Anyone who knows me knows that I’m a huge fan of Twin Peaks and the movies of David Lynch, so I was very excited when my good buddy Scoopski told me that Fuck You, Tammy would be playing at Philadelphia’s Silk City Diner on June 1 alongside the Blackburns, whose music I’ve played on my radio show a couple of times! Those in the know will recognize the band’s name as a line from Twin Peaks: The Return, and the band has been making a name for itself since that series aired its final episode in 2017. Since then, they’ve expanded their repertoire to include more songs from the David Lynch Extended Cinematic Universe and have played The Bell House in Brooklyn, 2019’s infamous BLACK LODGE/ WHITE NOISE Halloween event at 3 Dollar Bill, and headlined Eraserhood Forever 2019 at PhilaMOCA, where they shared the stage with Twin Peaks star James Marshall. And since they’re coming to Philadelphia again, I couldn’t pass up a chance to chat with one of the band’s founders, lead singer Devery Doleman…

When did you become a fan of Twin Peaks? What was your first impression of the show?

I was in college when Twin Peaks originally aired, and every week a group of people would gather in the common room of my big Gothic dorm and watch it together on the TV.  I was riveted and confused; it was the most arresting thing I had ever seen.  I had never seen anything so frightening and in ways I didn’t understand. I remember watching the scene with BOB climbing over the sofa and everyone in the common room screamed! It affected me on a deep level I didn’t really understand at the time.  I was only 19, and a very sheltered 19 in a lot of ways.  

The idea for the band formed as Twin Peaks: The Return was drawing to a close. Apologies to my readers who might not have seen it, but what did you think of the series—and that last scene in particular? How did it hit you?

I loved The Return.   I loved how he used all the original actors, and seeing them age, makes time itself is a character in the show, how it’s part of the medium he is working with.  The last scene destroyed me.  I remember Julie, Nate, Nate’s wife Jess  and I all watched 17 and 18 together at Julie’s house: and after episode 17 we were all giddy and freaking out and sharing theories: and then after episode 18 we were all stunned into a stupor and didn’t really know what to say.  I remember just biking home in a fugue state.  But I loved it.  And I think as an interrogation of the idea of the detective; the motivations of the detective – like Fire Walk With Me restored Laura’s personhood and agency, and then Cooper – undoes her in his inability to know when the quest needs to end, you know? Also Sarah Palmer reminds me of my mother, may she rest in peace, so I have a soft, sad spot for that ending.  

Was it difficult to find musicians to be in a Twin Peaks-themed band? Did anyone need convincing?

No convincing needed!  The band came together to play a one-off Halloween show, and our first set was primarily the Julee Cruise/ Badalamenti songs, a lot from Floating Into The Night.  Julie, Nate and I were playing together in a band called Scam Avenue, [which many people at the time said “Scam Avenue needs to play the Road House!”  and then David and Bill Ferullo and I played in Les Sans Culottes together.  So I knew everyone and they were all already huge Twin Peaks fans.  Julie knew Anthony and recruited him – when came to our first rehearsal, he had never seen the show, and by our second gig I think he had finished The Return.   Everyone has been really game.   After the first show we played, it was so fun, and the audience was so into it, I asked everyone if they wanted to keep going, and here we are today. Blaise joined the band in December because David was being pulled in too many directions and wanted to step down.  Blaise is also a huge Lynch fan, and needed no convincing – she and her fiancé have a podcast about horror movies.  She’s in a great band called Dahl Haus, and Dahl Haus had played a bill with us in 2018 and that’s how we met.  So she’s a perfect fit and I can’t tell you how happy and lucky we all felt to have her come on board. 

Do you ever have to explain the band name, or do fans just get it?

 I have to explain it constantly to non-fans.  Fans get it! But when we played Berlin Under A in March, a friend overheard a guy buying a ticket for the show and telling the doorperson “I saw the flyer that a band called Fuck You, Tammy! Is playing tonight and Tammy is my ex wife so I love this fuckin band already and I am here to see FUCK YOU, TAMMY!”  I never met the guy though, so I hope we at least met his expectations! 

I know the band consists of members of other bands. How does everyone find time to juggle all of their other commitments and also be a part of Fuck You, Tammy?

Well – I’m extremely organized. I’m notorious for sending very thorough emails.  Also everyone in this band is a responsible person and communicates well.  And I think we all love each other and enjoy playing together, and so it can be hard to schedule things at times, but we all make it work.   Usually the moment we book a show I book the rehearsals for the show so they are locked in on the calendar. Julie is in a great band Ilithios as well as her solo project Basalt Jar: Bill plays in Les Sans Culottes with me and then is in Ghostbound: Anthony plays with so many other people and has his own solo material; Blaise is in Dahl Haus and Mevius; but also, the more bands you play with the better you play?  So I feel like it just makes everything richer. 

I’m curious about your audience. While I’m sure most of the people who come out to see you are fans of Twin Peaks and David Lynch, I’m also guessing that innocent bystanders (for lack of a better phrase) also catch your act from time to time. What’s their reaction? Do you ever feel like you need to win certain people over? 

I think the greatest thing about this band is despite being a phenomenal (some say the finest!) David Lynch tribute band, we are just a really great band, period.  Everyone in this band is a phenomenal musician and we all play so well together, and you don’t have to know anything about Twin Peaks to love us.   A friend of mine (who is a very accomplished musician) came to see FYT! In April, and she told me “you guys are so incredible” and then two days later said “I can’t believe I didn’t know those were covers!” So everyone wins:  people who love Lynch and love Twin Peaks are usually thrilled to see these songs live – for some people it’s the first time they’ve ever heard a live performance of songs that hold a great deal of meaning for them.  Others get to see a really tight band play a wide range of incredible songs of varying genre and tone yet all part of the same “world,” and we are very compelling live. 

You’ve played at a couple of big Twin Peaks and David Lynch-related events like Eraserhood Forever at PhilaMOCA and met some of members of the cast. What was that like?

One of the most surreal moments in my life is from that Eraserhood Forever soundcheck.  The Saturday event was at this beautiful speakeasy space called The Ruba Club – the stage is upstairs and has an old auditorium feel, and there’s a beautiful painted forest backdrop on the stage.  We are soundchecking with “Rockin Back Inside My Heart,” since Julie and I both sing on it and it’s a good for checking vocal levels.  And as I’m singing “Tell your heart, it’s me/ I want you, rockin’ back inside my heart, I want you, rockin’ back inside myyyyy hearrrrrt” I see a man entering the dark auditorium, backlit from the stairway.  He slowly walks toward the stage and sits down on a chair against the wall and watches us play.  And I realize –  it’s James Marshall.  We made a band because of a show, and I’m singing a song from that show, and then James from the show walks into the room where I am singing onstage – but it’s me, not Julee Cruise, and instead of the Road House, it is the Ruba Club.  It was like – we made a world about the TV show world, and then an actor from the TV show world walked into the worldbubble we had made in response.  It was wild.  And James was so kind and modest.  He is also a musician, and when we asked him what he wanted to play he wanted to jam some Jimi Hendrix with the band, and on my phone I have like 10 minutes of everyone jamming with James Marshall during soundcheck.  Since we had just played some Bowie songs for a Twin Peaks/ Bowie event I coproduced called Black Lodge/ White Noise and asked if he wanted to do Ashes to Ashes, and we did!  It was such a fun time, and what made me happiest was that James said we were all really nice and he had a good time with us.  But I will never forget singing “Just You” and then “Ashes to Ashes” with James.

Then there was the time Michael Horse just ran up and improvised a blues song about a Cadillac with us at the Mahoning Drive in.  This is on YouTube, it was wild! And the best part was – we got to be his backing band while he did something he doesn’t get to do at these events! Moments like that are so special and weird and amazing.  

I’m also curious about your repertoire. I know that Fuck You, Tammy channels the music of Twin Peaks and the David Lynch Extended Cinematic Universe. Does that include songs by bands like the Cactus Blossoms and Au Revoir Simone, who appeared in Twin Peaks: The Return? Are there any “deep cuts” just for the David Lynch super-fans? 

At this point we have at least two sets of material! Please someone book us to play two sets.  From Twin Peaks: The Return we perform Au Revoir Simone’s “A Violent Yet Flammable World,” The Chromatics’ “Shadow,” and The Platters’ “My Prayer,” all of which are in our current set.  I think the deepest cuts might be – we shot a video of our cover of “True Love’s Flame” and have a really beautiful video we shot for it that we dropped on Valentine’s Day:  we do “Red Bats With Teeth,” “I’m Deranged “and “Eye” from Lost Highway; [Anthony is an incredible sax player, how can you NOT have Red Bats in your set with him around?]  I think “Slaughterhouse” is a pretty deep cut! 

One of the best “super fan” moments we had was when we played the Wild World of David Lynch weekend at the Mahoning Drive In last summer – they were screening Lost Highway and we decided to make sure there were Lost Highway tunes in the set.   We did that show in costumes, and Anthony was dressed as Gordon Cole, wearing a suit, FBI badge, etc.  We finish “Sycamore Trees” and then Anthony quietly slips away for the next song that didn’t have sax.  When the band starts the opening vamp to Red Bats With Teeth, and a moment later, Anthony walks across the field having changed (in his car)  into a tight black t shirt and wearing his saxophone –that  whole crowd of fans KNEW what was about to happen and started going crazy!  He then completely killed that song, just like Fred Madison.  It’s really fun to have these fan-specific moments and flourishes: but it’s never in place of or at the expense of the musicianship.   But I love helping create moments like that, where one of my bandmates really gets to show off, and where it’s really fun for the audience too. 

As we’ve expanded the set, it’s also really interesting to see how all these songs actually share an emotional throughline.  You get a different appreciation for why each was chosen to be in this universe.  You wouldn’t think that “The World Spins” and “The Perfect Drug” have anything in common, but when you perform them both, they weirdly do. There’s a yearning that is part of the DNA of all of these songs. 

Do you perform any original material—Twin Peaks-influenced original tunes?

Not yet! But I’ve written songs that I want us to start working on, and I have been talking to Nate about some other song ideas, so incorporating originals into the set is part of the long term plan.  

You mentioned that you have an album coming out in the fall. Can you talk about that a little bit?

Yes! We are releasing a 5 song EP, titled Sycamore Trees, that will be available on vinyl as well as digital.   It’s our versions of 5 songs from the Lynchiverse.  I produced it, and I’m extremely proud of everyone’s work on it.  Only 4 songs will be available on streaming and the 5^th is exclusive to the vinyl.  

Is there anything about David Lynch’s aesthetic or his approach to art that influences your music outside of Fuck You, Tammy?  

Every project I have been in could be described as “cinematic” or influenced by film in one way or another: I was in La Laque which was a French surf rock band, sort of Godard movie meets Blonde Redhead, and we were all also obsessed with David Lynch.  But I’m really drawn to the dreamlike quality of Lynch’s work, its purity and spareness and sincerity.  I feel like Lynch is so good at getting to the uncanny core of things, and making you feel something on a very primal level.  And as a performer, what is most important to me is to be able to truthfully transmit and channel something that is true and to share it.   Let me bring this song to life for you so we can both live inside the world of the song together. It’s like drawing water from the well of dreams to share with other people who didn’t know they were thirsty. I don’t realize how thirsty for that I am either until I share it with someone else, maybe.  I think I share Lynch’s interest in “transmitting” and what it means to channel something. You tap into something bigger, truer than you just by yourself. 

What do you think accounts for the enduring legacy and appeal of David Lynch in general and Twin Peaks in particular? 

I mean, he’s so good at tapping into very deep and primal fears and longings: he has an incredible visual style; Twin Peaks is the progenitor of ALL prestige TV; he’s able to blend the quirky and surreal with utter heartbreak in a way that is so deeply felt: he’s combined genre in original and arresting ways: he’s able to tell stories about trauma in a way that few others do; and he’s always moving in new experimental directions.  

Thanks for taking the time to answer my questions! 

Thank you!  I hope you can come see us on Saturday June 1^st at Silk City Diner with The Blackburns!