Hiya Dusty Echoes, thanks for joining us in the virtual RGM lounge today. Grab a brew and take a seat.
Thanks for joining us today… Tell us a bit about where you are from and how you got into music?
Dusty Echoes is a brand new project for us, but we’ve both been making music and writing songs from a young age; Reuben has played guitar since around 8 years old and took up the trombone a couple of years later, beginning to experiment with writing songs as a teenager. Rheanne has been making up songs in one form or another almost as long as she can remember; from at least 5 years old before she could play a musical instrument; she’s played keys since around 1. We’re both originally from different parts of the South of the UK but found ourselves in Liverpool in 2020 and have called it our home ever since.
What’s the live music scene like in Liverpool right now?
Liverpool is an interesting place as a musician because the shadow cast by the Beatles is so all-encompassing; for good reason of course, but it does mean the bars that boast live music every night of the week tend to only want musicians playing covers; they rely on tourism a lot so that’s what pays the bills. There’s still a thriving music scene across so many genres in Liverpool, but you do have to go looking for it if you want to find original music in the city. Once you do though you’ll find a wealth of talented musicians and songwriters.
Anyone we should be looking out for (bar you, of course)?
Ni Maxine is really talented and getting the recognition she deserves now, we first saw her at Africa Oyé in 2022 and she’s gone from strength to strength since then; definitely worth going to see her if you get the chance.
What are your ambitions for the band?
When we started writing the songs that became our debut EP our only ambition was to write, record and release these 5 songs; we weren’t initially going to form a band at all or perform the music live. As the project neared completion we both felt increasingly strongly that this was some of our best songwriting and composition to date. Feedback from friends and colleagues in the music world only reinforced that, so that’s when we decided we needed to take the project more seriously and recruited some good friends to play the album live.
For now we still want to temper our expectations and are under no false impressions about the difficulty of succeeding in the music industry in 2026, but we’re enjoying the songs immensely and just want to play more live shows and get more people hearing our music. We’ve already started writing more original songs for the band too.
Whats your favourite social media platform to use and why?
Instagram is definitely our favourite out of all the socials. It’s got a wide reach, and over the years there’s been a change on how the platform is used. People our age (late 20s/early 30s) are definitely on Instagram a lot more than Facebook or Twitter, especially since the latter became “X”, and it’s great for pretty much all our content; photos, music, videos, gig or release updates etc. Rheanne has experience in photography and with making music videos so Instagram is a good outlet for the visual aspect of her creativity as well as our audio output. If we have something going on, which we almost always do, it’ll be plastered across our Instagram page.
We believe its essential to have a presence on Facebook, Instagram and X to introduce yourself to all the different types of audiences out there, what’s your thoughts on that?
Like many things, it’s hard to know where to start and end with social media. Our focus as musicians is to create good music that we enjoy performing and people enjoy listening to. We try to use social media to help people find our music and follow what we’ve got going on but outside of that we’re not heavy social media users, so that’s why you won’t find us on Facebook or X.
Our Instagram serves as the landing page for Dusty Echoes right now, and we may have a website in future to match that. We’re not here to become influencers and we’re happy to convey our beliefs and ideologies through our music rather than with down-the-barrel reaction videos or engagement farming.
What’s your view on the Music industry today?
It’s never been easier to record and release your own music than it is today; it’s never been harder to be noticed amongst all that noise. There’s thousands of songs uploaded to Spotify every day and anyone with a laptop, an interface, a mic and some software can make professional streaming-ready music for very little upfront cost. It’s fantastic, but also overwhelming.
When we were younger, we both felt pretty disillusioned with the music industry – almost like the chances of getting recognition are so slim, what’s the point in trying? But it’s important not to focus too much on the bigger picture sometimes and just enjoy making music for music’s sake. We’ve loved making this EP and we’re very proud of how it ended up; turning it into a live sound with our friends has been incredible. Of course we’d like as many people as possible to hear it and appreciate it, but it’s not all about the metrics and the numbers.
Whats your thoughts on AI generated music?
We can sum up our thoughts in four words; we don’t need it. Like we just said it’s never been easier for people to make music and there’s never been more people doing it; we don’t need AI. When it could take a band 2 years to craft an album, meticulously writing and rewriting, editing and arranging…an AI can produce 10 songs in 10 minutes. That’s a problem; we don’t need the industry flooded with thousands of songs made for the sole goal of making money with no passion or skill behind it whatsoever.
Money is the only reason for it; there’s no shortage of talent or ability in the music industry, and like with most things most of the money is concentrated in a fairly small group at the top. We’d like to see songs that have used AI labelled as such on streaming services so the public can decide if they want to listen to music made by humans or computers.
Whats the biggest thing you have learned recently as you progress with your music?
Collaborate as much as you can, and let musicians do their thing. Making this EP has pushed us deeper into genres we’ve not extensively explored before, so whilst the vast majority of the instruments and parts were recorded between just the two of us we had a few key collaborations.
We found it very rewarding to work with people who know their instruments impeccably and already had a feel for the sound we wanted before we’d even pressed record. Sometimes you do need to give a bit of direction and sometimes be a bit ruthless editing in the booth post recording session, but mostly it’s great to let other musicians bring their own unique perspective and ideas to our music.
What’s currently in your ears and on rotation at the moment?
We have a very eclectic mix in both our music tastes so what we’re listening to most very much depends on the moment in time. With this release and our upcoming gigs, aside from our own music, we’ve been listening to a lot of artists in a similar vein. Reuben has dipped back into some old Paul Simon and Simon & Garfunkel albums lately, as well as more recent artists like Ferris & Sylvester, The Be Good Tanyas, Eilen Jewell and Anna Ash. Rheanne has mainly had Club de Belugas and Fish in a Birdcage on rotation for their experimental and genre-defying songwriting.
I hear you have new music. What can you tell us about it?
It’s our debut EP, Lone Frontier, and features a blend of old and new styles of folk, country and blues. The name harkens to a new beginning or place in time that feels undiscovered and somewhat reclusive, yet hinting at an opportunity to start fresh. Each track could exist as a standalone sound and example of songwriting, yet there’s commonalities throughout all 5 that let you know you’re hearing Dusty Echoes.
The EP is an exploration of styles of music we’ve dipped into before but never truly committed to; there’s hints of gospel, jazz, and shoegaze alongside the traditional blues that has shaped our sound. We’ve explored how our voices sit and harmonise together while embedding elements of storytelling in the western Americana diaspora. We’ve spent the last 2-3 years ruminating on these songs so it feels great to finally get them out into the ether so people can hear them.
What was the recording process like?
We have our music studio at home and recorded almost all of the parts just the two of us; guitars, bass, ukulele, keys, percussion, trombone, flute, whistle, harmonica, vocals from both of us…It’s been a labour of love and a lot of work, but we’re so proud of the results.
When you’re a couple that live together and make music together it can be hard sometimes not to clash creatively, but fortunately we’ve mostly agreed on the direction and sound of Dusty Echoes throughout. Creating Lone Frontier is the most involved we’ve ever been in working together and has definitely led to us finding our own roles and a dynamic within the recording process that suits us. Having a home studio can also be both a blessing and a curse; it’s great to be able to spend as much time as you want on your music but sometimes it’s good to be forced to edit too. You have to do your best to avoid getting stuck refining your music over and over and never releasing it.
Sometimes it’s hard to know when a song is “finished” when you write, record, produce and mix songs simultaneously. The process becomes blurred, so that’s when you need to show music to friends and colleagues for feedback, and figure out whether the song is already complete. The last step for us was a few collaborations to cover additions of a few instruments we wanted to record live but don’t play ourselves. This is the most organically produced music we’ve ever released, with 99% of it recorded live.
What’s your favourite track on the EP?
It’s not always the case when you’ve spent a long time working on music, but fortunately we still love the whole EP; each song has a different flair and style that keeps it distinct from the rest. If we really had to choose, our favourite would be Katrina.
Katrina started life as a light melancholy ballad with very little instrumentation other than piano and vocals, however as we worked on it the layers slowly built up to properly realise the full sound the song deserves. Through that process it became the song from Lone Frontier which both of us admire the most; it evokes such power and tension, and is a far cry from the stripped back acoustic track that was initially recorded. There was a lot of experimentation and improvisation in the trombone and guitar parts particularly, so there were quite a few takes recorded before we found the final version but we’re really proud of how it turned out.
Would you change anything now it’s finished?
In terms of the EP itself there’s nothing we would change in the studio-recorded version. That’s not to say it’s perfect, but we love it as it is and it represents what we wanted to create. In rehearsing the songs for live performance we’ve already changed everything; for us performing live is more about creating music in the moment and interacting intuitively with each other, so the songs are very different in their live forms varying in structure, tempo, arrangement, instrumentation and performance style. Hopefully they sound great at every gig we play, but I’d expect every performance to have something unique about it; we’re always experimenting, learning and growing with the songs through every rehearsal and live performance.
Is there anything else you would like to share with the world?
We have plans for music videos and visuals for every track on the album, but it will probably be a while before we can fully realise these and share them with the world. For now we just want people to enjoy our music, share it, and more than anything come see us live if you have the chance!
Thanks for having us today!
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