Dora Jar is one of life’s weirdos. For her first-ever UK show, she was wheeled on stage, zipped inside a suitcase full of soil, tumbling out in a grubby heap. At a recent Grammys party, she baffled red-carpet photographers by prancing about like a Pan’s Labyrinth creature, hands for antennae. And for her new album, ‘No Way To Relax When You’re On Fire’, she’s reached into a bizarro box of sonics to create a near-perfect 13-track record that is impossible to define. “A lot of this project is about the element of surprise and surprising myself,” she tells The Forty-Five. “I cast a really wide net in my imagination.”
A wide net is right. The record has flashes of early Grimes, elsewhere its tenderness is reminiscent of Mitski and there’s a throughline of the madcap brilliance of CSS. At its core, it’s a record about trying to figure things out. About life’s contradictions and the inability to be boxed in.
On an August afternoon, we meet Dora in a greenhouse-cum-coffee shop in Los Angeles to talk about her debut album, taking ketamine with her mum and being influenced by Mary Poppins and Eraserhead in equal measure.
Hi Dora, where did your love of music begin?
It probably started with my mum singing to me. I loved Foo Fighters growing up. That was the genesis of guitar music for me. But also, Steven Sondheim musicals, Outkast – those are my main people. I got to meet Dave Grohl when I was young, which was a solidifying moment.
I heard you went to Episcopal school. What was that like?
It was a tiny school, there were about 18-20 kids in my grade and I was with the same kids for 10 years. I was actually thinking about it this morning because I was listening to Emma Chamberlain’s podcast and she was interviewing a sex therapist. They were talking about how horrible sex education is in the United States – they either teach abstinence or they wait until everyone has gone through puberty – but the Chaplain at my school taught it really early, in fourth grade. She was a female priest with an eyebrow piercing and was just a really punk lady and they told us everything you’d need to know and got us used to talking about things that are usually seen as shameful in America.
When did you start making music?
I was always making up ditties. I would steal my mum’s voice recorder and make things up. When I started really playing guitar at 14, that’s when I became obsessed.
In 2022 you supported Billie Eilish on tour. I’ve heard you speak a little about the Imposter Syndrome that came from playing such big shows so soon into your career. How do you look back on that experience now?
I kind of want to redact the word Impostor Syndrome, because while it was happening, I didn’t feel that way. I embraced it. I was nervous but very quickly felt super comfortable in these huge arenas. It was a quantum leap but it was only after the fact, where I was like; ‘What just happened, and how do I make sense of it?’ I started feeling confused by how many steps I seemed to skip. That was a catalyst for me to take a step away from the industry and explore things outside of music for a little bit to remember what my humanness is about. Very quickly when you’re in the music business, it becomes a world of attention-getting. You become addicted to your phone and posting. That is probably what the label would have loved me to do – post forever after that – But I was like, I will forget who I am and what I care about if I just feed into this machine. So it was important for me to go to Mississippi and spend time in Poland. These places informed the stories I have been telling on the album.
Very quickly when you’re in the music business, it becomes a world of attention getting
Dora Jar
Your album flits between genres but regardless of sound, is there something that unites the writing process for you?
The songs always begin on guitar. That’s always my compass and the reason I keep liking a song is because how the guitar has anchored it. I think of it as a guitar album in a lot of ways. Like some surrealist imagery and flashing moments of my life, over shards of glass, which are the guitars, reflecting all the different bits of my mind.
‘Ragdoll’ is an utterly perfect song. What can you tell me about writing it?
Thanks. I love it too. It was the last song that I wrote for the album, and it came in this kind of purgatory moment where I thought I was maybe done, but I still trying to write, just to keep myself happy. And, yeah, I just started writing that lick on my couch and it was so hard to play at first. That’s a thing that I want to emphasise. For any creative, it’s not gonna look or sound good the first time you do it. If you love it, you keep going. I was waking up, like, really early to, like, practice before I was getting this, like, shoot or whatever, so. And then Ralph Castelli came down from Alaska, and we did a demo, and then finished it with Henry Kwapis. What else to say about it? It’s about sex, probably. I didn’t think too much about it. I just let the guitar lead it where it needed to go.
For any creative, it’s not gonna look or sound good the first time you do it. If you love it, you keep going
Dora Jar
The visuals for this album are really strong. Where did the inspiration come from?
I have an obsession with contradiction and the contradictions within me. I did ketamine therapy with my mom and her best friend, which was illuminating to say the least.
Whose idea was that?
My mom’s. She grew up in New York City in the 70s and was doing acid when she was 16, but thought that phase of her life was over, but her mind was being piqued by mind-altering substances. We were lying down, eye masks on in a sound bath type thing in a Japanese bondage studio. It had padded floors and I felt like I was a wooden balloon. And I just thought; ‘how can both those things be true?’ There was a real sense of being so heavy and rigid, but also so light and buoyant and like I was creaking open. It was an amazing, weird feeling. And it also said life isn’t just about an album. So the visuals are kind of an impossible thing – the smoke stairs – but they are also a direct reference to a moment in Mary Poppins. She’s the quintessential woman of surprise. She brings a huge lamp out of a tiny bag. I’ve always resonated with that since I was a kid. I was afraid of her and I wanted her here. I often feel like what I do in this world is contradictory. What I’m trying to say is contradictory. And as soon as I make up my mind about something, it changes.
Mary Poppins is the quintessential woman of surprise. She brings a big lamp out a tiny bag. I’ve always resonated with that. I often feel like what I do in this world is contradictory. As soon as I make up my mind about something, it changes
Dora Jar
It seems like you’ve built a good community of pals in the music industry – Ashnikko, Remi Wolf, Arlo Parks, Billie Eilish. How beneficial has it been to have people who know what it’s like to be an artist?
Invaluable. I feel so lucky to be friends with people whose art I loved before I met them. It’s really cool and validating. I had this thing happen when I was in Chicago where I got to the airport and there were like seven deadpan guys with so many pictures of me asking me to sign these glossy images. I was surrounded. I’ve never had anything like that before where someone meets me at baggage claim to get something from me. They weren’t fans – it was purely transactional. So I texted Remi, like, ‘has this ever happened to you?’ And she said ‘Yeah, it sucks’. So that kinda calmed me down.
Chappell Roan recently spoke out about fan harassment, which a lot of people seem to have taken seriously…
It shouldn’t be an expectation that people have from artists. Chappell did such a good job articulating that. My own experience, before the Chicago thing, has only been positive. Only sweet people have said something in passing about loving a song and that’s fulfilling, it’s not grabby. I feel like I’m at quite a nice place where I don’t really get recognised but if I do, it’s respectful.
Can you tell me about your viral Grammys after-party red carpet moment?
It was torrential rain in LA – crazy weather – and I’d done a microdose of mushrooms. I would have done whatever I did anyway, but it gave me this bird’s eye view of how ridiculous the whole thing is. It was a look at how stressful those things can be… but if you lean into it…
You’re going on tour soon – have you got any big plans, like getting zipped in a suitcase full of dirt again?
No, I probably should! We’re still figuring all that stuff out but it’s definitely going to be a joyful time. I’m ready to be surprised by it.
Dora Jar’s new album, ‘No Way To Relax When You’re On Fire’ is out now. Dora plays Omeara, London on November 21. Get tickets via DICE.