Dallon Weekes has been orbiting fame long enough to know that the gravity of the music industry is mostly hot air and false moons. But with Razzmatazz, his latest album under the hyper-stylized moniker I Don’t Know How But They Found Me, Weekes manages to turn isolation, existential dread, and a heavy dose of vintage theatricality into a record that’s as Bowie-glam as it is Henley-slick. (Yes, that Don Henley.)
“It’s all about that feeling of not being welcome,” he tells me, sounding almost cheerful about it. “I was living in LA, just kind of orbiting this weird world of fame and celebrity and money—not part of it, but around it.” In true Weekes fashion, he took that outsider angst and dressed it up in synths and eyeliner.
Despite the timing, Weekes insists this isn’t a pandemic record—at least, not on purpose. “Those feelings of isolation, frustration, loneliness, and anger were already there. COVID just made them more fashionable,” he deadpans. That said, the safety protocols and shoot-from-home realities of the pandemic era did creep into the process. “Art’s a reaction to what you’re going through. You make a rough plan, but you leave space for life to find a way,” he says, quoting Jeff Goldblum like it’s a guiding principle.
And that guiding principle? Sound like Bowie and Prince… and, sure, Don Henley. “I wanted that track ‘Leave Me Alone’ to sound like if Bowie and Prince and Don Henley got into a brawl,” he says. “Don’t want to be too specific—I want to stay out of court with the Henley.” Which might be the most Gen X answer to anything, ever.
Speaking of generations, Weekes is still working out where he belongs. “Technically I’m like an ancient millennial,” he says. “But we were raised with our eyes locked on MTV, waiting for them to maybe, hopefully play The Cure again.” In other words: raised on anticipation. No Spotify algorithms here, just prayer and a VCR.
That longing for effort-based discovery led to the band’s original gimmick—complete secrecy. “We’d book shows, not tell anyone, and deny everything. Like, nope, wasn’t us, those guys just looked really handsome.” The idea was to avoid riding on the coattails of Panic! At The Disco or Weekes’ other past lives. “We didn’t want to take advantage of the bands we were working for or their fans. We wanted to see if people would find us on their own.”
They did. And they brought their own magnifying glasses. “It’s so easy to put music out now, but wading through it all to find the gems—that’s the challenge. So we tried to make it a little harder. A little more rewarding.” Part of that includes a fully fleshed-out fictional universe, complete with storylines, characters, and yes, potential comic books. “We’ve been talking to DC,” he shrugs. “I’m not a comic writer, but I’m a comic fan.”
He also might be the only artist in 2021 still writing spoken word bridges. “From the Gallows” has a moment straight out of the Ink Spots playbook—“baby… baby,” he croons like it’s 1939 again. “I took the Ink Spots formula and turned it into a Lawrence Welk song on acid.” You don’t say.
But it’s not all jazz-age camp and theatrical winks. There’s real substance behind the stage lights. “We had to relearn how to be frontmen. How to play as a two-piece. How to be ourselves again.” Which is hard when people still think of you as “that guy from that other band.” Weekes didn’t want a shortcut. “We didn’t wave a banner that said hey, formerly of…. We wanted the music to earn attention on its own.”
It has. Songs like “Nobody Likes the Opening Band” now serve as both anthem and calling card—an ironic slow-clap for the overlooked that, yes, opens their shows (but only if the actual openers are cool with it). “We even let them come up and sing a new verse—‘Nobody Likes the Headlining Band.’ That one always kills.”
So what comes next? “We’ve got bits and pieces. Little things we like. We just need to make them into songs instead of jingles,” he says. Modest for a guy who’s already turned nostalgia, alienation, and a synth fetish into one of the most compelling acts of the past few years. But again, that’s the Weekes way—everything’s over-the-top and underplayed at the same time. The glam, the gloom, the theater, the silence.
As he puts it, “We’re just trying not to rest on our laurels.”
Watch the interview above and then check out the videos below.
