Interview: Dimitri Giannopoulos (Horse Jumper of Love)

Following the path blazed by Wednesday, Angel Olsen, Helado Negro, Indigo De Souza, Avey Tare, MJ Lenderman, and other notable artists, NYC-based shoegaze trio Horse Jumper of Love headed to West Asheville’s Drop of Sun Studios where they hunkered down and worked with producer Alex Farrar.

Disaster Trick, the result of those fruitful sessions, is available today at your favorite independent record shop and already delighting the band’s longtime and newer fans alike. Between tour stops in Detroit and Windsor, Ontario, frontman Dimitri Giannopoulos spoke with Asheville Stages about his Drop of Sun experience, WNC friends, and the struggle to become a full-time musician.

Edwin Arnaudin: How’s the tour going?

Dimitri Giannopoulos: Pretty good. The shows have been great. We're supporting DIIV, and they're really awesome. I guess the tour has only been bad because we've had small logistical things happening with the van and shit like that. But overall, the vibes are good. And we're towards the end of it now. We're heading home, back to the East Coast.

EA: Are you guys pretty much playing through the whole new album, or just doing a couple here and there?

DG: Actually, for this one, we're playing a lot from the new album — everything that's been released so far and then a few that haven't been released. And then we sprinkle a couple old ones in there, too.

EA: So, this this is going to be a pretty Asheville-centric interview because I'm about two blocks away from Drop of Sun. I walk by it pretty often.

DG: That’s West Asheville, right?

EA: Yeah! Like, right in the heart of old school West Asheville.

DG: Hell yeah.

EA: How did you guys choose that studio as the place to cut this album?

DG: We had gone on tour with MJ Lenderman back in February 2022. That was right around the time before MJ's album Boat Songs came out, and I was really obsessed with that album as a lot of people were.

EA: Me too.

DG: And then at the end of that tour, we played in Asheville. Alex ended up coming to that show at Static Age [Records], and that's when I met him and he told me about Drop of Sun and he was like, “I'd really love for you guys to come check it out.” We were going to the next day,  but I think maybe we partied too hard and couldn't make it, and then had to go to the next show.

So, Alex and I were in contact for a little while. We talked on the phone a few times and I saw pictures of [Drop of Sun] and I was like, “This seems like a great place to record.” And I really like Asheville. We have a few homies who live there, so it seemed like the right spot to go.

EA: I feel like more and more people are recording there and loving it. Just in general, as a space, what does it offer that other studios you've recorded at don’t?

DG: It’s way more hi-fi than a lot of places we've tried recording at. It just felt like a very professional studio — I don't think we've recorded in a state-of-the-art studio like that before. So, it was really cool.

And also having the ability to live there while we were recording — there’s an apartment upstairs, and that was really cool because we were just living in the album for the almost two weeks we were there. Whereas before, we would record two days here and then three days there, and then a day here for several months. It was nice — we'd wake up and just go downstairs straight into the studio. It rocks.

EA: Awesome. And Alex is obviously someone that is becoming more of a an in-demand producer. What do you feel like his impact was on those sessions? How did he help shape your sound and get this album sounding the way you wanted?

DG: I loved working with Alex. He’s the absolute man. When we were in the live room recording, it felt like he was like a saint watching over us in the control room. Like, you could see him in the window. And his input was always really mild but really impactful at the same time. He wouldn't say anything unless he really meant it or unless he really thought it was important.

And he was fun to hang out with. But he also knew when to kind of like crack the whip with us, too, which is perfect. That's exactly what you need from a producer — someone who knows the ebb and flow of taking charge: sometimes it's the band, but sometimes it's the producer. And it can't be off-balanced. The feelings have to be super mutual — everyone is contributing, so it doesn't feel like it becomes more the producer's vision or it becomes more the band's vision. There's definitely a fine balance that I feel like we really reached a good spot with Alex.

And it happened pretty quickly. I remember being a little nervous when we went in to record the first song. But just his presence and the whole vibe of the studio — pretty immediately, we got into a good work flow. We had almost two weeks booked and I had about 12 songs, but we ended up doing 17 because we were working pretty fast.

EA: Nice! And I’m glad you pulled Jake [Lenderman] and Karly [Hartzman from Wednesday] in on this album. They’re such good people.

DG: Yeah.

EA: How did y’all first connect?

DG: Just from doing some shows together, back a few years ago, I think we did some shows with Wednesday in, I want to say, 2022. And then also with Jake and his band. And we all did some shows on that tour with Colin Miller as well.

They're just great people. And then we went to their house for a barbecue one day after we were in the studio, and we're like, “You guys should just come hang out for a little bit.” I guess it just naturally happens if you have friends in a town. It's always a good vibe to invite people into the studio to keep it fresh.

EA: Speaking of their house, that was sort of my next question — it's a bummer that they had to move from here and go to Greensboro because of affordability issues. I'm guessing you know all about that from them.

DG: Yeah, it's a huge bummer. That was a great spot.

Photo by POND Creative

EA: It seemed like a great setup for them and that community. Definitely, Asheville artists are really struggling with affordability issues, and if a band like Wednesday that you feel like has “made it” has to make a move like that, it feels like the system's kind of broken. Is that stuff that you and your bandmates struggle with? Or some of your fellow musician friends are struggling with right now?

DG: Oh, yeah. Totally. I mean, I live in New York now. I grew up in Boston. Those are two of the most expensive cities in the country, and it's becoming more and more impossible to be a full-time musician. Unless you're making, like, real money doing it, I don't really foresee…I don't know. I don't want to sound negative, but it's hard to foresee myself and the longevity of being a full-time touring musician when the price of rent is so high.

I go on tour and I work jobs when I'm home. It hasn't really been like a full-time thing for me because of the cost of living. And even though I feel like I devote so much of my time to the band, it’s hard to save. In an ideal world, I'd love to save and put a down payment on a house or something, but I feel like if I keep pursuing music, that dream is less and less possible.

But that's not why I do it. I do it because I really love it. And I feel like my soul needs it or something. So, right now, I'm young enough, I'm like willing to do whatever to make it work — to live my dream or whatever.

EA: For sure. Well, moving on to the new album itself, I know that the song “Today’s Iconoclast” was inspired in part by you watching a [Pier Paolo] Pasolini film. And being a film critic — that's my main gig — I'm always curious when cinema stuff pops up. So, how else do you feel like cinema influences your songwriting and your instrumentation? Because your sound does fill the room and feels kind of film score-y sometimes.

DG: Cool! Yeah, I’m definitely inspired by cinema a lot. I like the long, poetic stuff. I recently watched Nostalghia by [Andrei] Tarkovsky,  and that feels like the slow core of cinema where it’s, like, long, poetic shots. And I feel like that kind of momentum inspires me a lot. And then literature often does, too. And poems — I feel like I draw a lot of my inspiration more from that realm, even more so than music itself, sometimes.

But yeah, I was trying to think what Pasolini movie I watched. I think it was The Gospel According to St. Matthew. Have you ever seen that one?

EA: I haven’t.

DG: It’s literally just a reinterpretation of one of the gospels. And there's a lot of long, slow, poetic shots of faces and stuff like that.

The only reason I think “Today's Iconoclast” was inspired by him is because I watched a YouTube video about him that kept describing him as an iconoclast, and I really liked that word. And I was trying to think about how that term “iconoclast” is like you’re destroying what is a common belief or something. And I feel like every artist should sort of strive for that a little bit with what they're making. Like, I'm not doing anything crazy different or I'm still playing guitar — there are smaller ways you can do that without trying to be an asshole about it, I guess.

So, I guess he was inspiring in that way. And just his perspective on the art form of cinema — that kind of stuff inspires me a lot.

EA: Have you have you had time to see many new films this year in theaters? And do you have any favorites so far? Or do you not have much time to get out to the theater?

DG: Actually, we did go to the movies on an off day on this tour. When we were in Tampa, Fla., we went to see Longlegs — which, I guess I don't want to say too much about because it seems like people are having pretty mixed feelings about it. Did you see that?

EA: I really liked it. I really went for it.

DG: Our band was pretty torn down the middle about it. I thought it was a really fun movie. I just thought it was going to be way scarier, to be honest.

EA: I thought it was more…I felt dread the whole time. I prefer that to, like, “jump out and get me” or something like that. I feel those hold up longer because the jump scare movies…once you've seen it, it's sort of like, “Well, OK.”

DG: Yeah, I feel that. I also just fucking love Nicolas Cage and I loved his character in that movie. I thought it was so good.

EA: Oh yeah. I wrote in my film review, “I guess there is such a thing as listening to too much T. Rex.” [laughs]

DG: [laughs] Yeah, I loved the whole glam rock vibe in that movie. It was so sick. I love T. Rex, so it was awesome.

(Photo by POND Creative)