By Keith Walsh
I asked darkwave artist Darwin how as a businessperson and family man he conjures up the complex themes in his music, particularly in regards to his new single and video, “Don’t Tell A Soul.”
“You know,” he said, “I kind of treat it like writing a movie or something. I think we all have that in our life where you hear a certain kind of music and you just associate something with it…the mood of the song, the music first, and then I listen to the music. And I said, ‘oh well, what kind of story would be over this?’ and that kind of came up. And I already had the idea for the video already too. And so it was just a sort of noir tale. And so that seems like all those noir movies had that sort of love triangle, mystery and shadows and stuff like that. “
For his latest single, Darwin reached out to video director Rona Rougeheart, who he met while playing in Dallas with David J (Bauhaus, Love and Rockets). Having seen her work, he knew she was the perfect fit to direct “Don’t Tell A Soul.” (Darwin is also the manager of David J.)
The video is a stunning, mostly black and white experience, one of the most memorable music videos of recent years. I asked Darwin how they went about conceptualizing the very impactful visual images. “We did a mood board,” he said. “I would go and find images from movies, and sometimes just random objects. And I would put them in this mood box….she went right there and that’s just her take on it. It’s a really good take.”
Studio Secrets
As for the song itself, it’s an ominous and dramatic production. Layers of guitars and a melodic bassline with acoustic drums (Brian Viglione) lead into the narrative of Darwin’s vocal. I told him I picked up that it would have been easier for him to make it a commercial pop tune, something he resisted. “Yeah,” he told me, “I actually purposely avoided doing a typical song structure just because ….I try to set parameters to sort of spurn inspiration. And so I was wanting to not do what you always do, or what you’re expected to do in the context of a pop song.”
The layers of guitars are treated in unique ways, including two vintage pedals: a Wren and Cuff Pickle Pie Hella Fuzz and Rat Distortion driving a Vox AC15 and Fender Princeton. The guitar used was a 1971 Rickenbacker 360. The subtle and gritty synth pad sandwiched in the layers of dark yet sweet guitars was played by Ash Reyes, using an internal Logic Pro plug in, which Darwin treated, using the Vox AC 15 again as well as compression and widening. The clean guitar track was run through a Boss PS-6 Harmonist.
More on the guitar sound: “I really get caught up in setting a mood and a vibe,” Darwin says. “These songs have been music first and then the words after. I spent a lot of time on those guitars because I wanted them to do certain things. And I wanted to create that swimming (sound) where you can hear this wall of guitars, but you can also hear the individual guitars.”
I asked him about the melodic bass playing, that brings a slightly whimsical note to the sound. “I just can’t help it,” he said. “When I start playing bass, I just start sounding like New Order. I just am really, really in love with New Order’s bass and the bassist…and that’s actually played on the Yamaha Peter Hook signature bass.” Darwin, who also has a New Order tribute band, called Temptation, will soon release a single with three tracks: “Don’t Tell A Soul,” a cover of New Order’s “Everything’s Gone Green,” and a remix of “Don’t Tell A Soul” by his friend and colleague Julian Shah-Tayler, who also plays synth on the original track.
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