Daisy the Great on Sirens and Simon & Garfunkel

Brooklyn-based duo Daisy the Great (Kelley Nicole Dugan and Mina Walker) are taking on two different histories in their latest projects. A cover of “Scarborough Fair,” the English ballad recorded by many notable musicians including Simon & Garfunkel, highlights their beautifully synchronous voices and their storytelling ability. While taking on a song popularized by one of the great duos of music may seem risky, Dugan and Walker pull it off with their production that gives the song a haunting tone reminiscent of its middle English history. 

Daisy the Great’s new single “Persephone” speaks to the monstrous mythology around the pain and songs of women. Inspired by the Sirens, the video for “Persephone” features dancer Matilda Sakamoto in an apartment as she embodies a playful expression of identity mirroring the song’s exploration of womanhood in a world that often reduces women and their art by declaring them too hysterical.

I caught up with Kelley and Mina to discuss Daisy the Great’s new projects as well as their process as a duo. 

This interview is edited for clarity.

Girl Gang (Hannah): How did you two meet? Why did you decide to become a duo? 

Daisy the Great (Kelley): We met because we both went to Tisch at NYU, we were both acting majors. We ended up having a comedy class in our 3rd year and we ended up writing a song together for it. It was a very silly, not serious moment. But it led to, towards the very end of school, we started to write a musical together which was about two kids who accidentally take over the lives of these pop stars. So we were working on music for that and we just ended up starting to work on songs that we’d written alone, in the past and were like “These could be the songs for the band.” And as we were working on it, we were like “This is so fun and we should just have a band and not pass this up.” We started as a duo. We perform relatively frequently as a duo. But in the beginning, we also had a couple of shows and the band grew to be a full band as well. We do play as a duo, but we have a full band that we play with live that at most has been seven of us on stage, so it gets quite big. 

Girl Gang: When you were first starting, did combining your voices come naturally or was it something you had to work at?

Daisy the Great
Kelley: It came really naturally. 

Mina: I think that’s why we wanted to do it. We were like “this is pretty cool.” We both always really liked to harmonize and in general we like being a team. It’s way more fun and less scary to not be like the single head of something. We like to be this two headed monster.

Girl Gang: With the new Simon and Garfunkel cover of “Scarborough Fair,” are they your big musical reference as far as harmonizing as a duo?

Daisy the Great
Kelley: Yeah, we have a really wide range of references. I would say my musical references as far as harmonizing goes comes literally from musicals, like 2006 musicals mixed with stuff like Simon and Garfunkel. 

Mina: They’re one of them. 

Kelley: I think our harmony influence originally came from, I was doing a lot of choral vocal arranging, so mine was in that realm. But Simon and Garfunkel are definitely artists we look up to as a two person harmony duo situation. We have so much to learn from the way that they put their melodies together, it is so fascinating to us. 

Mina: Yeah. We really like when there’s two leads and you can’t tell which is the harmony and which is the melody. They are both very melodic and catchy. One of our friends will sing a single harmony to one of our songs and I was like “Yes. We did it!”

Girl Gang: I noticed that when I listened for the first time that you may think it’s one person. 

Mina: That’s the goal (laughs) Two headed monster. 

Girl Gang: Why did you guys decide to cover “Scarborough Fair” in particular?

Daisy the Great: 
Kelley: “Scarborough Fair,” we just both loved that song growing up. We both had an opportunity to go to the studio for a project that was open ended at the time. We thought it would be really fun to do a cover. We were at Mina’s house with our guitarist/bassist because our guitarist and bassist switch off depending on what song it is, Bernardo Ochoa. We were just playing through some options of things that we might like to cover. We started playing “Scarborough Fair,” and pretty immediately were like this is sick and we have a good idea of what we want it to be like. 

Mina: Yeah. We put in a 4/4 to make it a bit spooky. 

Kelley: Our idea felt really natural. So we just went with that. We’ve always loved that song, our moms both love that song too. It was like we can make a song and make my mom really proud of me too. 

Mina: This is the most my mom has ever shared a song. My mom loves all our music, but she’s been pitching “Scarborough Fair”. She’s been Facebook messaging friends, people she barely knows, just being like “Listen to my daughter’s song!” I’m just like “Thanks mom, do it with everything.” 

Girl Gang: With your new song and video “Persephone,” what is the story behind the song and was the video part of that initial vision?

Daisy the Great
Kelley: The song started off because I was reading a bit about the sirens and Persephone, specifically following one version of that story where the sirens were companions of Persephone. When she was taken to the underworld, they asked for wings to be able to search for her. I was really interested in that juxtaposed with the idea of sirens as monster/mermaid creatures that were trying to trap men and the idea that the siren song was really them calling out to their friend who they were looking for and really has nothing to do with these sailor people was really interesting to me. 

We often write about identity and it became a song that was more about identity and longing for something that is true and pointing out the irrelevance of what everybody thinks you are. The video started from that point but we had a rough idea of what we wanted it to be and then we ended up collaborating with our friend Matilda Sakamoto, who’s a totally incredible dancer. So we started from that place, from the idea of taking on different identities and playing with them and messing them up in order to show it’s so silly and ridiculous and in that action longing for a version of yourself that is true and real. 

Mina: I think that the video started to develop more as we were shooting it. There’s a moment in the video where we have Matilda crack an egg in her hand, because it’s like messing up that routine. But when we were shooting the video, she could not crack the egg. It was so funny because we were like “And crack the egg!” but it wouldn’t crack in her hand. So she tried really hard and then the egg flew into the air and hit her in the face and she started laughing. In that moment, we were like ok that was hilarious and it will be a blooper. When we watched takes of the egg crack back, that was the best one. It also brought a joy to the story that wasn’t necessarily there before and became the core of the video because of that happy little accident. 

Girl Gang: At that moment, it does turn and become very playful. You knew Matilda beforehand?

Mina: We’ve collaborated with Matilda before. I have another project called Subtle Pride we put on these shows and we have Matilda dance with us in the shows. She’s like our favorite dancer. 

Girl Gang: Do you normally have concepts for videos that develop along with the song or do you work with outside collaborators?

Daisy the Great
Kelley: Most of the time, we have ideas for the videos while we’re making the song. Often, we’ll be really sidetracked in producing the song because we’re talking a mile a minute about the video. 

Mina: Right now, we’re recording an album and every five seconds it’s like “And then we’re gonna be in all silver…

Kelley: Or then we’re gonna slam the phone against the wall. The person in the room with us will always be like “Ok. Anyway...let’s talk about guitar.” Most of the time, we normally like to direct or co-direct and edit or co-edit our projects. They always do change. We always have a billion ideas for the video and then in the actual act of making it’s like “Cool. We’ve got $100 and one of our friends is available.” Then we end up with something a lot better but different because it’s what we can actually do. 

Mina: I think the idea of making stuff that is affordable and convenient to make is sometimes the best way to make it because it’s not caught up in glitz and glam and different things you would attribute to the perfect music video. Just being like how can I tell this story in the way that I can tell it? Limitations often give you 

Kelley: happy accidents

Mina: ...and more freedom. I think if you have too much freedom, then you don’t really know where to begin. But if you have confines you have to work within, usually you can tell a pretty compelling and interesting story. 

Kelley: Like I only bought six eggs to crack. One of them fell on the floor. One of them went into the pan and then it was like well we better pick one of these takes because we have no more eggs. 

Mina: If you look closely, I shouldn’t even say this, but because of the lack of eggs there’s a continuity issue where there’s like four eggs and then suddenly one egg. Oh well. 

Girl Gang: What is your songwriting process? Do you write together or separately and then share ideas? 

Daisy the Great
Kelley: In the beginning, we started off by showing each other songs we’d already written. Then as we have continued as a band, we write together much more often. There are still times where one of us is like “Hey, I had a fever dream where I wrote about this and did this thing,” but we definitely write together much more frequently now. 

Mina: Almost all of the songs on the new album are songs we’ve written together. And a couple we’ve written with some other people as well. But usually we’ve gotten in the habit of writing together. Usually, I’ll have this line and we keep writing the song. Obviously, a lot of things come from ruminating over one idea and then developing it rather than “let’s write a song. What should it be about?” So, we’ll have nuggets of songs and then develop them with each other and with the band as well. 

Girl Gang: My final question is what kind of films/shows/books/music have been inspiring you and keeping you going this past year. 

Daisy the Great
Both: We read a lot of books this year. (Laughs) 

Kelley: I read Luster (Raven Leilani). I just read a book called Ghost Wall (Sarah Moss) and I’m currently reading Sex and Rage by Eve Babitz. I rewatched all of Breaking Bad, I also watched Grand Designs which is the best show in the entire world where they build big houses. I love to see it. I also watched this show called Dark, which is a German mystery show that was so hard to follow. My boyfriend speaks German, so we were watching because of that, and after every episode, there are subtitles but it’s such a complicated show that I would have to look up the summaries after to see if I understood any of it. We just watched Soul also, the Pixar movies, which was excellent. Then Mina came over and we watched Inside Out because I’d never seen it. 

Mina: I’m a big cartoon fan. 

Kelley: I’m not sure how much of this is directly influencing us (laughs). 

Mina: Honestly, I’ve read so many books. Besides the EP we wrote in the beginning of the year, I haven’t written too much recently. I’ve been consuming a lot. I’m sure it will influence stuff in the future that we write, but I’ve been on a big Octavia Butler reading binge. I’ve read all the Parable books, I read the Xenogenesis series. I’m into this Sci-Fi, dystopian vibe. I love it. I read her short stories Bloodchild. I read A Little Life, very dramatic and sad. I love really long, sad books. I read all the Elena Ferrante My Brilliant Friend series, I read Luster. Kelley and I make each other read the same books.