ifitbeyourwill Podcast
“ifitbeyourwill" Podcasts is on a mission to talk to amazing indie artists from around the world! Join us for cozy, conversational episodes where you'll hear from talented and charismatic singer-songwriters, bands from all walks of life talk about their musical process & journey. Let's celebrate being music lovers!
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ifitbeyourwill Podcast
ifitbeyourwill S05E16 • Darksoft
Ever wondered how music that feels so effortless and dreamy actually comes together? Bill from Darksoft pulls back the curtain on his creative process, revealing the fascinating intersection of mathematical precision and emotional resonance that defines his signature sound.
Growing up surrounded by music—with a cellist mother and pianist father who pioneered home recording—Bill's path to becoming a musician feels almost predetermined. Yet his approach to creating atmospheric indie rock is distinctly his own. "Maybe I never grew up fully," he reflects, describing how childhood musical experiences laid the groundwork for his DIY ethos. Rather than seeing this hands-on approach as limiting, Bill embraces it as both practical and ethical in an industry where margins are thin.
What truly distinguishes Darksoft's music is Bill's conceptual framework. Each album begins with an overarching philosophical idea—his latest release "Rationalism" explores how we understand the world through thought rather than direct experience. This thoughtful foundation supports songs built through meticulous layering: starting with chord progressions (often in drop D tuning), adding sub bass, plucky bass guitar, rhythm guitar, and finally jangly leads. "I've kind of built my own formula or algorithm," he explains, embracing rather than resisting the mathematical patterns inherent in music creation.
The result is music that creates a "swell," gently cradling listeners in waves of sound that feel simultaneously comforting and subtly complex. It's an approach that's connecting with a growing audience, with tours planned across the US and new music on the horizon. Whether you're drawn to the philosophical underpinnings or simply love getting lost in dreamy soundscapes, Darksoft offers a musical experience that rewards repeated listening—each layer revealing itself with time, just as Bill intended.
All right, all, Welcome back. We're here. Season five is just growing into this really lovely journey. So far it started super cold and now we're getting into the spring and starting to feel a little bit more tingly in our hearts for summer. Summer's almost here people, the festivals and the outdoor concerts it's all coming back, Don't worry. We I live, bill um in in the eastern shore, so snow is, uh yeah, my love hate thing that I go through.
colleyc:We just had snow like two days ago and I know spring. All of a sudden I'm, I'm in, I'm in maine out here.
colleyc:So eastern seaboard as well oh, it's nature's a little trick on us sometimes. Eh, you think I'm gone right, you think you got over me.
Darksoft:No, no, no, no, no here's one little last reminder I used to live in Seattle and we would get this fake summer every year around April or May and people would take off their shirts, go sunbathing and then it's like three more months of rain right after that so we're joined here today with bill from dark soft, and dark soft's a great band.
Darksoft:I really have been loving them off of uh spirit goth. Uh, it came out not too long ago. We're looking at february 21st 2025, great new record he just put out, entitled Rationalism. So, bill, thanks so much for hopping on here and sharing some of your insights into your music.
Darksoft:Yeah, absolutely. I'm always happy to talk shop and really enjoy this. So thank you for inviting me to the podcast.
colleyc:It was a pleasure Pleasure. So, bill, just to get us started here a little bit, when did music really start speaking to you? When did it start humming inside? Can you remember occasions in your early years where you identified so closely with what music was that you knew that it would somehow be in your life, as you, you know, turned into an adult and grew up and start thinking about? Yeah what you were gonna do as you got older, like how did music start? How did it start?
Darksoft:um crystallizing in your mind maybe to put it more clearly, is the fact that I just never grew up fully maybe that's more accurate, uh it's.
Darksoft:It's just always been around me, and I come from a musical family. My my parents were classically trained, my mom's a cellist, my dad's a pianist and my sister plays guitar too, so I was surrounded by that, and what was cool was that I was exposed to recording at a very early age too. My dad was a kind of a pioneer in home recording, and so he had tapes of his material and we would pop it into the tape player and I would like dance around with my friends and you don't know like what fame is when you're so young. You just think like, oh, this is fun, this is cool, let's uh, let's listen to this and hop around off the tables and things. Yeah, that's one of my first memories of identifying to music and through my family, it made it more accessible.
colleyc:Did you say, Bill, that that was your dad's music that you had put on?
Darksoft:Yeah yeah. He made like kind of pop rap stuff in the 80s and early 90s and so we had these old tapes I think they're sitting around somewhere and I keep. I keep telling him like we, we got to re-release this one day yeah uh.
Darksoft:So yeah, it's always been a part of me. I, I like, did trumpet in middle school and then found about rock music and listening to alternative uh music back in the day, got into, you know, producing and recording in my bedroom on guitar, self-taught with that, and uh picked up drums, did some vocal lessons, and so I kind of tried to be like a jack-of-all-trades where I could just produce my own stuff right and I've just been doing that, uh, for a couple decades, I guess well, well.
colleyc:So you're a true diy artist like you. You dabble in all the aspects of bringing a record out or releasing music, or touring or like you're it it's pretty diy.
Darksoft:I mean, I don, I don't know how to do it Otherwise. Uh, the margins are so thin and, yeah, you could throw a lot of money at it and hire a lot of people, but it would not be sustainable and it would just make the bar higher for everyone else, which I think ethically is weird. So, yeah, at least right now I'm just doing a lot myself. Um, I do like work with other people.
Darksoft:Uh, don't get me wrong, I've been collaborating with this great mixing engineer, brian fisher, for some of the dark, soft, uh material that's been released, and so I'll my process lately is that I will record it at home and then bounce out dry stems, which are basically just like the direct input sound without any effects on them, and then send that over the wire to the mixer, which has been brian lately, and he'll, you know, add his flavor at his own touch and then we'll. It's kind of like a collaboration like that. So it's nice getting some help with like the mixing and mastering side of things. And then, um, yeah, you mentioned spirit goth. They've been, uh, you can distribute my music I'm online and they've even made tapes, because I guess tape cassettes are back these days old is new again.
Darksoft:It always comes back around, yeah, nothing new under the sun that's it, yeah that's pretty cool and when did you? When did you start playing? Like what was you? You said that you played trumpet, or was it trumpet? You said you're like one of your own.
Darksoft:Yeah, talking john philip souza days. Okay, mr miller, shout out there you go, mr miller.
Darksoft:Look at your student now you know, still in the music, still doing it. When did you like start um writing your own songs? Like when did that process? When did that come out?
Darksoft:start coming out of you like where you started to become a singer, songwriter I think I was about 15 or 16 and, uh, I was such a bad songwriter back then. Maybe I mean I, maybe I'm a little bit better now, but just like going at it with uh it can be daunting, you know, because you don't really know how to finish something, you don't know when it's complete, and like writing lyrics was challenging. I'm like, what do I sing about here? I know I want to create something. I have all these melodies and chord progressions in my mind and I have, like these effects that I want to add and I made some really weird stuff. Um, looking back, I I'm proud of all that and maybe I'll dabble in it or like re-release some of those old demos that are just garage band files you know hundreds of them just sitting around, but it's cool. It just helped me like get it, get a process of doing it and become more, more confident and just work it into like what I do every day. Essentially, I'll just chip out a song.
colleyc:Right and Bill, what is your process like? How do you approach a song and I'll tag a little ending on there. Can you, can you get a sense of once? You've kind of found something, if it will fit with with the dark, soft, you know, aesthetic um yeah, like do you have that feeling of, or do you like write for like with that, and I guess you must write with that in mind all the time, like that is yeah.
Darksoft:I sort of do. I'm like a very conceptual artist compared to other people who might just like write on the fly or whatever's on their mind at the moment, which is an awesome style, and respect that too. But I'll go into an album with with an overriding idea. Like uh for beige vacation, of which I put out in 2023. I was just thinking like I'm gonna make a lot of um.
Darksoft:I kind of start with lyrics and song titles, like I'm gonna create a lot of uh, beigey kind of cliches and phrases and colloquialisms that say a lot without saying much at all, like you got to do what you got to do or it is what it is. Uh, like all these phrases that you just throw around sometimes but have a lot of weight to them. So I've been yeah, I've been like lyrics were hard for me in the past, and so I kind of like started going more into lyrics later on in life. I'm like I'm gonna start with this first um. So, yeah, that's kind of my overriding process. Like, uh, I'll start with a, with an album concept, and then I'll pick up like little phrases that I want to throw into the mix and do some research about, like, oh, what you know I'm working on a song right now called rinse and repeat.
Darksoft:So what are other ideas that like fit into that? That notion? Uh, so yeah, I'll like, and then I'll get a chord progression in mind on the guitar and I just like the same progression over and over. I'm like very repetitive with my music and I'll just add or remove layers. Essentially that's kind of how I create lately. So like chord progression down and then put some melody layers and maybe some counter melody or harmonies in the mix and I I'm very robotic, I like follow a pop structure. Um, I just I'm like on this, uh, on this kind of cycle and it's, it's like a comforting repetitive process to me well, I mean it sounds.
colleyc:I'm amazed that other people like it well, I mean, I was gonna say that it is that kind of, but I I think it's just so comforting and it puts you into this swell, you know, like it kind of just you you're, I feel like you're cradling me and just kind of like swooshing me back and forth in this swell.
Darksoft:Yeah I want the listeners to feel good. Yeah, absolutely, it's totally feel good.
Darksoft:Music too. Like I I really have been like it makes me like proactive. You know, like I like I'm calm, I'm mellow, so it has a shoegazy indie poppy but kind of a little bit of a darker undertone as well. But you got to dig for that. I find a little bit more.
Darksoft:The happy stuff percolates first in my mind when I listen to it, yeah, and then it just gets worse and worse listen well,
colleyc:I was going to mention, too, that I really like the sequencing, how you put the record together, and you were mentioning that you, you, you have a focus on a, on a record idea with a title that you put. Do you know when a song that you're writing like, do you go through your process of putting the song and then saying, yeah, this fits or it doesn't fit, or do you make it fit?
Darksoft:That's a great question. I make that judgment call after I've completed it and I used to just go at these ideas and never really see the finish line. And then you just have like all these you know 30 second ideas out there, hopefully, and so I force myself to finish it and then I make that judgment call. I'm like, okay, this, this fits the vibe. If it's the sound, if it's the theme, great. Uh, maybe sometimes I'll toss it aside and use it for a different release. Or sometimes it'll just sit and never see the light of day for whatever reason.
Darksoft:So yeah, or like in 20 years from now, you might pull out all these and make it Maybe.
colleyc:Yeah, the forgotten tracks or the B-sides or whatever it might be, and I think I'm doing all that just to make sure I'm like putting out the best stuff you know.
Darksoft:Right, right For sure. And if you were to look at the latest release that you have Rationalism.
colleyc:What's the concept of the record if? If, like, can you describe that to us? Yeah, so, I mean rationalism in a philosophical sense. It's basically the idea counter to empiricism, which states that you can only know, know things by like physically interacting with them, by through sight or touch, like rationalism is more like, um, I think, therefore, I am, you know, I, I can rationalize about things, even though I might not have that lived experience myself, which I think is good to be able to relate to other people.
colleyc:And you know, you have to have like some logic and rational sense about the world, about like things that aren't, you know, directly happening in front of you. So, um, but there's like a downside of that, you know, you can get lost in your head. You know that was in the details, that was one of the tracks, or you can get, you know, lost about thinking about what does this person think of me? You know, just probably trying to read details that might not be there. So there's, there's a lot of that in the record, um, and not all, not all the stuff is directly applicable to that overarching theme, but, um, I think some of the sound echoes that like it's a little more mechanical and like mathematical than the, the album I put out previously. So that was kind of and it's a little bit darker, um.
Darksoft:So yeah, that was all kind of intentional yeah, I love too that you're like I've been talking about this with artists too and it's coming up more and more of this formula for songwriting. You know like and I said I tend to always say I don't like the word formula because it's it just seems like it's easy and it's not easy. It's like you don't just like okay, throw a word hidden here, throw a chord progression, not done. Like it's easy and it's not easy. It's like you don't just like okay, throw a word hidden here, throw a chord progression, not done. Like it's not easy to do. But you zoned in on this structure or this song structure that you like to follow. Can you expand on that a little bit? I find it so fascinating that music has this like computational thinking, mathematical theory behind it. I'd love to hear your thoughts on that.
colleyc:Especially coming from a drums background, like that was my first introduction into rock music and you see it all laid out, you know, you see four, four time signature and you see where the beats are and it does look like math, it looks like an algorithm in front of you. So, yeah, maybe it's because I kind of think in those terms. You know, put the, put the snare on two and four, keep it simple, stupid. Uh, I try to use like very simple beats, um, that is listenable and sounds good and kind of, like you know, settles into a palette that people are already comfortable with and then maybe adds like its own flavor on top of that. Um, outside of the structure of like the timing of the song.
colleyc:You know I I also have a formula in mind when I'm adding the layers to my music. Um, I have like different parts that I typically add in every song, like a sub bass for this really low end deep frequency and this kind of plucky bass guitar sound, and then I'll put rhythm guitar over that and I usually am in drop d and, yeah, my indie friends make fun of that and then I'll like put some jangly guitars and leads over that. So I kind of have an idea going into the project. You know what I want and what I think sounds like a dark, soft song. So yeah, I've kind of, maybe I've built my own formula or algorithm. I should probably codify it one day for sure, send it to some mathematicians to analyze deconstruct and and bill.
Darksoft:What um, if you look at the two records, that just can't like. They're pretty close together, right um rationalism, and you get the other one here is relativism. Yes, what? What I mean? The cover art's very similar, they they have similar feels. Can you explain maybe the differences between, like as the person that created them? How do you see that one evolved into the other or one influenced the other? Do you see those connections there between the two records?
colleyc:Yeah, I kind of design them as sister albums. They're very relatable in my mind and I think the cover art, like you mentioned, speaks to that. I had this, this great tattoo artist from portland oregon. She designed the covers for both albums and she does really cool work and it's all this kind of squiggly abstract concept which I was like, oh, that's great, I'm going for these strange, you know, philosophical titles. Work with me yeah, you did a great job.
colleyc:I think the first album it's more like. It's more jaunty and more of like a tweaked sound and I think it's a slightly more light-hearted and the themes are, like you know, live and let live. Um, it's kind of like there's more I. It's hard to self self-diagnose but yeah, maybe like a light and dark combination for both albums, right.
Darksoft:Right is, uh, the easiest way to put it, were you thinking of the two records when you started the first?
colleyc:like you knew you were going to do a follow-up to it, like there would be a sister to it yeah, yeah, I kind of did the same thing with my beige and my gray album, right, okay, the beige vacation was kind of a joke. I was like what color can I do that weezer or the beatles didn't do?
Darksoft:oh, beige, was it beigeification? Yeah, yeah yeah, and then grayscale.
colleyc:Yeah, exactly, I feel like those kind of talk to one another. Right, that's been fun because you know you always have something that's coming up and I just like to have something to look forward to. And amazing I remember when you know, system of a down released its duo album back like when I was in middle school or high school, I was like that's so cool, hypnotize, mesmerize right and uh yeah, I've wanted to do stuff like that yeah, I think it's fun for listeners too, too, or followers, you know, who are actively engaging with the project.
colleyc:They can chart out the journey a little bit more. It's fun to be more than just a person.
Darksoft:Yeah, yeah, we kind of talked a little bit about collaborations. Yeah, did you have good collaborations with the record that you just put out, or was that truly something that you had done, um, just on your own?
colleyc:well, um, I've kind of done self-directed collaborations. If we're talking about dark soft itself, um, I'll, like I'll get in a singer and ask them to join. Uh, you know, I kind of of have this low male baritone range, so it's been nice to get some female singers doing the alto soprano kind of range on top of what I'm doing for meeting the melody or doing harmonies on top. So, yeah, I got Hannah from Dutch Experts as this cool dark wave kind of synth pop group. She's featured on one of the songs. And then Emily Irving from Portland Maine is featured on one of the songs as well.
colleyc:So, yeah, try to add some people to the recordings. I'd love to do more of that. And then, yeah, I kind of talked about the mixing process and working with another mixing engineer. It's been an awesome collaboration and then just the like distribution of the thing and getting it out there into the world. It's been nice working with the spirit goth and I love their curation and I know they have a lot of people that are like into this dream pop shoegaze adjacent sound. So it fits really well with what I was going for did spirit, got Goth find you, or did you find them?
colleyc:I believe I found them just through the grapevine and watching some artists I liked or knew personally putting music out through them.
Darksoft:Cool. Yeah, that's a great, great label, great label, love it. So, bill, to kind of bring things to a close again, thanks so much for taking some time and sharing. It's been really nice to chat with you and and kind of get an idea of how you create. Um, I've been really loving this record I I recommend people go out there and pick it up. It's on bandcamp and cassette. I think you said cassette, didn't you?
colleyc:yeah, it's on cassette people on cassette players yeah, yeah, 10 bucks on cassette. Come On cassette players. Yeah, yeah, and bucks on cassette.
Darksoft:Come on now, come on. We got to afford 10 bucks to get around. Yeah, and are you download? Yeah?
colleyc:Absolutely. You got some shirts for sale too Cool.
Darksoft:Anyway, support dark soft get out there. I mean it's a great record too. You want to listen to something great this weekend? Throw it on um what, what's coming down for 2025, for for Darksoft Bill, what we're what's coming up that you could tell us about shows, recordings. So what? What can we look forward to?
colleyc:yeah, absolutely. So I'm putting together a couple weekender tours. If you're in the United States you can catch Darksoft. We'll be going down to Baltimore and back for like a four or five show circuit and then in the summer we're going back to Chicago for another kind of similar weekender circuit, hopefully getting through Ohio and then Chicago and Buffalo as well, and then, yeah, I think I'll be going out to the West coast in the fall for a couple mini festivals. So, keeping, yeah, keep it tuned for that kind of stuff and working on new music and maybe toward the end of the year or next year we'll we'll put something out.
Darksoft:Awesome. Well, we're looking forward to it. Um great record. Uh thanks for joining me. I wish you all the best. I hope you have a great summer, too, of fun and music and sun. Thanks you too, and we'll be in touch, and if ever you get a new record out you want to come talk about it, drop a line, I'll be here for you Sounds great.
colleyc:Thanks for doing what you do, chris, really appreciate it.
Darksoft:Thanks a lot, bye, thank you Sunday. Sunday, you just know you feel it in your bones, clear as day. It goes without saying. Some things you just know. Some things you just know. Deep down, you know the truth. You can't fool yourself Beyond a shadow of a doubt. You've been there before Somehow you just know. Some things you just know. Sometimes you just know, just now, in the end, who can tell you got a good feeling In the cold light of day Staring you in the face? Some things you just know. Somehow you just know. Sometimes you just know. Thank you,
