Damndest formed in Boston, MA in 2023 and released their first single, “Behind,” in May 2024. Members Tim O’Keefe and Michael Taggart have built an arsenal of songs they’ll be releasing throughout the next year, accompanied by music videos and supporting creative materials.

Damndest started with a one-off recording project featuring yourself and Timothy O’Keefe. How did that project come together, and how did the larger project develop from there?

Tim: I met Mike eight or nine years ago when he featured on a track for a band I was in, and right away I noticed his incredible instinct for melody. We didn’t cross paths again until 2020, when I basically “cold-called” him during the COVID lockdown to see if he wanted to work on a song together. Interestingly enough, that song turned into “Force of Habit,” which is on the upcoming album. A few years later, Mike worked his magic to get us into a studio where we ended up writing and recording a song nearly every week for months. A lot of the music on What Did We Expect comes from that run.                

What’s your musical history before Damndest?

Tim: I actually didn’t start playing in bands until my mid-thirties. In those early years I moved through a handful of projects while I tried to find the right fit. I eventually joined The Fellowship of Feeding Wolves with Alana—who appears on several Damndest songs—and that’s also where I met Mike. When that project went quiet, I shifted my focus to learning drums and spent some time with Emerald Comets. Throughout those experiences, I really studied the songwriting process, because it was an area I wanted to grow in. I hoped I’d eventually return to writing with more confidence. Damndest ended up being that moment, and it’s been one of the most fun and fulfilling musical projects I’ve ever been part of.

Mike: Appetite for Destruction and Hit Parader magazine were the spark but U2’s Achtung Baby was the fire that solidified music was life’s calling.   I started playing in bands when I was about 16 years old and through that we created a really cool community in our hometown through DIY shows and started meeting people from other towns. Boston was great back then for all ages shows and touring acts coming through the old clubs on Landsdowne St and the bands from here that had blown up like the Pixies, Lemonheads and Buffalo Tom were really inspirational in a “I can do that!” kind of way. I started a band out of high school that, in hindsight wasn’t great, but through it learned the ropes of booking shows around the city, my first time in a recording studio and putting out an EP. It also gave me the confidence to start the next band, the Good North, in the early 00’s. Through TGN, we released a few records, opened for a ton of really cool touring artists and gained a really cool following. After that band I got really into home recording and worked on a project called Hold/Transfer for several years and played with some other bands as a hired gun. But meeting Tim and writing and recording with Damndest has been the highlight of my life with music  

Your songs are incredibly atmospheric. What are some of your favorite effects — or go-to effects that the band favors — in recording?

Tim: First, I’d like to give a shoutout to Frankie (Funeral Attire, KEPT), who helped us shape a lot of the initial tones on the album and handled much of the early recording.

Atmosphere is tough to pin down. Guitar effects are certainly a big part of it. Most tracks rely heavily on chorus and reverb, which are essentially our “go-to” effects. On some songs we used a more traditional pedalboard setup to explore different textures of distortion, fuzz, and delay.

Vocals also play a major role. We leaned into reverb and layered harmonies to add depth and dimension to the sound.

As someone who has spent time behind a drum kit, I’d also say that drums contribute more to the sense of atmosphere than people often realize. Frankie’s instincts, energy, and approach to writing drum parts elevated many of these songs. If you replaced him with almost any other drummer, a lot of these tracks would feel completely different.

Mike: There is a dark mood that is pervasive all over our songs that I believe starts out with a lot of the chord styles we use and as Tim mentioned drenched in chorus, reverb and delay.  Also as Tim mentioned the vocal harmonies, with which he and Alana have crafted are so lush and textured it gives us something unique if you ask me. 

I absolutely love the cover art for your debut album What Did We Expect? Who did it?

Tim: Leo Crowley (@leoxcrowley) did the artwork onWhat Did We Expect and also did the artwork for Behind. 

Mike: Leo is like my brother, we go back to the Good North and his artwork is incredible. I am so honored he was willing to do this for us. I would gatekeep but honestly you all should reach out to him for album work. 

It’s your first full-length album following a number of other releases. For you, what sets What Did We Expect? apart from your earlier songs?

Tim: It’s funny, most of the songs we’ve released so far are actually our newer material. The tracks on What Did We Expect were recorded much earlier. It’s a long story, but we’re mainly just excited to finally have them finished and out in the world. As I mentioned earlier, we started “Force of Habit” back in 2020, so by the time it’s released, it will already be six years old.

Mike: I also think these songs are more cohesive as a body of work where the other songs explore more styles.

What did those earlier releases teach you about recording and making music together as a band?

Tim: One of the biggest lessons I took away (as cliché as it may sound) is that less really is more. You can get a really great-sounding song with surprisingly little equipment and surprisingly few tracks. A lot of the depth comes from double-tracking guitars, layering vocals, and, of course, not being too shy around effects.

Mike: The great thing has been since day one is that Tim and I write and work together perfectly. Whoever writes the song the other has always known exactly what it needs to really bring out its magic,. As Tim said, some of these songs were written and the majority of it was done in a day. It’s been an incredible experience.

In addition to your music, Damndest have also produced a number of videos. Why is that medium important to you?

Tim: I give a lot of credit to Mike. He’s been involved in music for a long time and recognized early on that we needed to be proactive about photos, videos, and maintaining a consistent social media presence. At the end of the day, you have to give your work a real chance to reach people. You can’t just sling your music into the cloud and hope listeners find it. You have to put in the effort to connect with your audience. That’s becoming more challenging with the surge of low-effort, mass-generated “AI slop”, and I really hope social and distribution platforms continue to take a more intentional stance toward supporting genuine creators.

Mike: I have always loved music videos, and I really enjoy the process of filming. Given unlimited resources I can only imagine the scope of what I would do if I could. Tim would kill me for the concepts I would be pitching haha. “Tim, you’re on the top of the mountain, battling a monster with three heads while singing and I am on a unicorn riding underwater drinking from a goblet.” It would be madness

The video for “My Heaven” features a number of locations that I’m guessing are in your hometown of Boston, Massachusetts. Can you talk a little bit about those locations and why you chose them?

Mike: we went all over for that one. Locations in the Seaport area of Boston, Charlestown, and South Boston, including my old apartment. We were in train stations, rooftops. It was really fun filming 

I’m also struck by the animated video for “Nesting Doll.” How did that one come about?

Tim: For a while, we were producing traditional music videos for all our songs. I wanted to try something different; more in the style of a visualizer. My nephew, who was getting into stop-motion, collaborated with us on that project. The only prop I contributed was the nesting doll; he handled the staging, lighting, animation, and choreographing the movements to make a seamless loop. He has a real talent for visual storytelling.

Does the band ever play out live or tour?

Tim: We haven’t played live yet, but it’s definitely something we want to do. Early on, our goal was to stay fully focused on the creative process. I guess you could say that our philosophy has been to remove distractions, concentrate on the music, and leave live performances for later. I think a lot of that comes from balancing music with the rest of everyday life. It’s hard to do everything, at least for me.

Mike: I also feel like, and I know its been a topic on every musicians mind, that live performance on a smaller scale isn’t valued the same way as it was in the old days. I do want to do it and cant wait, but we need to find the right opportunities. 

What’s on the horizon for you?

Tim: Playing live shows is definitely on the docket for us sometime soon.

Mike: I also cant wait to start recording again and expect a bunch of videos from this release