The Des Moines singer-songwriter Dickie has been performing songs from his upcoming EP all year, with shows in Des Moines, Cedar Falls and elsewhere. The EP is still a few weeks away, but the first single is here now.
Dickie is the musical project of Dick Prall, of Des Moines. He originally was leader of the Dick Prall Band, but started going by Dickie after his mother died.
“That was what she had called me, was Dickie,” said Prall. “It just felt like something I wanted to do in honor of her, and I think it's a little bit more digestible as well as as an artist. Though of course I might get confused with Lil Dicky or The Dickies. I didn't think that one through.”
Dickie has gone through at least three different iterations since adopting the name change. The first Dickie release was in 2015, a duo project featuring Prall and Chicago violinist Kristina Priceman. Then in 2019, Dickie released the album Minus Thieves, featuring drummer and multi-instrumentalist Billy Barton. The album was produced by Pat Sansone of Wilco and The Autumn Defense.
The new Dickie EP, entitled A Headfull Of Hiss, is the first to feature a full band: Ben Mars on bass, Jay Schneider on lead guitar, Cam Schneider on percussion and keyboards and Bryan Vanderpool on drums. All of the band members are regulars at the Monday Night Live series at xBk in Des Moines. For Prall, it was an adjustment playing with a full band, but it also allowed him to do things musically he couldn’t do alone.
“(The record) may have worked better as a soloist to not convolute things, and have these things that people may miss when you perform live, but I'm a huge fan of arrangement,” said Prall. “I'm a huge fan of strings and layered vocals. I cut my teeth on everything The Beatles ever did and that's obviously found its way into my brain.as well. So I was like ‘screw it!’ and Brian and I talked about it, and he said ‘Let's just make the record you wanna make and roll from there.’ Thankfully, he fell in love with the songs, and we worked really well together, so he said ‘let's do this live and do it as much as we can.’”
Vanderpool was instrumental in recruiting Mars and Schneider to the EP, and everyone clicked right away. “It's just a real collective of folks who really respect and admire and enjoy one another,” said Prall. "There's zero ego. It's kind of the most frictionless situation that I've ever been in.”
Dickie achieved most of the “strings” on the EP through the use of guitar effects, which has the added benefit of making the new songs easier to play live. Prall singled out Schneider for his contributions in that regard.
“Jay's done a great job of taking songs that have those kind of heavier string vibes and really translating them through guitar,” said Prall. And you can find tones through the use of pedals that can kind of mimic certain sounds, or at least you know, nod to them. I have an effect on my pedal board that has a mellotron sound, and so it's got cellos and flutes and full string arrangements. And so I just thread that in as well, so it helps become a part of that soundscape.”
In advance of the EP release, Dickie has released a music video for the song “Shakes You.” As with all things Dickie, the song is key to the whole concept.
“The first half of that song is very subdued,” said Prall. “The whole thing kind of builds, and there's some strings and some pianos, so it's very pretty. That part starts out actually in my apartment, where I'm just kind of writing and working on the tune. And then I go out into the world walking around Des Moines, basically singing the song. Then it shows me going to the back of xBk and then I open the door, and then I'm kind of in my show clothes. Then I walk on stage and that's the kind of the big anthem at the end of ‘no one ever shakes you’ as the line of the song. It's crowd shots and just the band having fun. So it's kind of an inception to performance video, if you will.”
A Headull Of Hiss will be released Nov. 29, with an EP release show scheduled for Dec. 6 at xBk, with fellow friend of Studio One Dan Tedesco also performing. More of Dickie’s music can be found on Bandcamp and streaming services.
