Sloan Struble, more commonly known as the indie-pop hitmaker Dayglow, is ready to reintroduce himself with his new self-titled album. Showcasing the similarities between his 2019 Fuzzybrain and his latest record, Dayglow, both albums not only sound sonically alike, but they both showcase a similar subject visually through the album art — one being a clay model of Struble while the other is the singer himself.
Calling in from a hotel room in Nashville, Tennessee, the Texas-native wears a red shirt, color matched perfectly with the cover of Dayglow. In promotion and celebration of the distinctly 2010s-sounding indie-rock record, Struble’s self-titled Dayglow tour begins this fall. “I’m stoked to see it,” he says. “I haven’t gotten to see the production in person [yet,] so it’s gonna be cool.” Scaling back the stage set up will be an adjustment, as the new record calls less for keys and more guitar chords. This will be the first time Dayglow embarks on a tour sans a keyboardist, committing fully to the guitar-focused direction that this album leans into.
Dayglow is the personification of a well-loved debut Fuzzybrain, an album including the platinum-certified single “Can I Call You Tonight?,” as well as other album standouts “Hot Rod” and “Listerine.” Struble explains, “A lot of [Dayglow] is very full circle and back to the basics. So I referenced myself and a lot of the unreleased Fuzzybrain music.” The new record’s first track is a formerly unreleased song from the archives of Struble’s SoundCloud, titled “Mindless Creatures,” a song that has gained a new life and a revamped sound from its original 2017 demo version.
Going back to the basics with Dayglow includes scaling back on instrumentation, synths and the “bleep-bloop” accents that were found all over People In Motion, Struble’s 2022 album. Dayglow draws inspirations from Phoenix, Two Door Cinema Club and The Strokes.
When it comes to his art, the intention usually has more to do with its purpose than what equipment you use to carry it out. While Dayglow may sound simpler then its predecessor, in production it is arguably equally as intricate. “I love music gear and think they can be used as tools, but you can get so carried away when you’re making songs, [that] it doesn’t really feel like it’s coming from you. Getting rid of all the tools forced me to have myself be the source where the creativity was coming from.”
Struble says he sold most of the gear he used in making People In Motion, saying that, “sometimes, you have to be dramatic.” “Stripping back a lot of tools will help with [authenticity] and with this album, I want it to be indistinguishable … like, this is Dayglow,” Struble continues. “It’s so immediately identifiable and that was kind of the goal. I think it’s easier to do that when you have less tools.” For a true, raw and almost live experience, nearly every track was recorded in one take.
His songwriting process changed without the extra equipment, forcing songs to come from a more authentic place, one that not only sounds cooler, but also holds even more meaning. The singer says this switch was an adjustment at first, but ultimately led to larger rewards.
Part of being an artist or creative person involves striving for perfection. When adding numbers and chart position goals into the mix, the original purpose to create that art can become muddled. Struble says that when writing Dayglow, he had to let go of the idea of going viral and focus on being present. “It feels like I’m looking at my teenage self. It’s been really special to look back and look at Logic [Pro] files on how I made a song cause it’s so different from how I do it now,” he says. “It teaches me more about myself as an artist. I think it’s really fun.” This release allowed the singer to embrace what Dayglow was when it began, before the numbers and charts: just a kid writing songs in his room.
While it’s no surprise Struble’s songs began as a solo project — including writing, mixing, mastering and producing — he took off his producer headphones (though not for long) and traded them in for a director’s chair. “I love making music videos and how music can be visual,” he says. Beyond writing the songs, both of the music videos were also directed and edited by Struble himself.
Struble explains that he takes one idea for videos and runs with it, so long as the idea is within reason and most importantly, within budget. “I want to take that one idea and make it an entire video, which is kind of the idea of a lot of my videos, is just one niche idea blown out of proportion,” Struble says.
The “Cocoon” music video, for example, features a pair of vintage headphones from eBay which he shot at golden hour on the beach. The video’s relaxed style cleverly calls back to all of the songs being recorded in one take. “To me, that really matters down to the details of how something is edited or colored. I think it’s how personality is really shown, especially now with Gen Z. Details really, really matter. The way something is colored or how much film grain is on it, everything is all a vibe set. I just had a vision for the videos and it’s so much easier to do it [myself] than have to explain it. I just end up doing it myself.”
Internalizing the effect that your music has on others is something that’s still catching up to Struble. Fans see and hear Dayglow as an artist who is approachable and vulnerable — as reflected in the songs — but in reality, becoming these things remains a work in progress for the singer. When Struble wrote Fuzzybrain, his audience didn’t exist yet. For the new self-titled record, he challenged himself to return to that place of creating without considering how it might sit with listeners. “I really tried to make an album for myself and that felt really therapeutic,” he says.
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