Sarah Dunn, on the Small Moments and Big Feelings That Inspired Her Album, ‘Too Much’
Sarah Dunn, a Hamden, Conn.-based indie folk/punk musician mom, is leaving no stone unturned in her quest to make great art.
“Ghost of You,” the first single off ‘Too Much,’ her first full-length album, was sparked by a walk home from a wine shop. As she passed an old cemetery, she reflected on a near-encounter with a short-lived flame, then recalled a gravestone poem by Robert Zott.
“I’ll write them in the margins of paper, or text them to myself,” she says of the songs that come to her at seemingly odd suburban-adulting moments, like when she’s pressure-washing a rug.
We caught up with Sarah to learn more about the record, and how she’s juggling music, work, and a full life as a single mom with two kids, three chickens, a minivan, and a fulltime day job as a mental health professional.
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ROCKMOMMY: Tell us about your new record — the concept behind it and the approach!
SARAH DUNN: Hi! Thank you so much for letting me tell you about it, I’m flattered into a puddle. So. “Too Much” is my first full-length album. It’s taken from the minutiae of my small, quiet life, and woven into little songs that are packaged stories of my thoughts and feelings. I think about how the mundane, subtle things can come together into a larger tapestry of a narrative. I’m a single mom in the suburbs who has two kids, three cats, three chickens, and a minivan, and I carry a deep internal emotional life through these everyday emotions. This album is a series of the small pleasures that unravel my emotions into a musical diary.
ROCKMOMMY: What was the inspiration behind your first single off the album, ‘Ghost of You?’
SARAH DUNN: This is a little embarrassing. I was in Wine 101, a shop in Hamden, Connecticut, and through the window I saw a person with whom I had gone on a few dates, many years ago. A really great person, funny, clever, kind, and I felt my stomach drop. When I left the wine shop I walked through this little, old, overgrown cemetery across the way I like to visit. I started thinking about the gravestone poetry by Robert Zott, which I find absolutely arresting, and how I wanted to find a way to hold and honor the time I had with that person, and, the song kind of fell into place.
ROCKMOMMY: How did the other songs come together?
SARAH DUNN: They… aren’t exciting stories. They came to me while pressure washing a rug, scrolling Reddit and seeing the “Lovers of Valero,” and one from finding a package of my ex-husband’s (of almost ten years) contact lenses in my linen closet, even though he has never lived in this house. I’ll write them in the margins of a paper, or text them to myself. I’m pretty disciplined, so I make time every night to practice and work on things, so I’ll then rewrite, or play for friends to see how the songs feel, and either polish them up, or tuck away into kind of a musical boneyard to maybe be used another time, maybe not. I had about twenty songs I regularly play out, and chose ten that felt best, do to with Steve Rodgers, who does all the studio work and recording.
ROCKMOMMY: What’s changed in the last three years since you emerged as a singer-songwriter after years of hibernating in a different life?
SARAH DUNN: I have gotten to know a whole world of wonderful, kind, weird people I would never have had the pleasure of meeting, which has been enriching, and challenging, and really special. I also feel like I’ve had a lot of personal growth in these few years, that music has become an anchor. I do it for me, it’s from me, it’s by me, and I’ve changed to how music has become a special harbor of consistency.
ROCKMOMMY: It’s so hard to be a musician and a parent. How do you make time for your art, and supporting your friends?
SARAH DUNN: Being a parent is relentless- school activities, sports, classes, instruments, PTA events, after school events, sleepovers, friends, birthday parties, it does not stop. As a single parent, I have the layer of having to “prove” myself in all of this. However, because I make my kids to practice their instruments every day (one on clarinet, one on flute), it’s a convenient extension for me to practice, too. Additionally, Steve Rodgers has been generous, flexible, and patient to get this album done, and, that’s been an enormous gift.
I make it a point to go out once a month to see a friend’s band. I also play out once a month, I often organize my own small shows so that it can accommodate my mom-schedule. It’s work, but it’s what works. Additionally, I’ve been making a concerted effort to connect with and invite musicians to play with who are people of color, women, LGBTQ+ to play. It’s a problem in local music. We all need to step out of what is the comfortable and be part of a solution.
Marisa Torrieri Bloom is the editor and founder of Rockmommy.
