Q&A: Death Valley Girls Rebuild Through Loss on ‘Welcome to Earth’

MusicQ&A

Sep 30

INTERVIEW

DEATH VALLEY GIRLS FIND NEW LIFE — For Bonnie Bloomgarden, the road to Death Valley Girls’ new album Welcome to Earth began in the ashes. Following the devastating Eaton Fire in Southern California, Bloomgarden was forced to confront the loss of her home in Altadena. The Death Valley Girls frontwoman and songwriter found herself asking questions of what survives catastrophe? How does anyone begin rebuilding when there is no way to return to what existed before?

Those questions became the emotional terrain of Welcome to Earth, Death Valley Girls’ forthcoming record out October 9. But while the circumstances surrounding the album are marked by devastating loss, the record itself refuses to remain there. Bloomgarden turns toward connection between people and animals, grief and renewal, and the collective and the natural world.

As Bloomgarden navigated grief, she found herself supported by the musicians who make up the current Death Valley Girls lineup: Bailey Chapman (drums), Laena Myers (guitars), Alana Amram (bass), Sarah Safaie (saxophone) and Gregg Foreman (keys).

“I don't think this record could have been made with any other group of people,” Bloomgarden says.

The record’s heart is best captured by its muscular second single, “Basic Witch.” Rather than treating blame as a straightforward response, the song examines the cycle of assigning responsibility.

“We all were taught that there's just a duality to everything,” Bloomgarden says to Luna. “There's good and bad, right and wrong, and if you figure that out, then you'll be safe. I had a bunch of situations where I got in fights or breakups. It was the same cycle repeating itself over and over again. I spent some time being like, what am I doing? Am I the bad guy? I realized there is no bad guy. We're all bringing ourselves to these situations. Instead of pointing fingers or blaming anyone, I want to change me. I'm the thing that can change.”

The song’s accompanying video stars legendary punk icon Exene Cervenka of LA punk pioneers X. Cervenka’s presence connects Death Valley Girls’ contemporary psych-rock sensibility to the lineage of a city’s underground music history.

After a catastrophe, rebuilding is rarely a clean or linear process. Welcome to Earth feels expansive due to its understanding of survival. Loss exists within it, but so do friendship, nature and community.

“I think that there is a record that should be hopeful to anyone,” Bloomgarden says.

LUNA: Thank you for talking to Luna. Our readers would love to get to know you and your music more. For any readers who aren’t familiar with you yet, what inspires your artistic style and sound?

BONNIE: Waterfalls in October and neon colors, highlighters and black sharpies, dogs, the planets. Everything is so inspiring.

LUNA: You just released your newest single “Basic Witch.” What feelings or emotions sparked the song to come to its fruition?

BONNIE: For a really long time, I think we all were taught that there's just a duality to everything. There's good and bad, right and wrong, and if you figure that out, then you'll be safe. I had a bunch of situations where I got in fights or breakups. It was the same cycle repeating itself over and over again. I spent some time being like, what am I doing? Am I the bad guy? I realized there is no bad guy. We're all bringing ourselves to these situations. Instead of pointing fingers or blaming anyone, I want to change me. I'm the thing that can change.

LUNA: The “Basic Witch” video features punk icon Exene Cervenka. What made you want Exene to be part of the visual world of this song? How was your experience filming the video?

BONNIE: Exene is so cool, and such a special person in every single way. Candy, who taught Exene in the video, had the idea of Karate Kid. I just wanted Candy to teach Exene to be tough. She's just really strong and cool.

LUNA: Welcome to Earth asks some profound questions about what survives catastrophe and what remains after loss. What inspired this new album and what messages or emotions did you feel compelled to explore on the new record?

BONNIE: I lost my house. I lost all my things in the fire in Altadena and we had to leave. The biggest piece of inspiration for me came after the fire, I stayed at my friend Stas' house, and I was there for more than a month, and I didn't evacuate with my phone, so I didn't really have a phone for a little while. I bought a flower, this poppy, and I just watched it every day for a month, and I filmed it, and I did a time lapse video of it. The poppy was in the window, and I was laying on the bed with my dog for a whole month. The poppy itself moves to find the sun all day, and every day the poppy was living and growing. It didn't need anything other than water, and I just watched it. After my dog passed, I realized that I communicate with flowers and animals. The record Welcome to Earth is messages from plants and animals. The poppy was moving around and giving me life. I just realized that all that really matters is the moment and the day you're in.

LUNA: What feels different about Welcome to Earth compared to your previous albums such as Islands in the Sky? Did you experiment more or take any risks with your songwriting, production or perspective? What did that look like?

BONNIE: It was really risky. That was all new people in the band, and it was really spontaneous. Even though it happened over just a few days, and it was really layered, and it was really improvised. But it was mainly wanting to get across these messages that we felt had come from the plants and animals. It was really important to my dog that I passed this message along, that she had that our experience on Earth is the shortest thing we do, and that our souls are eternally together in a different dimension, and that we're always together eternally. The place we are together is love, and love isn't something that you do. It's just where we're from, and so all the songs tap into that concept, and that was challenging to try and figure out how to convey.

LUNA: Do you have a personal favorite song on Welcome to Earth — one that feels closest to your heart or most revealing of who Death Valley Girls are right now?

BONNIE: “Message from the Venus Flower” is my favorite song, and really where I want to be. We wrote more songs in that upbeat, danceable vibe, but we didn't get a chance to finish all of them.

LUNA: What does Welcome to Earth mean to you now that the record is complete?

BONNIE: This record is the beginning of me understanding that message that taught me, that my dog shared. She said her eternal mission is to change the way that we view death. She wants humans to stop thinking about it as the end, and view it as a cycle. I feel like I shared that message, and we shared that message pretty good. I didn't fully understand what that meant completely, and now I'm building my awareness of that, and we're all building our awareness. I feel like this record is the beginning of understanding that we're in union and communion with Earth in a really important, magical way. We've been conditioned to forget that and live in these houses and our little cars and our jobs, and then maybe get out to nature on the weekends. This is just the beginning of Welcome to Earth. I'm super excited to see what else we learn from animals and plants this year as we share these messages. And

LUNA: What do you hope someone experiencing their own loss or upheaval takes away from this record?

BONNIE: I think that there is a record that should be hopeful to anyone, because right after the fire, we had to postpone the record for a year. I didn't have anything. I forgot my phone, forgot my car, forgot all my stuff, and it was so scary, and it lasted for so long, like weeks and weeks and weeks until we knew what was happening. I was just like, I'm never going to get over this. I'm never going to be okay again. My nervous system is done. I'm never going to have a normal, regulated response.

Not even two years later, I've never been healthier, safer, or filled with more with purpose. It is a really special and sacred time to get to learn about yourself and not judge yourself compared to anyone else. It's just this wonderful time to really get to know who you are in all of your different range of emotions because grief is so unpredictable and I think if anyone's struggling, they should commend themselves on the moment that they're in. You have to really be aware that the change will come. Time does something magical every single time. If it could happen to me, it could happen to anyone.

LUNA: How are you feeling in this current era of your career and what does the rest of the year look like that you would like to share with Luna?

BONNIE: The rest of the year hopefully looks like going to places we've never been. I'm really hoping to go all over the world and back to places we've been, but just really getting to take the message all over. Recording more, making new friends, meeting new trees, hopefully visiting tons of different water places. I like to meet new lakes, feeling some type of new ocean situation.

LUNA: Is there anything else you wanted to add?

BONNIE: Right now is super scary for everyone. It's a really scary time. There's so much we're supposed to change about ourselves. There's so much we're supposed to do. Even our food isn't good. Our water isn't good. Everything is really confusing, and there's no right answer. The only right answer is what you find within. I think it's really easy to get lost in all of the scary stuff because it's never ending. But even though all of that is totally true, I feel like it looks to me like this is the fall of the patriarchy. This is the fall of colonialism and capitalism, and this is what that looks like. It might continue to be scary for longer than we want, but I think that there's so much progress, and I want everyone to remember how far we have come. So many new people are being represented. It's so common that it's on every TV show; all different kinds of people, sexualities and genders are being shown and there's so much stuff to be excited about, even through all of this scary stuff. I just want everyone to remember that there is still good stuff. It is important to still be hopeful, not in a dumb way of hiding under the blanket or whatever. There is hope, and this is the end. It has to be because I've never I've never seen a beginning look like this.