Songwriter Cheyne Dowds Talks Montauk and More
In recent years, Mount Pleasant native Cheyne Dowds may have be best known in the Charleston area for his skills as a skater and as the former proprietor of the Fairmont Skate Shop which used to be situated on Coleman Boulevard. However, he’s making waves as a music and songwriter these days.
With the release of a self-produced, five-song debut mini album titled The World’s Greatest, Dowds and bandmate/guitarist/drummer Nick Bowman are putting a new twist on the organic side of lo-fi indie rock. They’ll celebrate the release of The World’s Greatest on Sat. Aug. 17 with a CD release show at the Sparrow in North Charleston. Metronome Charleston caught up with Dowds this week.
Metronome Charleston: When and how did you start playing guitar and writing songs before forming Montauk?
Cheyne Dowds: When I closed the Fairmont Skate Shop a few years back, my roommate Creighton Barrett was in — and still is in — Band of Horses, so there was this constant influx of music everything. There was always gear that would get left at the house; there were always a lot of rad bands that would stay over … just a steady stream of rad music talk and it just made me want to be a part of that. That coincided with me basically not having a job for a year.
I started working toward the goal of a band. Being around homies in a band that big and real but seeing how they were just regular dudes was the greatest inspiration that I could have a band and be in that world of music. At that point, I had played — more jammed, really — with a lot of random people, but nothing really fleshed out. Then I just decided to start writing my own songs and just rely on myself to make something solid and real.
Montauk’s Cheyne Dowds and Nick Bowman (provided)
Metronome Charleston: Where, when, and with whom did you record the new EP The World’s Greatest?
Cheyne Dowds: The idea for the EP came about because I was about to play Awendaw Green, and I felt like bringing drummer Jordan Herschaft would probably not be the greatest idea, being that Awendaw Green is a more folky, bluegrassy type venue. So I called up my homie Nick Bowman and got him to back me with lead electric guitar while I did the vocals and acoustic guitar.
I ended up liking the finished product so much. The ease of recording a two-piece made me think we could get out an EP that we could do ourselves. I picked out the five best songs from our Awendaw Green set, and we recorded them at the barn/practice space at my house with some gear that Creighton and Jeff Kozelski of the Outervention had left in my space for us to let us borrow. We did it ourselves with Nick on electric guitar and myself on vocals and acoustic guitar.
Metronome Charleston: What is the significance of the title The World’s Greatest?
Cheyne Dowds: The title is actually a line in a song on the EP, but it’s more from when we used to cover the song “Worlds Greatest” by R Kelly, but we did it the way Bonnie Prince Billy does it.
Metronome Charleston: How did the punk rock of the skating scene influence your playing style and songwriting?
Cheyne Dowds: Skating is 100 percent the influence on everything I do. For the past 20 years, I’ve skated, and when you do, your whole outlook on life is through the eyes of a skater. I grew up when skating was the same as being an outcast, everyone thought down on you for it. If you skateboarded in school, you were a loser. Now, it’s the exact opposite. But growing up like that, you definitely get a chip on your shoulder, and with everything in life you feel like an outsider. Having that background and growing up on punk rock, my musical tastes definitely reflect it.
Metronome Charleston: How would you describe the overall mood and tone of The World’s Greatest?
Cheyne Dowds: That’s hard for me to say. Maybe dark and slow but pretty. I’m a big fan of the empty space. I think when artists layer and layer and have all these instruments on a song or in a band, you lose a lot of the realness — that grit that humanizes a person. When you have this thick wall of sound, you lose a lot of that simple personal feeling that makes songwriting and a song so good.
Metronome Charleston: You list Sonic Youth, Smog, Dinosaur Jr., My Bloody Valentine, and Songs: Ohia as “similar artists” on your web pages. I think I can hear a little bit of early-era Sebadoh and Meat Puppets — their weird acoustic stuff on II and Up on the Sun — and some Crazy Horse here and there, too. How far off the mark does that sound?
Cheyne Dowds: I totally see that, and thank you by the way! Those are huge compliments to even be compared to those dudes. I love Sebadoh, and Neil Young and Crazy Horse are huge influences. I grew up on that. I was raised on Neil Young the way other people get raised on the Beatles; there’s never been a time of my life I can remember where I didn’t know all the words to Harvest.
Metronome Charleston: After this CD release show at the Sparrow, what are the next steps for Montauk? What’s the goal for the rest of 2013?
Cheyne Dowds: Right now, we’re trying to do one show a month, working on figuring out something for September. The only other thing that’s for sure at the moment is that I’ll be doing a couple songs in Tin Roof’s Elvis night on August 16. Pretty hyped on that.
Montauk performs at the Sparrow on Sat. Aug. 17. Admission is $5. Visit reverbnation.com/montaukcharleston and facebook.com/montaukcharleston for more.
Top photo by Deanna Smith.
Cheyne Dowds of Montauk (provided)
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About the Author
Ballard Lesemann is a musician and writer. Born and raised in Charleston, S.C., he spent years playing in bands and working for Flagpole Magazine in the bustling music town of Athens, Ga. He returned to his hometown and served more than seven years as the Charleston City Paper's music editor. He's better at drumming than he is at playing guitar.
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