Photo by Laura Mason

In his short time on this Earth thus far, Stephen Pierce has already become a cornerstone fixture within the Western Massachusetts independent music scene, having been a key driving force behind post-hardcore bastions Ampere and decibel-decimating shoegazers Kindling. Last year, Pierce took a sonic turn and introduced his latest creative chapter with the debut album from his psychedelic folk project Gold Dust, and this year, the band has expanded its view by many miles swith its standout sophomore effort and essential fall listen, The Late Great Gold Dust.

+rcmndedlisten spoke with Stephen via e-mail in depth about the kinship between Gold Dust and its surrounding nature, opening the door into the band’s scenic world with its cast of collaborators, being loud as a softer facet of his sound, and where the trail leads him next.

+rl: Last autumn’s self-titled debut album as Gold Dust sounded like a seasonably accurate refraction of sunlit psych folk, considered indie rock songwriting, and autumn leaves crunching beneath your feet during a walk through the Western Mass trails. You’re releasing its follow-up almost a year to the date. Do you take the seasons of New England into account when envisioning how and when your songs will enter the world?

Stephen Pierce: Definitely, yeah. I think most things are better during the fall, so my bias here might be exactly that, but I think the sort of experience that Gold Dust is proffering fits with the cold air and falling leaves. There’s a sort of peaceful melancholy to the fall, for me, and I think there’s some of that in what we’re putting out there. Autumn is kinda a beautiful foreboding, you know? A “like it while it lasts, because it won’t last long” sort of thing, the tension of enjoying something but knowing that immediately following that thing it gets dark, literally and figuratively in this case.

I spend a lot of time outside though, mostly on the trails of Mt. Tom, above Easthampton/Holyoke. The trails, the views, the experience – it’s all constantly changing, and I’m grateful for all of it, even when it sucks. In recent years I learned of the Japanese term “shinrin yoku” which essentially translates to “forest bathing”: the idea that intentional and focused engagement with the natural world can help with depression, burnout, anxiety, etc., in addition to simply offering placidity and mind-freeing disconnect and an opportunity for mindfulness. I mean, it’s broader than that, but that’s sort of the bullet-pointed version of it. While the trails haven’t cured me of depression or anything that dramatic, getting out there each day is definitely elemental to my wellbeing and provides me with at least a few hours of less ennui, or whatever. Especially when you’re trail running, you’re kinda forced to be present, noticing the roots and rocks, trying to keep your footing and shit. Everything else just kinda washes away for a bit.

+rl: The recording of the Late Great Gold Dust also involved more collaboration than its predecessor. Alongside your live drummer Adam Reid, Fred Thomas of Saturday Looks Good to Me, Jacki Sullivan, formerly of Hop Along, your Kindling bandmate, Gretchen Wiliams, and a very necessary guitar solo from J Mascis on “Larks Swarm A Hawk”, there’s also a short story in the liner notes written by Sean Yeaton of Parquet Courts. Add in Justin Pizzoferatto on production, and it’s as if you gathered an aesthetically astute circle into Western Mass’ weirdness. How much does the local music scene inform that creative process?

SP: It felt cool to open things up a little, to get some perspective that isn’t my own. Everyone else’s contributions – Fred’s synth part on “And Yet”, Jacki’s Hammond organ on “Catalpa” – those are totally different from where my ear would’ve guided them. Adam’s Rhodes parts in particular served to flesh out some moments that I thought were missing something, but wasn’t able to pinpoint just what – I’m thinking particularly of the first minutes or so of “Unreliable Narrator” and the extra moodiness he brought to “All Things Aside” and “A Storm”. Gretchen had ideas when I was working on the first GD record, but I very willfully wanted that record to be literally just me, for better or for worse, so it was good to have her along for the ride here. I’m thinking of songs like “Mountain Laurel” and “Absolutely Nowhere” that wouldn’t have worked with just one person’s vocals. Gretchen’s probably as obsessive about getting “the right take” as I am, so it all came together quick and easy.

The approach with all of the folks who played on the record with me was just to say, like, “Hey, I trust your ear here, I trust your ability, here’s roughly the idea that I’m working with, good luck and thank you,” and to just sort of leave it with them to fill in how they saw fit.

Sean’s liner notes are something else. A thing I’ve always really loved about older records – and particularly a lot of the folk boom records of the mid-to-late 60s – is that they included a bit of writing alongside it from someone who wasn’t on the record, typically a producer or music journalist or something, and usually to the end of puffing up the musician. While I don’t really see much value in liner notes being about the band, or about me, or whatever, it’s such an opportunity to kinda thread some sort of connection to something else, some broader idea. It’s all stage-setting, really. It’s all community. Sean’s been a good friend for a long, long time and to be able to work together in any capacity on these records has been awesome.

All that aside, I’m really fortunate to have such talented friends, and even more fortunate that some of them generously made themselves available to join me on this record. Half jokingly but with more than just a dash of sincerity, I’ll say that it’s pretty cool to look at the who’s who of it all and think, “Man, I’m the least talented person on this thing!” A lot to be grateful for there.

+rl: One of the main observations of this album is that it’s heavier, sonically and emotionally. “Go Gently” worships at the doom folk altar in a way that bridges your work in Kindling before segueing into lush, dream pastures with massive drums hitting behind it. That carries on forward. Inverting your shoegaze identity with more organically layered effects and long sighs popping equally heavily has been both a challenge, but also something that’s come easy to understand once cracking the code from your perspective, one has to imagine…

SP: To be honest, a lot of it comes down to practice and familiarity with myself, my limitations and skills. Volume is great, I’d usually say that everything sounds better louder, but loud is only loud if quiet is quiet, right? It’s sorta how a song like “Planet Caravan” or “Fluff” by Sabbath will make everything around it hit even harder by comparison, you know? Since I first heard “Washer” by Slint, or the song that everyone called “Angry Son” by Indian Summer, I’d been big on dynamics in a song. When those songs kick it up a notch, it’s jarring and exciting and dangerous, and in a way feels like the wheels are threatening to come off. I figured going the opposite direction, massive-heavy to quiet-meditative, would have an inverse effect and, like, feel like the eye of a hurricane coming over you after a spell of 60mph winds.

There’s also the question that I sometimes consider, “What is heavy?” Is heavy a riff, the way that certain notes sound next to each other? Lyrical content? Is it a mood that’s created, or something else entirely, something unquantifiable? Fuck if I know, and I think some of the tension of not knowing shows up in song, or in production, or whatever. In any case, it’s a cool journey, to see how something that often starts as just, like, something played on an acoustic guitar can unfold once you start digging to see what’s beneath.

+rl: Do you feel like you’ve mined the depths of Gold Dust fully here, or can we expect to hear this journey go further and take on trilogy form come autumn of 2023?

SP: Yeah. I mean, I sure hope I haven’t stripped the quarry of the last of its useful materials. I have like seven to ten songs, depending on what you want to consider a “song”, towards the next record already. I’m taking my time with it, though. I’m really looking forward to a third LP. Maybe the move is to make each record progressively less “me” and more “us.” It’s a cool thing, to be able to make a record all by yourself at home, but it’s an even cooler thing to make one with friends, with people whose musical intuitions you trust and who you really love being around. As it goes, they’ll have different approaches to playing the songs than I would, which should bring some different points of view to the table. In any case, as long as I’m around, Gold Dust is around, I suppose. Making music is a compulsion, or I guess just some form of creation is, anyway, and I couldn’t stop doing whatever it is that I’m doing if I tried.

Making music in the way that I’ve made these two Gold Dust records, it’s fulfilling to have gone about it mostly on my own, but it’s also a lonely thing. It’s easy to end up feeling hypercritical and rudderless throughout the process, giving those nagging voices of self-doubt more weight than they’re due. I’ve variously felt bad and at peace with that, but ultimately, pushing through it all was a pretty rewarding thing. It allowed me to actualize these two LPs that ostensibly ended up being exactly the sort of records that I’d want to make. That’s why I didn’t press too many of the first one, at first. I went into it all kind of free from any expectation that people would find it or listen to it, or buy it if they did. I just wanted to make something true to myself, that pushed me to write in a different way than I’d been writing, pick up some new technique and skill, and if possible at the same time try to kill the ego and make something that earnestly tries to answer the question of “Who the fuck am I and why?”

It’s all kind of reframed my approach to doing this sort of thing: it’s underlined and reaffirmed for me why I do this, what I’m hoping to get out of it. Helps me remember what’s important, why I started strumming a guitar in the first place.

Gold Dust’s The Late Great Gold Dust is available now on Centripetal Force Records.