Jack Dishel: Musician, Only Son
- May 25
- 3 min read
Jack Dishel has spent more than thirty years writing and performing music, from his early work with The Moldy Peaches to his solo recordings as Only Son. Alongside his music, he created the self-produced web series :DRYVRS, extending his work into tightly contained, character-driven storytelling. Across projects, he’s built work that holds tension between exposure and concealment. We talked about where a song begins, how much of the truth to put into a lyric, and the physical cue that tells him a recording is finished.
When you sit down to write a new song, what usually comes first for you, and how does that first element steer what the song becomes?
I usually just start strumming and singing whatever melody drifts into my head. The moment a song idea appears can be really sudden, and then there’s usually a much longer period of fleshing it out and turning it into a finished song. The lyrics always take the longest, and a lot of the time the feeling of the music inspires them. Sometimes it takes me a really long time to figure out what it is, and other times the idea just emerges. I’ve been doing it for over thirty years, and it’s still a mysterious and magical process.
How do you draw the line between what you’ll put into a lyric and what you keep to yourself?
Usually the things we want to keep to ourselves make for the most interesting songs to others. I think there’s a lot of code in my lyrics — things that mean other things. But somehow the meaning still comes across. It feels like a strange mixture of revelation and concealment. Sometimes you have to lie to describe the truth.
At what point do you know a song is finished, and what usually has to change before you’re willing to let it go?
I usually know a recording is done when nothing bothers me physically. If I’m tense while listening to a recording, it’s usually my body telling me that something isn’t right. When I can listen and just nod my head without interruption, it’s usually done.
You moved from the Soviet Union to the U.S. as a child. Do you notice that early displacement shaping the tone or perspective of your work?
I think being the child of immigrants who don’t have a connection to the country you’re growing up in has an effect on your perspective — you view the culture through their eyes and your own at the same time. I’ve always been an outsider in whatever scene I was hanging around, both musically and otherwise, and I’m sure that shapes the tone of everything I do.
On stage, what changes from the studio version, and what are you deciding in the moment that reshapes it?
When I’m playing with a full band, the arrangements are all worked out ahead of time, kind of like a play. There isn’t much improvisation going on instrumentally. I think the reshaping happens in the delivery of the music — the way it’s played and sung changes all the time depending on the mood of the band, so different aspects of the songs come through. When I play alone, I have a lot more freedom, and I wind up ad-libbing much more in the moment. I also wind up doing some kind of standup between songs because I can’t seem to help myself.
When Jack talks about finishing a song, he listens for the moment his body relaxes. He pays attention to the first melody that appears, the coded layers inside a lyric, and the changes in delivery that alter a performance from one night to the next. The audience doesn’t see those decisions. They just feel whether the song holds.
Learn more about Jack at:
• YouTube
