Dan Lotti, Singer/Songwriter of Dangermuffin
[0:00]Hi, I'm Zibi Owens, and this is Mom's Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[0:14]As a mom of four kids in New York City and a writer myself, I know all too well how short
[0:19]everyone is on time, so I'm here to help.
[0:21]I'm going to interview authors and writers of all types about their work, especially
[0:25]as it relates to parenting and family issues.
[0:28]Hopefully you can listen while doing 8 million other things, and fall in love with these
[0:31]talented scribes and their fantastic books, essays, and songs like I have.
[0:35]Plus, get some tips on surviving parenthood.
[0:37]For more about me, you can check out my essays at zibiowens.com.
[0:42]Also, this episode has been sponsored by Chloe's Fruit, the cool way to eat fruit, just
[0:48]fruit, water, and a touch of organic ganache in sugar.
[0:51]I don't know about you, but my kids are obsessed with Chloe's pops.
[0:54]I secretly sneak the dark chocolate pops when they're not looking for a guilt-free
[0:58]delicious treat.
[0:59]Check them out on Chloe'sfruit.com.
[1:01]Hi, Dan.
[1:05]Hello.
[1:06]I'm here with Dan Lottie, singer-songwriter for Danger Muffin, who's going to
[1:10]answer a few questions about his amazing talents.
[1:14]I would love to.
[1:16]Awesome.
[1:17]So how and when did you start songwriting?
[1:19]Well, I was very young when I started, actually when I was three years old, I had this
[1:27]old piano in my heart of my house, and I picked out, like, re-three kings, like way back
[1:36]in the day, just out of the blue in my parents were like, oh my god, how does this three
[1:39]year old picking out this thing?
[1:41]And then when I was in elementary school, I did like the musicals and stuff.
[1:46]I was really into that.
[1:47]And I guess I started writing songs when I was in, like, freshman year of high school.
[1:52]I had like a grand drop band, you know, and I loved it.
[1:56]Like I always enjoy writing and just creating and was definitely my outlet, kind of kept
[2:01]me grounded.
[2:02]Yeah.
[2:03]That's great.
[2:04]And when you're writing the lyrics, do you have a sense of the melody of the music that
[2:08]you're going to want to go with it?
[2:11]I do.
[2:12]For me, in my process, it starts with with a melody.
[2:17]Like oftentimes it'll be like in my quietest moments.
[2:20]I hear it in my head, like I'm about to fall asleep, and I literally hear something.
[2:26]And I have to, like, no matter how tired I have to, like, jump up and pick up my phone
[2:30]or whatever, and record it, otherwise it's sometimes I don't do that in their gone forever.
[2:36]So for me, in my process, it starts with the melody and what I hear.
[2:40]And then usually the lyrics are like the final stand up of its own.
[2:44]And when you're writing the lyrics, how do you do that?
[2:46]Are you sitting at a desk with the pencils scribbling?
[2:49]Are you at your computer?
[2:50]Do you do it on the road while you're touring?
[2:53]Usually at home, you know, I'll put the lyrics together.
[2:56]I use the computer.
[2:58]I think that's fine.
[3:00]You know, just a lot of it for me starts with sort of, like, free form writing, like,
[3:06]kind of object writing.
[3:07]So if I'm like, if I have, like, a title for a song, I'll start to just kind of write
[3:13]stuff about whatever any given topic is and just sort of free form and just see what
[3:18]starts to come up and some things start to and just kind of whittle it down from there.
[3:24]And yeah, I mean, that's kind of my process with it.
[3:29]It's great.
[3:30]Unlike other songwriters, most of your songs are not about love and relationships only,
[3:35]but about spirituality moments in the everyday.
[3:38]Is this intentional?
[3:39]Did you decide on this as a major theme or how did that come about?
[3:43]Well, it's really inspirational for me.
[3:45]I mean, I think if you listen to the early albums of Danger Muff and it's a little more
[3:50]all country, almost like Americana.
[3:52]And we're kind of talking a little bit more about, like, drinking and stuff like that.
[3:57]It's just kind of, you know, doing our own thing.
[3:59]There was still an element of, like, making your own path in life.
[4:03]I mean, that's always kind of what it's been for me.
[4:06]I never really felt right about, you know, kind of going in a sort of scripted way, if
[4:13]you will, life.
[4:14]And so music was always kind of like my out and the path for me in that regard.
[4:19]And then sort of as the years progressed and the more that I kind of studied, you know,
[4:24]yeah, I just get really inspired by these sort of topics, I mean, and then to be able
[4:30]to take it and be inspired enough to put it into a song and then to step out of the stage
[4:36]and play it every night and meet awesome people every night that reach out and say how
[4:42]much it needs to them.
[4:43]It's like, you know, we may not be like the biggest fan in the world, but it's, I feel
[4:48]like we're making a difference because of that, you know, and it's like every little bit
[4:52]no matter how big or small it helps and obviously the world kind of needs that right now.
[4:58]And I needed, I mean, it's, for me, it's a healing experience for me every time that I
[5:04]sing and perform in songs, you know, I'll just keep rambling about it.
[5:09]Like we'll be in the van, like cooped up and traffic and everybody's a little snippy or
[5:13]whatever.
[5:14]And then once, you know, start playing music, it's just like this healing process.
[5:18]And I think it starts with me, you know, because it really, it's saved my life, I mean,
[5:23]music definitely saved my life.
[5:25]Yeah, I said, well, when I was younger, like I said, I didn't really feel like I,
[5:33]like I didn't like the whole, I didn't really like school, you know, I just didn't care
[5:38]for it.
[5:39]And I sort of rebelled a lot and I got, you know, I got into trouble when I was, you know,
[5:47]then I kind of had some friends, some older friends of the family and they kind of started
[5:52]pushing me in this direction of music, you know, and that's where my attention, you know,
[5:56]sort of playing guitar.
[5:58]Then I had these friends in the neighborhood and I would, like, get my amp and guitar
[6:02]on a little dolly and I wheel it down to the other end of the neighborhood and we jam
[6:07]in the garage and it was like the greatest thing, you know, and it really brought my attention
[6:12]to that and it's something constructive and again, healing.
[6:15]So I've been working with it for a while in my life.
[6:18]There were definitely points, like when I first moved to South Carolina where I wasn't
[6:22]playing music and it literally felt like something was missing in my life, you know, like
[6:28]I just wasn't clicking, you know, it's off.
[6:33]And then I was like, I didn't even play music more again and once I did, it was like
[6:37]a flood day.
[6:38]It's like friends galore or, you know, everybody that connecting with it and literally
[6:43]it was like that.
[6:44]So it's just, I'm constantly reminded of, you know, how much of a role it's supposed
[6:49]to play in in my life for better or worse, you know.
[6:52]And luckily it benefits everybody else.
[6:55]Yeah.
[6:56]I do.
[6:57]I feel like it's a spiritual path, you know, and spiritual work for me.
[7:03]It's giving me a lot of time to kind of study things in my own way and read books and
[7:08]I'm very inspired by, like, the yogic study, you know, like, out of order, the yogi,
[7:14]parmahan, so yoga nanda was big, big for me.
[7:18]And really, I guess it was about 2009.
[7:21]I really started to get into a daily meditation practice and with the yoga, the stretching.
[7:28]And slowly and surely I stopped like drinking, it's been like five years since I even
[7:34]have one drink.
[7:35]I just don't think about it, you know, because I'm more like thinking about, you know,
[7:39]really feeling everything, you know, and the more that I can get into that and, and
[7:44]uh, just get into that process that it seems like the more I hear the songs I might
[7:49]have, the more that it sort of manifests in my life.
[7:52]And it's this very slow, growth, very, like beautiful process.
[7:56]That's great.
[7:57]Yeah.
[7:58]Yeah.
[7:59]Yeah.
[8:00]If you don't mind, I'm just going to read a few of your lyrics from O to my heritage and
[8:04]then maybe you could talk about how you came up with this song or what brought it on.
[8:08]I'm going to butcher this compared to your beautiful singing of it, but I'll just give
[8:12]a shot, pulls me forward, feels so strong, O to my heritage, wherever I'm from, makes
[8:17]me wonder where they've gone, O to my heritage, wherever I'm from, rising falling on
[8:22]the tip of my tongue, O to my heritage, wherever I'm from.
[8:25]Now I'm grievous, under their thumb, O to my heritage, wherever I'm from, and it goes on
[8:30]from there.
[8:31]So tell me, tell me more about this particular song.
[8:34]Yeah.
[8:35]O to my heritage is sort of the pinnacle of the album, the title track of the record.
[8:42]And a lot of it is sort of about just reconnecting with the past in such a way that it's
[8:50]empowering for people.
[8:52]I think that there's been a disconnect with some of the sort of more natural energies.
[9:02]If you listen to really any danger muffin album, it's always about like the ocean and
[9:07]the sun, the wind, and all these sort of elements of things that everybody can relate with.
[9:13]And it's sort of that's kind of like our heritage a little bit, it's like getting back
[9:17]to that, the sense of connection and like purpose and communication with it, you know.
[9:26]A lot of that album was sort of inspired by my wife's work, her practice of being an
[9:33]herbal medicinal practitioner and just watching her grow and learning about all these sort
[9:41]of older principles that are like, we're really just hanging all by thread, you know.
[9:46]And then just to see her embracing and learning and training and practicing and bringing
[9:51]up it back, it's such a rich tradition that's there.
[9:55]You know.
[9:56]So I think that kind of is indicative of all these older...
[10:00]traditions and religions and not really religions,
[10:03]but a lot of indigenous people and indigenous practice,
[10:08]we've been to Peru a couple of times
[10:10]actually going in like a week and a half again,
[10:13]which we're super excited about,
[10:15]as you can imagine, we just very feel very drawn
[10:17]to this place.
[10:19]And we just feel like there's so much to be said
[10:22]for connecting with your roots and your past
[10:26]and your heritage.
[10:28]And it's not just that,
[10:29]it's also like for every single sort of race of people,
[10:33]like connected with their land.
[10:35]And every single thing is like a piece of the puzzle,
[10:40]and we can all put it together
[10:42]and really take a big step for as he meant.
[10:47]And so I think that that's what that was my hope
[10:50]for the album is to sort of wake up to the possibility
[10:53]that there is more than likely a lot that's happened,
[10:57]that we're not sort of readily educated about,
[11:02]that is potentially suppressed,
[11:05]maybe not directly, maybe directly,
[11:09]and then it's more about just kind of realizing that
[11:12]and just empowered.
[11:14]It's great.
[11:15]I mean, you mentioned your wife
[11:16]and dancing stage of past care.
[11:18]Yeah.
[11:19]And we've lots of tea in our house all the time.
[11:22]Oh, we drank it every day.
[11:24]So how does it work with you traveling all the time?
[11:28]Having to leave your wife and going on tour
[11:32]and you guys travel more than anybody
[11:33]at your tour schedule is crazy.
[11:35]Yeah, it is.
[11:36]So we do about 150 shows a year, you know,
[11:41]which is a lot, you know.
[11:43]It doesn't get easier, you know, leaving my home.
[11:47]It's the opposite, it gets harder.
[11:50]And that's not easy to do, you know,
[11:54]but she's always been very supportive
[11:57]of me from day one, with what we're doing it.
[12:01]We have a very sort of deep intellectual connection bond
[12:06]where she totally understands what the work is to me
[12:11]and what I'm here to do from a spiritual sort of perspective.
[12:17]And so that kind of keeps us going, you know,
[12:19]and sort of keeps the focus where it needs to be,
[12:25]it's not easy though, you know,
[12:27]but it's just a balance with everything, you know.
[12:30]We had a pretty chill winter, which was nice.
[12:33]So I was able to kind of be home a lot
[12:35]with her and my two dogs, you know,
[12:37]we have a kadahula hound and a red tikkun hound
[12:42]that just we love, you know, it's just family.
[12:46]Might be harder to leave them sometimes
[12:48]because they don't understand, you know,
[12:50]and I mean, I kind of like they hear zippers, you know,
[12:54]kind of thing, but they know I'm always coming back.
[12:57]So that's great.
[13:00]Do you have any advice to any aspiring
[13:02]some writers out there or any type of writers in general?
[13:06]Absolutely.
[13:08]You know, I think that just the idea of just following your heart,
[13:13]you know, if you're doing what you love
[13:16]and your hearts on the right place with it,
[13:18]then you just keep doing it.
[13:20]And then everything that comes along
[13:22]all the challenges are there for you to experience.
[13:26]And for them to be the sort of catalyst
[13:30]for you to sharpen your acts as you go along the way, you know.
[13:34]So, you know, do it for yourself.
[13:38]Never do it for anybody else.
[13:40]Like it's always about your healing and your process.
[13:44]And once you put the impetus on that
[13:46]and you just go into the darkness, if you will,
[13:49]and just keep pushing one foot in front of the other,
[13:52]then you will inevitably make progress, you know.
[13:55]So that would be my advice, just do what you love.
[13:59]And really, it's like that.
[14:00]The rest will follow.
[14:01]It creates abundance in your life when you do that, you know.
[14:05]If you're not in it for the right reasons,
[14:07]it'll reveal it to you that the artistic path, you know.
[14:10]You've got to, it's like a purification almost, you know.
[14:13]Have you ever thought about writing anything other than music?
[14:17]Well, I have, you know, I thought about that.
[14:21]I mean, I definitely would have a lot to say, you know.
[14:23]If I wrote a book, you know.
[14:26]But I think for right now, you know,
[14:28]I have X amount of energy to put toward the creative process.
[14:33]And I'm more about just staying as streamlined as I can
[14:37]to make sure I'm hearing the songs as they come in
[14:40]and developing them in a responsible way.
[14:44]And sometimes I feel like if I did that,
[14:46]it would kind of scatter my energy a little bit.
[14:48]I just want to stay focused with my work right now
[14:52]with what I'm doing.
[14:54]But in the future, you know, as I have logged a few more miles,
[14:58]maybe, you know, I would love to do that, you know.
[15:01]I definitely forgot to write a few books.
[15:05]And what is your hope for the future?
[15:07]I know you've been so successful.
[15:09]You have six albums touring everywhere.
[15:11]You're in serious XM radio.
[15:13]What's your fantasy for where danger muffin is headed
[15:16]in the next couple of years or 10 years?
[15:19]You know, I just want to stay open to it.
[15:21]You know, I don't want to put an expectation on it.
[15:25]You know, I think that that's actually the thing
[15:28]that crushes your artistry.
[15:31]You know, if you put an expectation on where you think
[15:33]you should be and you don't need it, you know,
[15:35]then you're gonna go through all the rig of a roll
[15:38]of your thoughts.
[15:39]And so I try to stay away from expectation
[15:42]that just stay open to whatever it is.
[15:44]And I really feel like the path that we're on
[15:46]and the people that we're reaching and the family
[15:49]that we're growing is it's all that I want.
[15:53]You know, I'm not asked.
[15:55]I don't think you can really go in with like,
[15:58]it needs to be this or else kind of thing.
[16:01]It's just, it's gonna be what it's gonna be.
[16:04]And you know, it's important to be able to feel that
[16:09]sort of pace with it and like connect with it
[16:12]and realize that there's so much for you to learn
[16:15]in any given moment.
[16:17]I feel like where we are right now is it's a beautiful,
[16:21]like slow unfolding of the music in the way
[16:24]it's reaching people, you know.
[16:26]It's never like one type of person that gets it.
[16:30]You know, it's all different walks of life
[16:32]that come into the same room for any given night.
[16:35]You know, we're not this huge sort of God like rock band,
[16:39]you know, but that's okay.
[16:41]Like it doesn't, it's not really about that, you know.
[16:44]And that's what I'm saying.
[16:45]Like a lot of people, they put their,
[16:46]they put the bar so high, you know.
[16:49]And it's more about just being in the moment with it
[16:52]and like just connecting, seeing the beauty
[16:56]in like the gig where there's five people there,
[16:58]but like you don't know what that person has been through,
[17:02]you know.
[17:03]And you connect with them and somebody would be like,
[17:05]you know, I drove from here to,
[17:08]then we did this gig in Ohio last year, for example.
[17:10]And the sky's like, I drove here from Canada
[17:13]to see you guys play.
[17:15]And you know, I listened to your album,
[17:17]Holly Oxenfree all the time after my father passed away.
[17:22]And he's like, it helped me so much.
[17:25]He's like, you don't know what you've done for me.
[17:28]And it's just like, that's the highest honor
[17:30]that you can ever ask for as a musician,
[17:34]as a songwriter, as an artist,
[17:35]to have what you create help someone
[17:39]that you would never meet, you know.
[17:42]So it's beautiful.
[17:43]It's beautiful the way the music works like that.
[17:45]It's beautiful how art works like that.
[17:47]It's better than words.
[17:49]It's better than speech, you know.
[17:51]It's the universal language, all of that artist.
[17:55]Everybody hat is an artist, you know.
[17:58]And everybody, it's all about like your inner child
[18:01]coming out to play kind of thing and how to like nurture that.
[18:04]And so I got into this book.
[18:06]And one of the things they say is that like,
[18:08]each morning you wake up and you write three pages,
[18:12]just write three pages.
[18:13]It could be, you know,
[18:14]however you wanna do it, real pages, computer, whatever.
[18:19]Just to be a free form thoughts, you know.
[18:22]And even if it's like, I don't have anything to write about
[18:24]then you just write that down and then give it a couple minutes.
[18:27]And it just turns out to just be like,
[18:29]you start pouring it out onto the page.
[18:32]And you start working all this stuff out with yourself.
[18:34]It's incredible.
[18:35]So when I started doing that many years ago,
[18:39]it really spawned like the writing process,
[18:42]like divided it.
[18:44]And one of the things they say to do is go on like artist dates
[18:48]with like just yourself, not anybody else,
[18:51]like not your dog, not, and literally go somewhere
[18:55]that you have no reason to go to, you know.
[18:59]No one to me, nothing to do, no err and to run.
[19:04]Just go somewhere and like you sit and like you observe.
[19:08]You know, and just like how much that can be stimulating
[19:12]for your artistry is great.
[19:13]I did that when I wrote the lyrics for moonscapes.
[19:17]I kind of had a friend of ours like dropped me off on this island.
[19:21]You know, that was just in the middle of the of the marsh.
[19:24]And it was just me, you know, and I just kind of sat out there
[19:26]and with my kind of with my guitar and that's where a lot
[19:31]of the stuff for that song was kind of written.
[19:33]You know, it just, it stimulates it.
[19:34]So then it builds on itself, you know.
[19:37]So it's really interesting.
[19:37]That's a great book.
[19:39]All right.
[19:40]And when you produce all this and you hear it,
[19:43]when you hear people sing back to you,
[19:45]the lyrics that you've brainstormed on one of these,
[19:48]John's, what does that feel like to you to hear it?
[19:50]It feels like fam, you know.
[19:53]I mean, that's what it feels like to me for sure.
[19:55]Like it feels like a common vibration, you know,
[19:58]that people like it said of all this.
[20:00]if our walks of life are picking up on it,
[20:02]I mean, not just it's incredibly flattering,
[20:05]it's such a blessing, you know.
[20:07]It's beautiful to know that.
[20:09]I mean, we were created, you know what I mean?
[20:12]But that's not where creation ends, you know?
[20:16]We're supposed to continue to create, you know,
[20:19]and be an extension of creation, you know?
[20:22]And so to be able to do that,
[20:23]and to have it be something that is resonating with people,
[20:26]you know, it's beautiful.
[20:28]And it's reinforce, obviously, you know, when that happens.
[20:33]Has it always been like that?
[20:34]You know, we played to many, many rooms of very few people,
[20:38]sometimes to know about, you know?
[20:40]But you just, like I said, if you're doing what you love,
[20:43]then it's all worth it.
[20:46]Well, thank you.
[20:47]Yeah, thank you.
[20:48]That was awesome.
[20:49]That was good.
[20:50]Oh, thanks.
[20:51]I hear when you were great, too.
[20:53]Here is Danger Muffin's song,
[20:55]Ode to my heritage from the heritage album.
[24:01]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time
[24:52]to read books featuring Danger Muffin.
[24:54]You can download their music on iTunes.
[24:57]Again, this has been sponsored by Chloe's Root,
[25:00]the cool way to eat fruit.
[25:01]Bye.