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I DONT KNOW HOW BUT THEY FOUND ME’s Dallon Weekes is casting off the carefully curated concept of previous projects with ‘Gloom Division’, a deeply personal and defiant record that flips genres, challenges expectations and embraces the unexpected.
Words: Ali Shutler.
Photos: MANICPROJECT.
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“I’ve always felt like an outsider, but music has allowed me to connect with other people,” says Dallon Weekes.
At first, there was his power-pop group, The Brobecks, who existed on the edge of the 00s emo explosion but never had their breakout moment. Then, Dallon joined Panic! At The Disco as a touring guitarist in 2009 before becoming a fully-fledged member for 2013’s ‘Too Weird To Live, Too Rare To Die’ while also working on his own music.
At first, I Dont Know How But They Found Me performed in secret, with Dallon not wanting to take advantage of his glitzy connections before he quit Panic! and released his debut EP ‘1981’ in 2018. Debut album ‘Razzmatazz’ followed in 2020, with both the jaunty horror of ‘Choke’ and the flamboyant defiance of ‘Leave Me Alone’ becoming crossover hits. “It was fantastic to be validated in the public arena. I mean, what artist wouldn’t love to have a hit song?” he asks. “That’s been checked off the list, though. Now it’s time to get weird,” he grins.
‘Gloom Division’ does away with the carefully curated concept of previous iDKHOW projects, with the record unfurling to embrace glam, garage and indie rock with flourishes of goth for good measure. It proudly wears influences from The Strokes, Elvis Costello, Phantom Planets, Ben Folds Five and Weezer on its sleeve but never stays on the same path for long. “There’s a lot going on. I hope it’s not overwhelming,” he says. “But I’m a fan of songs more than I am of genres.”
Working with Dave Fridmann also helped Dallon embrace these different corners. “Of my ten favourite records, he’s made at least four of them. He’s worked with Tame Impala, MGMT and Flaming Lips, who are artists I’ve idolised forever. Being in the same studio as those records were made felt almost spiritual. There is a definite kid in a candy store vibe to this album.”
‘Gloom Division’ is also decadently defiant. “After that first record, there was expectation, and expectation is the thing I’ve never had to deal with before,” he says. Because of Dallon’s past with Panic!, people were quick to assume iDKHOW fit under the same banner when they heard vibrant, hook-driven choruses. “I understand the irony, but I was never really into pop-punk,” he admits. “I was always more into Britpop or alternative indie,” so he deliberately pushed that to the forefront with album two. “It’s great that people like what I did, but I’m not going to do it again. Part of my approach for this record was demand avoidance. You think I’m going to do one thing, so I’m going to do something else.”
“I was never really into pop-punk; I was always more into Britpop or alternative indie”
dallon weekes
Evolution is risky at the best of times, but deliberately pulling away from a scene that’s having such a resurgence feels practically dangerous. “Oh, it’s absolutely a risk, but I would always rather take a chance artistically than play it safe,” says Dallon.
He’s not shy about it either, with first single ‘What Love?’ inspired by 90s R&B and delivered with a smirking tongue-in-cheek abandon. “I just wanted to do something wildly different to what I’d done before. I knew it was going to frighten fans, but I wanted to see what would happen,” he explains.
The first era of I Dont Know How But They Found Me was based around the idea of a mysterious band lost in time, only for their music to be rediscovered decades later. It was fantastical, with the songs flecked with nuggets of truth. By contrast, ‘Gloom Division’ is almost entirely autobiographical. “There’s still a line or two of fiction in there,” he adds.
“The concept stuff is still there for those who wish to dig for it, but I’m leaning less heavily on it,” says Dallon. He got burnt out constantly trying to make everything match a carefully curated aesthetic and wanted to concentrate more on music than story this time around. “Plus, I don’t ever want to have to do something. As soon as I’m expected to do the same thing, I’m absolutely not going to.”
The songs on ‘Gloom Division’ are inspired by Dallon’s recent diagnosis of ADHD and Autism. “I started learning about it as a way to connect with my son, who is on the spectrum, but then TikTok started to send me videos that resonated with me.” So he went to his doctor, who diagnosed him with AuDHD. “Before that, my own neurodivergence had been a mystery to me, but I ended up looking back over my entire life and unpacking it with this new understanding.”
“As for the sin and sexual themes, it was written during lockdown, and there wasn’t a lot else to do”
dallon weekes
The result is a record that’s rich in romance, sin, and Satan, as Dallon started asking questions about the beliefs he’d grown up with and where he was today. “Everyone has to find their own values and their own reasons for why you do or don’t do something,” he offers. “As for the sin and sexual themes, it was written during lockdown, and there wasn’t a lot else to do.”
‘Infatuation’ looks at religious guilt, ‘Downside’ is about being blinded by love, while ‘Gloom Town Brats’ reflects on privilege. “I grew up working class, so I always had a chip on my shoulder,” says Dallon. “When you’re pursuing arts, your biggest hurdle is rich kids that are handed everything while you’ve got to find a way to pursue your career with a second-hand guitar held together with duct tape and keep the lights on at home.” Even during those first few years touring with Panic!, he needed to work day jobs between tours. “It’s easy to go through life with that chip on your shoulder, but as you get older, you start to become aware of what privileges you do have. It’s a song about learning to treat those privileges with care and responsibility.”
The posi-pop of ‘Sunnyside’ was a deliberate attempt at optimism, something iDKHOW has always shied away from before. “There needed to be an answer to all the other gloom and doom that’s on the record,” says Dallon, while closing track ‘Idiots Of Oz’ provides the stamp at the end of the record. “Thematically, the whole record can be captured in that very last line, ‘It doesn’t matter what you think of us’. It’s a lesson I learnt way too late, but the best way to live a healthy life is to stop caring about what people think of you. The opinions of other people don’t have to affect you.” It’s an outlook Dallon takes into his music, but it goes beyond that. “If you live authentically, people will see it, and you’ll find that community.”
‘Satanic Panic’ approaches the same destination from a more combative point of view. Written about the satanic panic in the 1980s that saw a young Dallon forbidden from playing with Garbage Pail Kids trading cards, joke cigarettes and certain brands of bubble gum due to the fear they were evil and would warp his young mind, iDKHOW mock the outrage. “That sense of playfulness is important to me. Even if I’m tackling serious subjects, I like to do it with a sense of humour. It’s a way of disarming the thing you’re talking about.”
“The satanic panic was really to do with identity politics and the structuring of power. It’s the same thing driving current politics, and it’s why trans people’s right to exist has been turned into a political issue,” he says, with certain corners of the world trying to whip up another moral panic. “Part of the deconstruction that I’ve been doing over the past few years has led me to the realisation that any time you have a system in place that tries to take power away from a group that’s marginalised, that’s a problem. It’s something we all need to start being more aware of,” he explains, looking to Gen Z for guidance.
“It’s very cool to see young people have access to a level of empathy I never had growing up in the 80s and 90s where things like homophobic language and fat shaming were very much part of our everyday culture,” says Dallon. “I didn’t realise you couldn’t talk a certain way until it was pointed out to me on Twitter, which I’m thankful for. I don’t think ignorance is necessarily a bad thing if you’re willing to listen and learn. Problems come when people get defensive.”
“The best way to live a healthy life is to stop caring about what people think of you”
dallon weekes
From the moment I Dont Know How But They Found Me released their first single in 2017, there’s been sustained excitement around the world that Dallon has built. “I could not tell you why the music is connecting, though,” he explains. “It’s one of those mysteries that I think a lot about. When I started this project, it was all in secret, and it was just for me. I had no goals whatsoever; I just wanted to get the music out of my head. But then people really got on board with it. It was wonderful, but that was never my intention,” he says.
“I’ve spent a large portion of my life feeling like an alien observing a world that I’m not a part of, and it’s strange to think that there are others that have had that experience as well because it certainly doesn’t feel like it. Once you find those people, though, it’s really encouraging,” he explains.
“I used to be very guarded with my art, but seeing the response that this band got once it started to become public, that let me know it was alright to take the mask off. That’s what I’m doing with this record. It’s a little scary, but it feels right.”
Getting into the recording studio for ‘Gloom Division’ was the only difficult part of this second album, with the drummer Ryan Seaman removed from the band after “a series of broken trusts”. The actual music came together incredibly easily, says Dallon, but it does mean that iDKHOW is now very much a solo project after fighting against it for so long.
“That was part of me being guarded,” says Dallon, who’s always written the music and created the world surrounding the band. “When it’s a group effort, there’s a cushion if something fails, and you get to share your successes with a group of friends. When you’re a solo artist, you’re very exposed, so I went to great lengths my entire life to avoid that. It’s gotten to the point where I just don’t believe in bands anymore, though. It’s sad in a way because it was never on my bucket list to be a frontman or solo artist, but these are the cards that I’ve been dealt, so I’m going to play them as best I can.”
Presenting iDKHOW as a solo project has allowed Dallon to open up, though. He’s set to release the most personal record he’s ever written, and it was created through collaboration rather than the secretive isolation of ‘Razzmatazz’. “I would just send ideas to friends, and if they were inspired to add something, brilliant. If they weren’t, that was cool. No managers were involved; it was just friends making music together. It’s the most collaborative I’ve been in decades,” he explains. Will Joseph Cook (“A wonderful artist who has a real knack for making upbeat songs”) and TikTok bossa nova artist Noah Bobrow helped create ‘Sunnyside’ with Joywave’s Daniel Armbruster, Louis XIV’s Jason Hill and Miniature Tiger members Charlie Brand and Rick Alvin also helping shape ‘Gloom Division’.
After the focused world of that first album, iDKHOW’s new record makes it seem like anything is possible in the future. “’How do I scare the fans next’ is something that’s always on my mind,” grins Dallon. He already has a record and a half’s worth of ideas sitting on a hard drive, but “they’re not all good. I’ve still got some work to do, but I’m already rolling on what comes next.”
With a series of behind-the-scenes issues sorted, the wait between albums should be shorter going forward, but still, Dallon isn’t going to rush anything. “I tend to wait for inspiration to strike rather than forcing an idea to happen,” he explains. “Music always has to mean something. I never just want to manufacture art.”
“I’ve spent a large portion of my life feeling like an alien observing a world that I’m not a part of”
dallon weekes
As well as looking ahead, though, Dallon has also been forced to glance at the past, with The Brobecks having a surprise resurgence on platforms like TikTok and Spotify. “It’s so great to have a project you’ve spent so much time on finally receive some kind of validation, even if it’s 20 years later,” says Dallon, with The Brobecks’ story echoing the fictional narrative of the first iDKHOW album. “I wonder where that idea came from?” he grins.
“When I was doing Brobecks, I was working horrible jobs during the day and struggling to find ways to record. We were doing pretty well with regional tours, but we hit a plateau, and that next step just never came. It seemed like the band would just collect dust, but to see it have a moment has been incredible. I’ve always felt like an underdog, but I’m such a fan of underdogs anyway.”
As it stands, only 2009’s ‘Violent Things’ is available to stream, but there’s more stuff Dallon wants to put online. “There’s just a bunch of hurdles to jump over and bureaucratic red tape to wade through, so it’s a matter of finding the time,” he explains. “I’ll always play a Brobeck song or two on tour because that project still does mean something to me, and there’s probably a handful of old Brobeck songs that feel like they never really got a proper chance, so I still might rerecord them and put them on an iDKHOW record at some point. It’s not really the priority, but it’s something I haven’t discounted,” he explains.
Across iDKHOW’s catalogue, Dallon has used music for catharsis. “It’s how I connect myself to the world. It’s how I try to process the things I don’t understand as well as the things I do but think are horrible. Before there was any kind of diagnoses or therapies for me, there was music,” he explains.
“Playing shows is the antithesis of working through those dark things, though,” he explains, with iDKHOW set to spend a chunk of 2024 on the road. “You’re in a room with a bunch of strangers who may not share a single thing in common with anybody around them except for the song that’s currently being played. That’s where that spiritual community feeling comes from,” says Dallon. “It’s a lot like church; it’s just a little more rowdy, and there are more swears. Being that one thing that unites people is an incredible honour, but it comes with a responsibility,” he adds, with iDKHOW, ‘Gloom Division’ and the upcoming run of shows all built around the same idea. “It’s all about ways to bring people together rather than divide.”
Taken from the March 2024 issue of Dork. iDKHOW’s album ‘Gloom Division’ is out 23rd February.
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