Local indie gothic pop band Dollpile makes music that conjures ghosts, inviting them to step out from behind the veil and return to the mortal plane to dance in a macabre reverie not meant for the likes of the living. Yet, still you join in — propelled by lead singer Isadora Eden’s all-consuming lyricism and drummer/multi-instrumentalist Sumner Erhard’s hypnotic musicality — to dance with the dead, the past incarnate, memory given beautiful, terrible life. As you spin with that which once was, awash in the strange and the familiar alike, a mad fervor sets in, a lust to live life so deliciously that the dead become envious and seek to take you with them when they return to whatever comes after. But you break free, leaving the reverie where it belongs, over as quickly as it began, as you claw your way to the rising sun, the future bright and full of promises that only the dead can make.
This is how listening to Dollpile feels, their songs typically short and fleeting but so rich and filled with life and — even though the music is somber in nature — the hope required to leave the past where it belongs and look to the future. Dollpile’s explorations of the afterlife continue on their latest album Someone Else’s Heaven releasing on June 4th.
Denver Dive spoke with Eden and Erhard ahead of the release of Someone Else’s Heaven about how the album came to be, the evolution of Dollpile as a project, the interplay between intention and spontaneity in regard to creation and much more.
Both Eden’s and Erhard’s musical journeys started young, each of their childhood homes filled with music. For Eden, her earliest music memories start in the kitchen of her childhood home in Massachusetts, where she lived before moving to Denver around seven or eight years ago. She remembers dancing around the kitchen particularly to Counting Crows, one of her favorite bands and biggest influences today. She cited the band’s ability to couple profound songwriting with pop sensibilities as particularly interesting, saying that her favorite song by them, “Omaha,” is a perfect example of this. She also said that Adam Duritz, the band’s legendary frontman, is one of the best lead singers to ever do it. “Adam Duritz forever,” Eden said through a smile.
Erhard grew up in a musical household in Southern Colorado. His dad played in bluegrass bands and toured around the festival circuit, bringing Erhard along for the ride. Erhard said he remembers his dad’s bands always practicing in the living room, creating an early fascination in Erhard that has carried him all these years. He also spoke to how music was the cure for a lot of boredom growing up, saying “My parents kind of live out in the middle of nowhere so until we got cars later in high school there was nothing else to do but just play music and play video games.”
While Erhard always knew he’d be playing music in some form since he was young, Eden came to the idea of actually pursuing it professionally a little later. While in college, she spent a summer living in Brooklyn, writing songs and performing them at open mics. “There were a lot real weirdos in that Brooklyn open mic scene,” she said. “It was a fun introduction that showed me how cool it is to play in front of people.”
Eden and Erhard met around six months after Eden moved to Denver. Both were being featured in a mutual friend’s music video and they hit it off during the shoot. At that time, Erhard had been making a lot of drum and bass tracks on his own and was “looking to work with a vocalist.” They started “sending stuff back and forth” with Eden sending Erhard acoustic demos that he would then flesh out with deeper instrumentation.
After some early collaborations, Erhard decided to take down the music he’d been releasing solo in favor of the new project. Before they were Dollpile, the group operated under Isadora Eden, something that Eden said never fully sat right with her given how much Erhard had helped define their sound. She said that her solo work was something more akin to a kind of gothic folk and Erhard joined her and added more shoegaze and psychedelic influences, helping them reach the wholly unique sound they have today. They released music under the Isadora Eden moniker for a number of years. After completing their upcoming album Someone Else’s Heaven in 2024, they realized that if they were going to change the name that then would be the best time to do so, saying “We realized if we were going to do it, it was now or never.” They spent a while trying to find the name, playing with a whole list of “probably hundreds of ideas.”
The name itself is the result of the distinct visual style the band has cultivated through music videos to accompany the songs. They describe their visual style as “haunted Alice in Wonderland” and as such, have something like a hundred quite creepy dolls sitting in their home. One day during a video shoot, someone made an offhand comment about the “doll pile” they had amassed. They said they looked at each other and knew they had found their new name.
Though the name change does represent something of a new era for the group, they described it as feeling more like “a continuation” of what they were doing before rather than a complete reinvention. While Erhard described the new music as “fuzzier” than what came before, the themes remain the same, ruminating on the afterlife, ideas of isolation and of guilt and regret, what it takes to let those things go. Their music has always felt intentional but this new music feel especially so. Take “Confetti” for example, one of the songs on their recent EP “100 Degrees” which serves as something of a precursor to the upcoming album. The lyrics deal with the idea of feeling alone in a crowded room, needing to take a break and step outside of a party to collect oneself. The music reflects these ideas with Erhard using a sort of bastardized dance beat, hitting the hi-hat on the “and,” which is typically reserved for higher energy dance tunes. Given the song’s subject matter, it feels simultaneously familiar and strangely out of place, othered, like it almost doesn’t belong. Just like feeling isolated while at a party. It lends the song a rather haunting atmosphere while tying it’s themes together.
They said that while the music ends fully formed, they don’t approach it with the same kind of intentionality it gives off. Erhard described the process as more experimental until “everyone knows that something just feels right.” They described the new music as “more confident” than their earlier efforts, drawing on a wide range of influences to arrive at a sound wholly their own. There’s not a band out there that sounds quite like Dollpile with their sad, gothic, shoegazy, indie pop sensibilities. They are completely themselves, truly authentic and uncompromisingly real.
Most of Eden’s lyrics come from her lived experiences. Her writing is deeply personal but explores concepts that everyone feels in their lives at one point or another. As the album title implies, she holds a fascination with the afterlife and the idea of heaven as something almost unattainable, something not meant for everyone. The theme recurs often throughout the new music, this idea of grasping for salvation but never quite being able to hold onto it. These themes stem from her early life growing up in the church. While she has since left religion, the ideology she grew up immersed in still holds her attention. She said, “I was raised super religious. I’m not anymore. A lot of our songs have some themes about that. I feel like when I stopped being religious, it was obviously a pretty not fun time. A lot of your whole worldview is changed and you need rebase the place you approach everything from. The album is called Someone Else’s Heaven. There’s a lot of those religious themes but it comes more from a personal place than actual religion.”
Eden and Erhard’s songwriting process hasn’t changed much since the beginning. Eden starts the process, writing lyrics and recording acoustic demos. Erhard then takes the demos and fleshes them out, adding fuzz or drums or whatever they feel the song needs. The two then workshops the ideas until “they feel right” and are ready to be recorded. While all recorded vocals and instrumentation are done by Eden and Erhard, they are joined when playing live by Eliza NG (of beloved local bands Tiny Tomboy and the Mañanas) and a rotating cast of bass players.
With the release of Someone Else’s Heaven coming on June 4th, the band feels that they are stronger than they have ever been, their sound mature and fully-formed. They believe this comes from holding a philosophy of “just do it.” You can go out and make the music that you want to listen to with the people you care about and you don’t need anyone’s permission to do so. They know exactly what they are setting out to do and though the process may never be certain, they know where they hope to end up and how to get there. The band feels so fresh and exciting, their music intoxicating in its singularity. It feels like finding a little bit of heaven somewhere within yourself, holding onto it before the time comes to join the ghosts. They’ll be throwing an album release show on June 19th at Hi-Dive as part of the “Neon Bloodbath Showcase” featuring Seer Believer, Teary and Viewfinder as well. It’s sure to be a celebration of the eras that have come before while embracing what’s to come with open arms. Dollpile is only rising ever closer to heaven with each new release, each show they play. Don’t miss ’em.
Get tickets to the album release show here!
Stream the “100 Degrees” EP here!
