Zia McCabe of The Dandy Warhols On Her Personal Evolution
Zia McCabe of The Dandy Warhols has been reinventing herself inside and outside of the band for the last 30 years. As a founding member of the ever-so-powerful Dandy Warhols at just 18 years-old, McCabe brought a fresh energy to the band, learning keyboards and synthesizers along the way and consistently bringing surprising percussion elements to the band.
The Dandy Warhols ventured out on their country-wide tour ahead of the release of their twelfth studio album, ROCKMAKER. The eleven-song album is crafted for a new era of the band, with small changes in sound and tempos that differ from their earlier work. ROCKMAKER features collaborations with Slash, Frank Black, and Debbie Harry. ROCKMAKER was released on March 15th, 2024.
We sat down with Zia McCabe ahead of The Dandy Warhols Webster Hall stop on their tour. McCabe led us inside the Dandy’s light blue tour bus parked outside the iconic awning of Webster Hall. We sat down to learn all about McCabe and her ever-changing personal evolution. She carries many titles: musician, mother, real estate agent, DJ, activist, and clothing-optional fan. As such a unique, eclectic, multi-faceted, and awe-inspiring person, Zia McCabe answered a few questions about her life.
Before The Dandy Warhols started as a band, you said that you started playing music because you basically manifested it and you made it happen. Can you talk about the process of how you think that you manifested this place in your life?
Well, I was raised New Age and long before books like “The Secret,” and it became this trendy thing to do a vision board and the kind of corny version of manifesting and the laws of attraction and all that. But kind of the two briefest bits of manifesting is, it's like when you'd get a Volkswagen, you see everybody else's Volkswagens. That's your reticular activating system in your brain, finding those patterns, finding it for you. So if you choose to say, “this is this,” your brain doesn't know the difference between past, present, and future. It doesn't have a sense of humor, and doesn't know if you're being sarcastic. It just hears the information. So that's why affirmations are so potent. Affirmations are brainwashing yourself. And so that's the sciencey brain side. And then there's always the magic and the mystery of the cosmic kind of influence too. But I got really good at the witchy side of casting a spell. You're not speaking in future tense. It's now. And you never use the negative. You always speak to the positive. So when this guy was talking about being in a band, I was like, “wait, what? You're in one? That's what I'm going to do. You just let me know if anything happens.” He's like, “that's not how it works.” I'm like, “well, I'm a master manifester, so you just let me know if anything happens.” Then I went to a beginning guitar class, which started to sort of align the energy towards music. And then I wouldn't say me and Courtney hit it off, but he sized me up and I sized him up and it seemed like worth giving it a try. So it's just kind of that showing up. I mean almost more than manifesting. It was sort of like a “leap and the net will appear” type thing, but I'm glad I did it. And it's become kind of an ethos for life, is to just show up for shit. Take advantage of those opportunities. Don't scare yourself out of the cool stuff.
Photo via Tori McGraw (@afterr.hourrs)
Looking back at your perspective now, what do you think drew Courtney to you? How do you think that you guys connected, especially coming in with no experience? What do you think he really saw in you?
He wanted somebody that was moldable musically. I asked him months later, “why did you pick me?” Because my style didn't really fit, or total lack of (style), really. I just looked like a 90s grungy, probably a lesbian or at least bi. I had fake Birkenstocks on, camouflage military pants, a little tank top, no bra, fire engine red manic panic hair that was probably cut by myself. I looked like just some weird 90s Punky Brewster I guess. And they had pegged pants and they were mod and their Beatle boots, and they were very stylized and much older. I mean, I was 18. They were 27. That's just worlds apart at that age. My daughter's 19, and I'm trying to picture her in a band with a bunch of 26 and 27 year-olds and I’m like “no, the answer is no, you're not doing that.” I mean, it didn't seem weird. It seems weird looking back on it. But Courtney was like, “you showed no fear.” That was kind of what it came down to. He's like, “you were a quick learner. You could recover from your mistakes quickly.” I really had exhibited no creative input yet. I brought percussion in because I thought that the keyboards were kind of boring. I think he saw early on that I'd have no problem sort of being the muscle, and that a woman being the muscle in a male-dominated industry was probably going to go a lot farther than a guy trying to play tough. And so that became one of my jobs pretty early on. I was also just kind of the life of the party. I think that Courtney wanted to bring that into their vibe. Then contributing creativity just slowly developed over the years.
Photo via Tori McGraw (@afterr.hourrs)
In the true DIY spirit of the band, what kind of gap in your discography, or even in the music industry right now, do you think this new album, ROCKMAKER, is fulfilling?
Well, I mean truly, Courtney and Peter have more place answering this question because it's so much more their creative baby than mine. But in essence, they felt like the world needed a heavy rock album that was elevated intellectually, more sophisticated, more nuanced, and in a kind of true Dandy fashion still has a lot of that experimental sound innovation that we always do. And of course, it still has some psychedelic elements infused, but it is very heavy on guitars. That was inspiring to them. Just in a world of digital, in a world of backing tracks, in a world of everything coming out of a laptop or even a phone, we're stalwarts on using our analog gear. I mean, that's never going to go away for us. But they really, really dug in on just guitars and amps and distortion and that was their jam. That's what got them excited this time.
On that album you have some amazing collaborations on a few of the songs. How did that come about and what was the process like of adding them into your sound?
Courtney's just really brave with his asks. Black Francis, that makes sense. So that one I would think was probably a pretty easy ask. And then Slash was like a Hail Mary of “this is the sound we want.” And we just literally don't have those kinds of good guitar chops. That's not what we do. And so then to hear Slash insert his style, his sound, but Dandied a little, like when does Slash play wah pedal? I don't think he does, but he obviously has one and knows how. He knows how to do everything. And so that was really cool to hear it be so definitely him, but not in a way that doesn't fit our sound. He did a fantastic job and we've all met him. There's a really cute picture of pregnant me and him.
Photo via Tori McGraw (@afterr.hourrs)
Right now as an artist, how do you feel about the current landscape of the industry? Especially with how much it's changed since when you first started in The Dandy Warhols.
I mean, so much has changed since we started, but there's also this confluence of this is where I enter the music industry. And then my entire growth as an adult is happening while the music industry is evolving. So much of it I was just oblivious to at the beginning. Of course, I think the easiest one to identify is the sort of fall of major labels ruling the music industry to DIY. Just almost eclipsing what major labels do. Not to say that they don't still have big pop acts, but it's not where you hope to end up. I mean, they won't even consider you unless you have X amount of followers, unless you have a certain presence, which means it doesn't even fucking matter how good your music is. I could have an Only Fans and feed that over into my Instagram and be massive and then put out some shit music and a major label would consider it because, well, “she's got 800,000 followers, she must be legit. We don't know anything about music. We're just capitalists.” So that part is kind of garbage because while it's great to have a sound and an image, the lack of image should not preclude good music from being considered and having exposure. And I think that that's a little bit of a problem that we're having right now. Your social media presence is more important than your artistic contribution. And that seems a little bit broken. It's all changed, the way we record has changed, everything's changed. I mean we started on tape, and now we can pretty much make a record on our phone if we want to.
Photo via Tori McGraw (@afterr.hourrs)
You have ventured into the DJ world, your name being DJ Rescue. What drew you to DJ-ing?
I've always had a great record collection. I inherited my parents [records]. I mean, they're alive. They just don't play records anymore, and it's grown. My husband was a house DJ, and so he’s into proper mixing and matching beats. Actually it started with an event called “We Are Not DJs.” I did one of those series and was like, “oh, I love picking the music that's on. I mean, this so fits my micromanaging personality. I'm in charge of the music. You guys can’t fuck it up.” I will put my heart into it, and I have no idea how to market or manage myself. So I don't really do much of it. But I do our after-parties.
Photo via Tori McGraw (@afterr.hourrs)
What is something in your life, it could be music or personal, that you've been the most proud of?
Well, I mean, everyone's so proud of their own kid, of course. But my opening speech for Bernie Sanders was a pretty peak life moment. I felt like really, really cool and important. I'd stepped outside of the music arena into the big world of humanity, and I realized I really like public speaking. But that one definitely stands out. And of course, just surviving as a band for 30 years is bonkers. I mean, June 20th will be my 30-year anniversary of being in the same band. So my whole life is defined by this experience. Everything I do is through the lens of these musicians that I'm connected to. How many are there of us out there that have done that? Especially mid-level. This is for the love and for the art, and we do sustain it as a business, but very blue collar. We're very middle class musicians, which is even smaller than the middle class of the regular working pool. It's really hard to keep a bus and keep a crew and keep enough money coming in. And not tour so much that we hate each other, but tour enough that we survive and have that home-life, work-life balance. It's an accomplishment, an undeniable accomplishment.
Keep up with the amazing Zia McCabe on Instagram. Follow The Dandy Warhols on Instagram, Spotify and their website. Stream their latest album, ROCKMAKER, on all platforms.
