before she did our artwork. It was her dream to work with us because her art is exactly what our music looks like. It brings in the real, the fake, and the odd ways of how we look at people.

Diandra: Your tracks can have undercurrents of religion and spirituality. How would you see the difference between finding yourself religiously and finding yourself personally?

Jeremy: It’s not that much different, but I don’t have experience finding myself religiously.

Claire: I’m the one who brings up the religious stuff a lot because I come from a really strict, religious family. I lost my religion, and found an identity for myself at the same time. I still work at a church, and can see how religion can help people, but I am in a weird, conflicted place when it comes to religion.

Diandra: So how do you feel music has given you an identity?

Jeremy: For me, at least, I used to be super shy. A lot of my friends, came through music. Then, I started working professionally, and my life molded itself around music.

Claire: I have always had a hard time articulating myself in conversations and emotions. Music has been really helpful with that and therapeutic.

Diandra: What do you feel you bring to each other in building People Museum’s identity?

Claire: I always had a difficult time finishing things, and completing a thought. The way we jam, he sends me an entire instrumental tracks, and I just start writing the lyrics. So the way it works is that Jeremy fill ups the parts of the creative process that I get frustrated with.

Jeremy: When I’m making stuff a lot of times, I am able to just throw things at Claire, randomly, and she molds it into something real. I am able to drive things, in one way, in my head. For a while, I was doing music alone, and was used to my own voice. Yet, she just takes it a whole other way, and it has opened my brain up and taught me a lot about singing and collaboration.

Diandra: Was there a specific moment when you knew you had to form this duo?

Jeremy: Funny enough, it was really quick. I met Claire one day of the week, and it was like, “Oh, we should make music together?” I’m not really about BS, and talking about what we should. From that week, we started making songs, and, it’s funny, because we kind of started our relationship backwards. A lot of people are friends and then become professional partners, but we became partners first and through the process started knowing each other. Now, she is my friend.

Diandra: How did you see yourself grow in the year it took you to make this record?

Jeremy: Phew! That was the tough part. By the time we got to song 20, it stopped being super inspiring. I don’t want to make it sound bad, but by the end it was about making goals and meeting them. It was just working at that point, and a lot of beautiful things come out of it.

Claire: I think it was about learning a craft, and pushing and seeing what we could do. Before making the album, we had an entire set of songs that we let go of because we thought we could do better. We went a completely different direction sonically, and worked hard for a really long time, and I think we saw the results.

Diandra: What do you hope are the messages people receive from your debut about you as a group?

Claire: Lyrically, I hope someone can listen to a song, and I identify with it, and work through something through the song. Even on some audacious level, I want people to have a good time and be free with our music.

Jeremy: People Museum, at least in this first album, I thought of it as music that does not ask a lot of the listeners. There are certain musics, which I love, that ask a lot of the listener and presents heavy statements. I would hope that, in our music, someone does not have to think of the depth of the message and just have fun.

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