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The main message of the band is about not having any particular blueprint or idea about what you are supposed to be; about having the self confidence and trust to tune into whatever that voice in your head is telling you who to be, and not being afraid to follow that [voice]. We feel like we've set out an invitation for people to create what they want. We definitely attract certain breeds of people, sort of misfit oddball people. At the end of the day we are so much about the community idea and love, we are closer in nature to punks and hippies in terms of our community – everyone band together, everyone support each other's shit, everyone make your own art. -Amanda Palmer |
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Photo by: Scott Irvine
"I write constantly and then I sort of grab batches of material and sort of throw it at whatever I am working on," she says. "All of our records have a weird, overlapping span of stuff. The first record spanned [from] when I was 16 to that date. And the next record spanned from when I was 17 to that date but there's definitely a slow evolution that I can see."
 The Dresden Dolls by Brantley Gutierez |
Both part of the performance art circuit in Boston, Viglione and Palmer first met in 2000 at a Halloween party. Viglione describes the moment he first heard her play, "I was electrified – the hair stood up on the back of my neck and I felt I'd never heard songwriting as intriguing as this. It's intelligent and it's hard to define and it was such a huge turn-on [to hear] something truly new. I have a very eclectic taste in music, but when I first heard Amanda's stuff I could not place what had influenced it at all and I loved that."
The two self-taught musicians quickly bonded. "Those early days were really fun because we were in that courting phase, getting to know each other as band members, looking at each other's record collections and where we saw the crossover, where our common ground was really interesting," Palmer recounts. "It was like The Doors, Nick Cave, Nina Simone, Swans, The Cure, Jane's Addiction."
Viglione continues, "We were constantly throwing different albums at each other. Even if the tastes didn't align, where they differed we drew strength from."
"I still can't wrap my hand around the Slayer portion – the loud, screamy metal portion of Brian's background," Palmer admits. "Brian sort of feels the same way about my poppy, new wave stuff, where everything is blinky and bloinky."
"I think in a way what's sustained us is the ability to relate to those things, even if there's not a direct connection," Viglione muses. "We are able to tap into the same kind of emotional well when working on the music or during the performances and that's been a tremendous bond."
The visual sensibility of the band is more befitting with the Weimer culture of 1920s and early 1930s Germany than with any recent rock scene, and even the name itself evokes a smoky cabaret in the heart of a European city when fascism was still a whisper in the collective nightmare. Yet Palmer maintains, "I don't know how much I can legitimately claim I am influenced by twenties and thirties music. I listened to a lot of Kurt Weill in college, and I hear that in there a little bit but not a lot. I think I grew up as a musical theater kid – Webber and Rice, Rogers and Hammerstein. Those songs I sang on stage again and again manifested in my songwriting naturally. Songs that were very theatrical in nature, storytelling songs that really created a musical atmosphere, that's the kind of songwriting that really turned me on."
Playing their first gig in February of 2001 as Out of Arms at an art gallery in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Palmer and Viglione began to hone this theatrical live act. The first couple of years consisted mostly of touring in the Boston and greater New England area. Gradually, they gained a passionate following on the strength of their shows and gathered likeminded musical friends, such as Reverend Glasseye and World/Inferno Friendship Society, with whom Viglione will tour with this fall while Palmer tours her Ben Folds-produced solo record, Who Killed Amanda Palmer? (to be accompanied by a Neil Gaiman-penned murder mystery graphic novel). In September 2003, the band released their self-titled studio debut on their own record label, 8ft. Records, re-released when they signed to Roadrunner in 2004. Although they have put out two albums since, Yes, Virginia and No, Virginia (a b-sides and recording session leftovers compilation, which has a 300-page-plus companion book due out soon), their live performances are where they prove themselves.
 Brian Viglione - The Dresden Dolls |
"We were not a huge commercial success where the first record sold well," says Viglione. "We really had to fight tooth and nail for our fans, through our touring and our grassroots, word-of-mouth approach. We stuck to the road as our main means of developing a fan base."
"There's no replacement for making people like the band," Palmer explains. "I've heard so many people say over the years, 'I know, I know but you got to see this band live,' because everyone is very skeptical about this band. They think we are a certain thing, they think it's a Goth band, and as soon as they see us play they go, 'Oh now we get it. I get why all these people like them.'"
"If putting on a good performance is what's going to draw people to a show," Viglione says, "that hopefully will have some sort of Darwinian effect, where only the strong survive, only the truly great bands out there performing will make a strong career out of it."
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