Blooming with “Dandelion” by The Greeting Committee
Sam Plascencia
The long-awaited release of Dandelion by The Greeting Committee is officially over. The Kansas-city alt-rock band delivers their sophomore album by telling a brutally honest narrative of a breakup. The emotional journey of Dandelion reminds us of the grueling process it takes to find yourself again after periods of feeling stuck. Each track emanates heavy lyricism and synths in a way that captures the rawness of it all.
The Greeting Committee’s guitarist, Brandon Yangmi, had a moment to chat and tell us more about the making of Dandelion. We learn more about the band’s sonic growth, creative inspiration, and what excites Yangmi the most post-release.
Bad Wreck: Did you decide to name the album after the track, “Dandelion”? Overall, what inspired the name, Dandelion?
Brandon: I think just the symbol of a dandelion — it being this beautiful weed — I think just symbolizes a lot of what the album narrative is for Addie. I personally can't speak a lot about what narrative is because it's hers to tell and not mine. But I think that's the idea of what it was. It’s this beautiful plant but it's a weed. It is known as a weed and in a way symbolizes the narrative that she's telling. It came from the track “Dandelion.” That wasn't originally what the album was supposed to be called. We had that track called “Dandelion” and it was one of the more early songs that had the this is gonna make the album feeling. We had the album done or we had pretty much all the songs lined up. So we were kind of just kicking around some ideas about what the album should be called. Then I think Addie was like “How do you feel about Dandelion?” and I think we were like “Cool! We’re gonna run with that!”
BW: We know that the writing process for “Can I Leave Me Too?” began at the start of quarantine. Did you find a happy medium to create these songs without actually being with one another?
B: That’s a good question. It was interesting to do because I think we're in the same boat as everybody. No one knows what to do during the pandemic. Everyone was just like, “how do I work, how do I function in my life?” and then it's a lot of sitting around waiting to see what everybody else is doing. Eventually, we got to move forward in some type of way while staying safe. We were all locked up in our bedrooms doing home recordings and sending ideas around. I kind of enjoyed it because I like being off on my own just working on stuff and then sending it in Dropbox which was great for getting down ideas. I think we have a big Dropbox folder just full of ideas — just getting stuff out but then the hard part was “How do you add to this idea how do we keep shaping it?” It just seems so tedious and so long. I guess my comparison is when you're emailing someone over and over again to get something done. When we can just hop on the phone and chat about this in five minutes. We can get in the room and nail this out way quicker. Eventually, we were like, “Okay this isn't working... We need to figure a way to meet up and stay safe.” I am fortunate enough that my parents own a lake house down at the Ozarks which is near where I live. So I was like, “Alright, how about we all just go bunker down in this lake house and just live together for two weeks.” So, “Can I Leave Me Too” was the first song that came out of that writing session. We thought this is something that might make the album. It just felt like something that we can build around. I will say, we wrote maybe two songs right before the pandemic. The second song we wrote was for writing in general and getting back into the flow of it. That kind of ended up being a good portion of the outro for the song “How Long.” It was cool because the last song I think we finished with the record and also one of the very first songs that we wrote for the record. It's kind of full circle.
BW: How do you feel you’ve grown as a band since your debut album, This Is It (2018)?
B: I feel like we've grown a lot but I don't really know what it is exactly. I feel like a lot of people hear this new album compared to the last album, they’re like “Woah! This is way different” or this seems like a lot of growth. Some people are into it and some people are like “What happened?” We used to be this nice little guitar indie band. Now it's blown-out synths and crazy noises. I feel like there's been growth from my experience that I'm sure it's different for others. For me as a songwriter, my main instrument for the band was the guitar. A lot of the songs I wrote for the band were based on writing on that instrument. I think I got to a point where I got really bored with playing the guitar and felt like I couldn't express myself enough on the guitar where I just felt really uninspired. So I started grabbing for different sounds and noises and I think a lot of that started to bleed into the last EP we did before this album. I don't think a lot of people listened to our last EP so it seemed like a bit of an abrupt jump coming from the last album. From very indie-rock-guitar fun to darker-synth-heavy stuff or whatever noises are on there. You can see that trajectory of moving in that direction if you listen to the last EP that we put out. It was a lot of growth that came into not being inspired by my instrument and wanting to do other things outside of that. Grabbing different noises and textures that I felt like really helped me express my emotions and my feelings at the time was a big growth sonically for us, which I think shows up on this album.
BW: What are the stages of emotions/grief after a relationship that the album reflects?
B: From what I’ve seen just being Addie’s friend and bandmate… She went through a breakup with her current girlfriend, they’re back together and they’re amazing. So seeing that idea of “this is my person, this is the person that I want to be with” and watching them leave your life I think is a lot of what this album is based on narratively. It just goes through the different steps of being crushed and lost. Sort of losing your sense of identity and self when you lose that other half of you. I watched that unfold in her. After that breakup and kind of finding that identity again of who she is as a person and rebuilding that and being okay like, “Alright I can move on. I can be happy again. This person isn't who defines me.” Eventually, the story changes and her girlfriend does come back and they get back together which is a beautiful love story in the end. So it's kind of that whole cycle of a relationship: breaking up, having that grief of loss, and refinding yourself again. It’s that whole cycle of grief is what this album is about, from my perspective.
BW: Would you say your music is a reflection of your real-life experiences or is there somewhere else you gather inspiration from?
B: I am always really inspired by other music. I always like to reference other music and pull different things, like “What if you took the drum sounds from this type of band or the guitar playing of this type of band.” I almost like to play DJ in my head. I feel like that's a lot of my songwriting process and how I write. My biggest thing as a songwriter is capturing emotion. How does this make me feel? It can come down to whether this guitar sound doesn't match the emotion I'm trying to feel or this drumbeat just doesn't give me that emotion. It can even be the way Addie sings. There are just certain things. I'm always trying to chase emotion when I'm writing. You know watching things like movies and stuff like that. Like, “How does this movie capture this emotion and make me feel this way?” and “How do I get that same feeling inside of a song using the tools that I have.” To answer the question: Yes, I do pull from other things like movies and music. I think it's been a crazy year for everybody and outside of COVID, shit has hit the fan I guess just in general. I don't know if that's a part of growing up and getting older but it seems like it's happening more and more. I think a lot of the emotion that's on this album is just how we are as people and how we work together. A lot of that stuff has come out in the music as well. It's a mixed bag of how we’ve felt for the past year-and-a-half and then also just calling from our influences and stuff that we grew up on.
BW: Were there any specific artists, albums, or movies you watched that influenced the album?
Brandon: I’ll give you a specific example. I feel kind of bad because I almost feel like I just ripped it but the rest of the song is different. I don't know if you guys listened to the Tyler, The Creator album IGOR at all. There’s an opening track on that album, “IGOR’S THEME.” When “Ada'' opens up, it’s just that synthesizer noise. We had this crazy sample going on with the drums, it was awesome. We needed something that bleeds into that. I love the “IGOR’S THEME” intro and I just kept playing the song over and over again. I became obsessed with that album. I wanted to do something like that and I was trying to figure it out. I think maybe it was Addie or me that said “Let’s just do that.” It was just that synth note but the drumbeat and rest of the song is different. That was definitely a “Thank you, Tyler!” for leading that intro for us.
BW: We love the track “Ada” and its message. Feel free to tell us about the background!
B: So, I don’t have a personal relationship with Ada, who the song is about or named after but she is friends with Addie. The relationship I have with her though is that she does all of the merch for the band. The cool thing is that when we wrote that song and I just remember that it had a lot of emotional weight to it. It felt heavy and important to me with a deep narrative. Addie started talking to Ada and then a good friend of the band, Dakota, who's also transgender. She kind of got their experiences and tried to put that into the narrative of the song. The cool part is that Ada directed the video that came out with the song, which was awesome. It wouldn't give the song justice if we — who have never experienced these things — make a music video based around that. It’s just not accurate. Having someone like Ada come in and take over that video and direct was an awesome experience. Also, shoutout to Dakota who has been a fan for a long-time and just a supporter and has let us crash in their basement and his family is amazing. Watching his transformation has been amazing as well. It's a very cool song that has a lot of meaning that goes outside of the band just directly. Also, side note: my cousin, Josh is a very talented piano player. We’ve hit it off over the past couple of years talking about music and annoying the rest of our family because we're the only musicians. I’ve been trying to figure out a way to get him to play on a track and this seemed like just the right moment. So, that whole piano outro is based around what he played which is awesome so shoutout to my cousin for doing that!
BW: What is the band looking forward to most once the album is out?
B: I'm looking forward to people listening to it. I'm excited about that. I feel like I'm always a downer, I'm like one of those down there people that are like, “It’s not good enough.” I’m sure my band members are so annoyed like “Just shut up. It’s fine.” I'm excited for people to listen to it. There’s stuff that we've done previously where I’ve felt shy about showing my music to people. I get really insecure about it and I think that's just a normal human trait, everyone has that feeling. Now, this music actually gives me confidence. As a band, we’ve accomplished something that we're proud of, so I'm excited to share it with the world. I'm looking forward to playing shows and getting on the road and connecting with people — hopefully, fingers crossed. It's been such a long time and I don't know where the world's going right now with the COVID. It’s very much looming over stuff. People are trying to figure out ways to be physically again and be in rooms again — I miss that. I'm looking forward to that which I think will be great and just living life. I’m excited to live life.
Listen to Dandelion here!
