For Brooklyn-based band, Daisy the Great, performing at Lollapalooza’s BMI stage on July 29 was a milestone achievement and a way to include its unreleased tune, “Liar,” in the duo’s setlist. 

Here’s what the two had to say about their set. 

buzz: I enjoyed your guys’ set today, you guys did a great job. What was it like to play at Lollapalooza?

Kelly Nicole Dugan: It was surreal. We follow artists that have played Lolla, and it was a very intense dream-come-true moment. There are always moments where you’re like, “Oh, now I’ve made it, or now I’ve done my dream.” That’s always changing, definitely, but this one for me felt like an important moment, and it feels really lovely.

Mina Walker: I feel like I haven’t processed it but, like, extremely grateful.

buzz: What do you hope your music communicates to the people who listen to it?

MW: We hope our music is a welcoming environment, it should feel good most of the time or like a release in some ways.

KND: A lot of the time, I feel like we’ll just naturally write something that feels like a weird little secret to us. When we’re able to put that song out and then people respond to it, it just feels very much like a really sweet community that is just very accepting and open and weird and loving. 

buzz: One thing I appreciate about your music is how in sync your harmonizations are. How did you find and develop this sound? 

KND: I’ve been obsessed with harmony and music. I would harmonize in the car growing up, and then I started arranging really large vocal harmonies for this subgroup of a chorus that I was in. For my writing, working on that led me to write a song like, “The Record Player Song,” that’s like really stacked harmonies. I performed by myself a lot in the past, and I was like, “I have all this music that I literally can’t perform because it’s not supposed to be just one voice, it should be a big group of voices.” So, we just started from there and from having a love of the sound of harmony and what it means. 

MW: I also didn’t know how to play any instruments when I started writing music, so I would just stack a bunch of vocals as instruments like GarageBand, and that would just be how I wrote. So naturally, we were stacking vocals on our own, and then we were like, “Oh, we can do it live.” 

buzz: Let’s talk about your upcoming album. What new elements that you’re introducing to this latest album that you haven’t in past ones? 

MW: This album has a much bigger sound, and it also marries our recorded sound with our live sound. In the past, there was a chunk of time when we were playing a lot of new music, but only had out like only the first EP and the first LP, but then we were playing these giant songs live that was like a full indie-rock show. We are really excited about this album because we got to record that feeling of the live show. 

KND: It still has songs in it that are really intimate, and we have some songs that are just an acoustic guitar and a ton of vocals. There are a lot of dynamics in the album, and it shows a lot of growth in the music. I’m very excited.

buzz: You’re going on tour with The Happy Fits in September. What emotions are you feeling as you prepare?

KND: We’re feeling really excited and really grateful! The Happy Fits are awesome and we’re really excited to get to see their live show too. On the other hand of that of course touring can be tough. When I am not on tour, I make a huge routine that I love to do, and then it can knock you off balance to be like, “OK, I’m not gonna do any of my stuff I normally do or see my other friends that don’t go on tour,” so that can be really challenging. 

MW: I feel like that’s what we are both figuring out, like how to find your own space, how to find a semblance of routine, or keep up things that are important to you and not just be like, ‘OK, well, I’m on tour, so nothing else exists except that,’ You have to build a life as well. So it’s just finding out how to do that.

KND: Then obviously, we’re so grateful, I’m excited as well.

MW: And we practice before tour.

KND: Oh yeah, we’ll practice of course, of course.

MW: And get some outfits. Straight to the studio, straight to the mall.

buzz: So when can we expect a solo tour from you guys?

MW: Probably next year, I would hope so. We’ve only done one, a two-week run that we booked ourselves that was extremely DIY in 2019. It feels spooky and exciting to be like, “When are we gonna do a headline?” 

KND: But that’s why something like this is so crazy because we’re like, “We have no idea if anyone’s gonna come,” and then you show up to your set, and there’s a bunch of people that know the word so it’s like that is really just like, mind-blowing. 

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