Last week at La Frida Cafe, on one of the cities forgotten scenic Southside Boulevards, we met up with one of Chicago’s most spirited artists. Spending time with Erin Delaney, the enigmatic singer/keyboardist of Daymaker, is like stepping into a whirlwind of artistic and political enthusiasm. Community is clearly important to her, as she took the time to greet the barista as an old friend, and came over to the table with an enthusiasm for life that is purely contagious, Hannah Arendt’s Totalitarianism under one arm and her fedora in the other. We became fast friends as we bonded over the complicated history of her band, the myth of the female singer, and political and social responsibility in artistic creation. It was a moving and honest conversation that is printed here in an edited form.
Make sure to listen to Daymaker’s Let the Sun Fall, available on streaming platforms, and make it out to The Observatory this Saturday, December 7th, for Daymaker’s set at the Free Snacks Album Release Party!  

-Kyle Land

ED : Erin Delaney

Let’s rewind four years, how did Daymaker start?

ED: Rewinding four years . . . what year is that?

2015

ED: Yeah that’s right, wow it’s been four years. So on the cusp of 2014 there were thirteen of us playing in a tiny living room in a Pilsen apartment. Egon, who is now our guitarist, was dating my roommate who played with us; Monica Wizgird, an amazing singer and pianist. Jolene Whatevr (Blacker Face) was singing with us then, Erica Miller (Lykanthea) was playing cello with us, it was very romantic big band.

Sounds like it.

ED: So Egon showed up and played this great riff and we decided to keep him despite the romantic ties. Shortly after that I moved to the Eco Arts space that was across the street from that apartment and we began practicing there in their big open front dance studio, and as I moved into the space we started throwing shows there and although we would always try to not play our own shows in the beginning, we needed bands. And though no one knew who we were, we’d just get on stage and see what happens. That’s how we cut our teeth, playing live as much as we did. What happened was, we wanted to do four band bills and we would end up closing out the night at Eco, because we’d lose a band, or couldn’t book another band, or whatever it was. And we eventually started getting our own shows from that experience. The first initial practices were really that community of friends. A lot of people are doing their own thing now, Egon and Eric are obviously still in the band, and Ruby Dunphy (Thunderpussy) now lives in Seattle, and whenever she’s in Chicago she’s the best drummer in the city. It’s ridiculous she ever played with us. Dina Moore who is on all our recordings before Let the Sun Fall. Dina played with us for a while and then moved to Seattle to fish salmon and is living a beautiful life out there. Now I’m losing track...so many memories...but it was a community that came together after I was asked to leave a space because I was involved in a domestically violent relationship. So it was a healing project; and the songs we wrote at that time were about defiance, independence, safety and healing. I think that has carried on throughout. That basis informs Daymaker having a practice that is as much for us as it is for other people. Which is kind of how it should be. There are a lot of songwriters who write for themselves, and we don’t do that. We don’t really write love songs. We write songs that we feel like we need to hear in difficult times.  

When did the handing out of fruit at your live shows start?

ED: Everybody always asks that question (laughs).

Speaking of…(Kyle hands Erin a tangerine)

ED: Nooo. (laughs) This has started happening, where people will give me a piece of fruit. But only recently, where someone will be: “Hey, I have this for you.” And I’m like ahhhhh! (raises hands like a champion) It’s total generosity and redemption.
There are two origins to that story depending on how honest I want to be with who is asking me. The first and truest origin is that I was in a really strange, predatory, very “Drakey” relationship with an older musician when I was young, who taught me a lot about the Chicago scene. He always told me that I couldn’t just sing onstage, that women can’t just sing onstage, you have to do something, you can’t just be a lady singer. So that was embedded in me. I fucking hate playing guitar, and Eric is a better bassist than I’ll ever be, and at the time I didn’t have a keyboard. At the time, I couldn’t afford shit. I remember buying my first ninety dollar microphone and I was like: “I’m in the big time now.” So I started thinking, and I also make performance art which informed this a little bit, so I’ll just hand out fruit. Which is the thing that I’ll do to justify me just singing. 

Which is bullshit by the way.

ED: It’s sooo bullshit, which is one of the reasons why I cast that aside a bit, but it’s why I started doing it. But then we started to realize that people would have a piece of fruit and feel a lot better. We were closing out a lot of shows and people would leave more hydrated, less drunk, more aware, had a little vitamin C, and we were like: “this is a really good thing for people.” So we do it relentlessly and are now making marmalade with the leftover tangerines. But primarily that generosity and building of trust between someone who was very afraid to be onstage, and a bunch of people who were possibly ready to be unimpressed was, in my mind, I don’t know, I didn’t think I could lean on anything else but that. I’m not that hot, I’m not that good, I don’t know how to do music, so maybe if I do this people will be like “oh cool, I’ll stay.” What I do like to say is we saw that it was making people feel better and act safer around each other, which is really important. Getting super fucked up without water and snack, we don’t need that to enjoy art. The only reason why that’s necessary is there is no funding for it so we have to do everything at two in the morning in this country, which is ridiculous.These are good (eating tangerine). I’m still not sick of em, you know. 

You touched on it a little bit, but Daymaker balances political and social protest with the personal. How do you strike that balance.

ED: For a band full of white people, I think it’s really a challenge that we have to tend to with great research, courtesy, awareness outside of just our music project, and a life that reflects the values that we present. Everyone in the band is leftist and has a lot of that perspective already embedded in their life. I know Egon, Eric, and I have a long standing background in involvement in social justice; be that in work, volunteership, or community building and membership. Because we’re a little bit older a lot of those values showed up in our music because that is what our lives were made of before we devoted so much time to this project. The way that I feel about my political, social justice, and leftist engagement is that it is part of my personal life, it’s a part of my body. It’s also the thing that brought me to music, and I’m a big: “an injury to one, is an injury to all” person. I think that’s something that made sense to me before I came in contact with that phraseology, but I also think that music and art is political regardless in this age and that's something we’ve decided. Where we live now, all art is political. The directness of that art is often faltering, wavering, disappointing; and we would like to bring some directness to that conversation. It also provides us with an incredible amount of relief. For me when I listen to ANOHNI’s “HOPELESSNESS,” which is an album I’ve listened to on repeat lately, or even the new Free Snacks does it, or Blacker Face does it. Cordoba does it, Mykelle Deville does it. Where they say very plainly, these are our politics. We will talk about this. It feels good to me to have that conversation never cease; and take different shades and forms that are enticing, relaxing, that creates enthusiasm, and builds solidarity. We want to be as direct as possible in our music with those messages. It’s what we care about, and I think what everyone is super exposed to, and doesn’t want to distract themselves from any longer.

Daymaker writes collectively?

ED: Yeah.

That includes lyrics?

ED: Well the thing with the lyrics...that they’re not solidified...ever. Doug Malone who records and produces our work is very patient with me in the studio, and will allow me to sit down and write the lyrics to a song in breaks from being at the mic. But normally I improvise them. Some are pretty set. The choruses to a few songs are set because we’ve played them enough, and some things bear repeating; but I think some freshness and veracity I can bring to saying the same thing every time is changing the lyrics within an intact melody. There are a couple of songs we keep open for improvisation: “Jupiter” is one, that song never sounds the same. I think that it keeps enthusiasm in the group that we are not rigidly bound to anything. As fast as the world is changing we can still have something to say about it. 

So Let the Sun Fall. Let’s talk a bit about the new album. You recorded with Doug Malone at Jamdek?

ED: He’s the best.

You’ve been getting good responses from the release?

ED: Yeah, surprisingly!

Why surprisingly?

ED: Nobody listened to our music. Except for Hayley Jordana, who is a forever Daymaker stan. I honestly couldn’t fucking believe it. We worked so hard on that album for so long. We have the support of Diversion Records, but we really did it ourselves, down to dubbing tapes the day of our release show when we didn’t get our CDs in time. I think when you do everything yourselves and are constantly scrambling and then people respond to it, you’re like, “whaaaat?”. The hard work that you put into something you love is enough of a satisfaction, but we really wrote this music for people to hold in their hearts. For when life is grinding you down. I hope that’s how it’s hitting, and the fact that people are actually listening at all is amazing. I hope that it’s helping people survive, or find a way to get through a day.

That’s why we do art.

ED: Totally. Cause life sucks! I think if life didn’t suck I would just cook. Or maybe write love songs.

How did the relationship with Diversion Records come about?

ED: We saw what The Curls were able to accomplish. I also contribute that to the incredible talent and hard work of that band. We just reached out to Diversion, and Scott gave us a shot and we’re just with them for this one record and we’ll see what happens. 

Daymaker has been involved in the DIY scene the entire time you’ve been a band. What do you think has been the scenes influence on your art?

ED: I’ve been having this conversation a lot lately. Now DIY is this strange musical classification. Which some people are feeling left out of. But it was really just a group of friends that was around from 2013-2016 that have been running venues. We’re all kind of tight because we’ve all spent time in each other’s homes. Which is a huge bonding force. But I would really love to start referring to it as the Chicago Arts Community. Can you imagine? As a performance artist and ceramicist I have gallery friends and I have DIY friends, but you all are friends, this is ridiculous. I think there is a big distinction between high art and low art and nobody wants to be caught on the wrong end of that. So you invent something like DIY so you don’t have to call it low art.

It’s not low art though, it’s not even close.

ED: It’s not, it’s just a question of money. So maybe it’s time to dispel a bit of this DIY shit, and make it just a place where people are going to make it work outside of the prestige of galleries, who won’t touch us unless it’s politically relevant to them or makes them money. And we don’t make anybody money. Unfortunately for our survival, but fortunately for our pride and solidarity across the underground arts scene in Chicago. I have put up my fair share of drywall, installed ovens in places. So I guess it is DIY, the very Home Depot version. That is real. 

As far as the community, it sounds like that shaped what Daymaker became.

ED: I’m a very community oriented person. It’s the love of my life that these people spend time with me, and that we hang on to each other. But that community are my friends, and if they need me I’m there for them. They are my family, whatever they need, whoever they may be. I’ve known many of them for a very long time. Jolene I’ve known since she was sixteen and we were trying to hop fences to get into...she was much younger than me...but I was like “well if you can’t get in we’re gonna figure this out…” We are just friends. We’re just close. It’s not about an umbrella community tie or something, it’s that we stand up for each other, we look out for each other; and when we make mistakes, hopefully we call each other out and help us take space. Running a space, there was lots of that kind of responsibility that became important. Egon and I came up with a plan based on restorative justice literature, and went through that process with some folks. Now I feel like if you’re in a room with me at a show, I feel like we’re connected. If that connections complicated to sort out, that’s fine; but we’re still going to take care of each other.