Dazey and The Scouts, like most bands, were started in a college dorm room

Brennan Wedl: I feel like we were just rocking, we were just like little wide-eyed and bushy-tailed young thangs just trying to let something out.

Otto Klammer: It reached a point where we had enough songs for an album so we were just going to do it.

Lea Jaffe: That was the first time I had a band that even thought in those terms, The Scouts were really like my first real band. We had seven songs and I was just so stoked to even have done that.

Brennan: It was very pure and from the heart. It was almost carefree you know? We were just friends in a band playing crazy weird shows and writing silly little ditties and I’m just so full of gratitude that it’s taken a new life. It’s a monster and it’s out of our control now.

Lea: The times when The Scouts were active before we recorded Maggot, and almost everything we did in that time we just did because we thought “oh that’s sick.” It was just fun to be with Brennan and Ottol doing those things, rocking. And it was fun to be with Sasha [Artifact Audio].

Otto: I definitely look back on that era and remember the purity and the joy. Everything happened really organically, going back to how we didn’t push the record that hard. It was just always a given that Sasha was going to record it, we’re gonna do it at The Record Company and that was it.

Lea: When I was thinking about formatting the album for vinyl I thought “Ok where should the break be for the A side and B side go” and it seemed so natural and even when I listened to the record before all this–because I do sometimes, I’m proud of it and it’s fun and good to listen to–there’s really that moment with “Maggot” and “Sweet Cis Teen” where those were two of the later songs we wrote and I hear them sonically both as being a little heavier and less funny and more personal.

Otto: When I look back on the record as a whole and with it now being on vinyl, it’s like one side is the fun stuff and then the b side are the songs that aren’t intended to be as humorous. Ultimately I think having it be heard and enjoyed by teenagers for the most part, it’s kinda like what being a teenager feels like: it can be so joyous and funny and kinda silly and it’s also extremely cathartic and hard.

Lea: Even though there are moments from that time I don’t like to revisit, Maggot still feels like a very pure time capsule of that time in our lives in the best way. But yeah there’s definitely a strong divide between the types of songs on each side.

Brennan: When we performed the B side songs in our sets there would be a mutual respect for those songs and it was just a nice feeling to share those moments with people.

Otto: Nobody tried to punch each other in the face or knock over our shit when we did those ones.

 

Humor was always going to be a part of the band’s sound, it was a means of processing the upsetting things in their lives at that time

Lea: I feel like the funnier ones are the earlier songs we wrote and I have very fond memories of for instance, brainstorming things we would do to [disgraced and repugnant porn star] James Deen and also sitting in our dorms going through all of our cringe Tinder messages. 

Brennan: I think we were just really nutty and the humor just came naturally in the beginning. We were all just hanging out, shooting the shit and memeing. The music came from that.

Lea: I’ve never really thought about why the humor felt important. To me it felt like a good way to talk about things that were bothering us. By making jokes out of it it took the power away from the subjects or the transgressive person that inspired them.

Otto: By the time I had gotten around to making the lyrics for “Sweet Cis Teen” the fact that I called it that is my attempt at matching their humor. I think I took it from a Facebook status I had made. I definitely tried to insert some humor into it in that way, but I guess I was just going with the voice we had established.

Lea: There’s nothing more core-shaking than being a jackass and then having the people you were a jackass to just point the finger and laugh at you.

Brennan: I like that every song on the album has some bits of playfulness to them, but not all of them had to be jokes for that to be true.

Lea: We were definitely trying to write “fun” songs. Wordplay and camp were absolutely a part of our whole thing and I’m still proud of that. Even though that song and “Maggot” and “Groan” aren’t funny songs, there’s still elements of those things in the lyrics.

Otto: To me it’s just kind of like reclaiming the situation, like whatever the topic is we’re taking control of it for a moment. Injecting a little joy.

Lea: The tiny bits of humor and campiness scattered throughout “Maggot” were definitely coping mechanisms, I wrote that song in the hospital. Like the joke about being allowed to have a bra goes back to how hospitals usually don’t let you keep things like bras. 

Otto: When I wrote “Sweet Cis Teen” my transness was very new to me, and while I didn’t go so far into campiness since most of the lyrics were taken from a poem I had written, the levity the band brought definitely helped me cope.

Lea: I’ve always used humor to cope and the way we incorporated it into the record was definitely therapeutic and helpful to me. I don’t think of the album having a lot of love songs, but there’s definitely a lot of self-love.

Otto: Playing shows especially helped offset the times when I was feeling too much, and I was generally feeling like I was just too much then, but our shows were so fun and we had props for a while and that helped me deal with those things internally. People were there emotionally for us too during the songs that called for it, just as much as they were for the laughter.

 

Like a lot of bands in that era, The Scouts looked up to other Berklee bands that had carved out some space within the tight-knit Boston music scene

Brennan: I felt like we were a part of things, although maybe there was a bit of daydreaming we were on the same level as like DENT and Bat House and other bands we looked up to. We were making some noise. We were just some boys making some noise. 

Otto: I feel like if we did [fit into any sort of scene] it was completely by accident.

Lea: I think about the shows at that time and I sometimes wonder if we were “in the scene” or if it was just a weird little Berklee bubble. But after Maggot came out that summer I definitely have a recollection of us hanging out at shows and people talking to us about the band. That was cool.

Otto: I definitely struggled a little with feeling like “do people who don’t go to Berklee like us? Or even think about us at all?” Which in hindsight is so funny, like who cares.

Lea: I got asked to fill in on guitar for some bands around that time because they liked The Scouts and they weren’t Berklee people and that made me feel very cool. Like “people who don’t go to Berklee like us!”

Brennan: I love DENT. Can we shout out DENT in the interview?

Lea: Being a freshman and getting to see DENT and Elizabeth Colour Wheel at shows every weekend and it’s all these Berklee kids in cool, heavy bands we thought we were so cool. Throw another one in for DENT.

Brennan: We worshipped those bands. They were like the older kids and we were just in awe.

Lea: It’s so funny to be talking about shows from our youth and how The Scouts fit into the scene when none of us have been to a show in a year.

Brennan: It’s incredibly emotional and really hard sometimes where I’m like “Am I remembering all of this correctly?” It was such an amazing time, a literal rush of serotonin to relive all of this stuff and kinda overwhelming at times.

Otto: Frankly some of my music endeavors after The Scouts just haven’t been as fun, and now not even having the option to play shows makes that even worse.

 

What The Scouts were listening to while making Maggot

Brennan: Mannequin Pussy.

Otto: Mannequin Pussy was huge for us collectively, and getting to play with them was so big for the band. Sleater-Kinney is always a big one for me too if I’m playing a bass or guitar at all.

Lea: Sleater-Kinney was definitely a big thing at the time in the scene in general, Sleater-Kinney culture was deep.

Otto: Again, we had all this pent-up weird energy that sometimes we would take online and those interactions would influence the music we were obsessed with at the time.

Brennan: We were listening to a lot of DENT, sorry about it, but we loved the band DENT.

Lea: At that time it was a lot of Birthing Hips too, who I haven’t stopped loving and everything all of them have done musically since then is still so good. That band was too good.

Brennan: I was listening to a lot of Liz Phair around that time too.

Lea: By our sophomore year I was getting way more into heavier music, more so than when The Scouts started and that’s kinda where I’m at now.

 

The Scouts’ earliest shows were something like summer camp theater, with Lea and Brennan bringing knick knacks and props onstage to do elaborate banter, and the whole band dressing up with sashes and girl scout accoutrement 

Otto: I don’t even know how it started. Lea and Brennan just had a bunch of random shit in their dorms one day.

Brennan: We were hoarders for sure and we just decided to bring some of it to a show.

Otto: We all just sort of went with it, like we just decided “yeah this is gonna be it” or whatever, like “this is what we’re doing.”

Lea: Wearing the scout outfit was just for fun. I remember for our first show I went way too far and designed this crazy backdrop that we ended up not being able to hang and this montage video we ended up not being able to project.

Otto: I can remember as clear as day in a venue I will not name, Lea scrambling to get the projector to work. I definitely feel like the campiness was intentional, but also I think it was natural when it started and natural we stopped doing that stuff on stage.

Lea: I wanted to make our first show to be like the fucking Monster Ball Tour.

Brennan: We got so much stuff that at one show we just felt it was too over the top. Like “let’s not do this anymore.”

Lea: I definitely still have like a good amount of those props just sitting around somewhere.

Otto: I still have my sash, that dies with me.

Lea: I remember hearing from some of the Berklee upperclassmen who saw the early shows that the take on us was sort of like “what are these kids up to?”

Brennan: A lot of like “who are these crazy kids?”

Lea: I was still a wildly insecure little freshman, so hearing that our little skits or our vibe in general was even a little intimidating, that’s so fun.

 

The original record release show was a prom-themed party in a basement near Ringer Park. Surrounded by all their friends dressed and dolled up, The Scouts see it as a crucial night in their history

Lea: If there was any show that had great pictures it’s prom. Makeoutpoint baby.

Brennan: When Austin [Corona, the band’s original drummer] was drumming, the song ended and then Lea turned around and shouted: “Austin, the song’s over!”

Lea: Prom was pretty stressful for me, I was having some sorta manic fit and I showed up really late and was being a drama queen. I remember trying to screen print t-shirts during someone’s set and I started freaking out.

Brennan: My friend Robby found some old ramen in the sink of Makeoutpoint and he took it to the table and ate it. Somebody got a film photograph of it. I only have very trashy memories of that night.

Lea: Everyone was so dressed up, looking so fucking good. It was like a scene from a movie, everyone just came to serve. It was sick.

Brennan: I just loved prom, one of my favorite times in The Scouts for sure.

Lea: Afterwards I remember the vibes being good, Ally and Emmett started playing like jungle and house and afrobeat and this insane dance party broke out in the basement. A total switch up from the music at the gig. 

Brennan: That dance party was small but mighty.

Lea: I think someone was painting too.

Otto: There was paint on my fucking cables forever after that, but prom was amazing.

 

Despite a few overzealous men, Boston was ultimately an encouraging and rewarding place for The Scouts

Otto: I guess some people thought they could assert themselves over us sometimes, maybe some people did think we were a joke to be honest. The incidents were rare but they happened.

Lea: It was like this weird combination, like pick one: do you think we’re a joke band where the sound doesn’t really matter so why do you care? Or do you think we’re a serious band, but then you’re treating us this way.

Otto: Some random dude deciding he doesn’t like the tone coming out of your bass pedal or whatever. And goes down to adjust it.

Lea: The dude who did that to Otto’s pedal, I would see him around, like he would come into Guitar Center [where I worked] sometimes and I would just be so hostile to him.

Otto: I think he got put in his place, but besides stuff like that I did find Boston at that time to be really inspiring.

Brennan: I came from Minnesota and I had never really even gone to shows before I went to college and so I was just in love and it was just the best during those years for me.

Lea: I definitely did not have anything like the scene in Boston in North Carolina. A community like that, the abundance of shows, all the different genres, people doing really freaky shit. Everything from really good, accessible music to crazy noise sets, it was very inspiring. 

Otto: Growing up for me [in Staten Island], there was little bit of a scene, but it was all like older metalcore dudes, it was quite a toxic environment. It would be a couple bands from New Jersey and they’re all like 40 and they’re flirting with teenage girls. That’s where I came from, so Boston in turn was fucking sick for me, so much less homogeny.

 

After releasing Maggot, The Scouts quietly came to an end sometime around 2018, as its members took on new responsibilities 

Brennan: I feel like we never put any labels on anything, life just sorta happened. People moved and I don’t know. But I am so open to going on tour someday. I would fucking love that.

Lea: We didn’t put pressure on ourselves. Like “this was the first album and the second album is gonna be like this.” There wasn’t any sort of careerist spirit to this. People moved or went abroad, we got involved with different projects. At a certain point it felt like I wasn’t really writing Scouts songs anymore, stylistically.

Otto: I think we all just got busy with other projects and bands.

Lea: There isn’t any resentment at all though, what we did was natural and I still respect all of our decisions, because at the end of the day I love Brennan and Otto and we get to share this thing now. It’s so meaningful to me.

 

With Everyone stuck at home, The Scouts were shocked to find that the record they left behind has suddenly exploded, birthing an online community that far extended their reach in its initial run

Otto: To see people as young as like 14 respond to the album reminds of how angry I used to be and how I didn’t know who the fuck I was, and how through music I was able to start piecing together my identity. Also how lucky I was to be in this band while doing it.

Brennan: This experience has been a way for me to see how far we’ve come as individuals and as friends and as people in general and that has been such a gift. It’s just been a gift.

Otto: I hadn’t checked in with my younger self in a while until this.

Lea: I’ve been very emotional through all of this because I was definitely piecing together an identity while in this band. Those first years of college are a tumultuous time for anyone in their life, and I owe so much of that wonderful experience to The Scouts.

Brennan: It brings a tear to my eye.

Lea: I can literally remember when and where these songs were written. I remember sitting in my room and writing “Nice Nice” or sitting in Brennan’s room and writing “Sweet Cis Teen.” I remember sitting my ass in a hospital and writing “Maggot” and both of them visiting. I can remember exactly where I was when we wrote all of these songs and it always makes me smile.

Brennan: Hearing from Lea about the record taking off online was shocking. I obviously believed in the music and still think it’s great, but I was initially so shocked, especially with the younger crowd. It makes sense though because we wrote those songs when we were that age.

Lea: I just laughed. I remember making a group chat and sending y’all a screenshot of the number of Spotify listeners we had and it was like 40,000 or something.

Otto: I thought for sure it was going to be a fluke thing, and to this day I wonder what the original TikTok is that started it all because the origin is unknown.

Lea: I’ve seen a lot of the TikToks and most of the popular ones are from the past couple months, so I think what happened is enough people listened to us on Spotify that the algorithm started putting us in playlists and artist radio and stuff.

Otto: It feels exceptionally important to me that young queer kids and young women especially have found something in our music.

Lea: There’s a lot of high schoolers on TikTok doing “Wet” inspired makeup looks and things like that.

Brennan: Bands that formed who I was at that age were so important to me, and to maybe be that band for someone else is just, wow. I don’t want that to sound cocky or be gross, but it’s very special.

Lea: I read so many comments from kids saying that “Sweet Cis Teen” specifically helped them come to terms with their gender identity and come out to their parents, or start going by a different set of pronouns. That song has changed people’s lives, which is crazy.

Otto: I haven’t seen many of the comments, but I know that’s something that resonates with queer people and with trans people, but hearing that it’s made such an impact, I’m just blown away.

Lea: I’m gonna start screenshotting comments and make a big Otto Love Folder.

Otto: When I wrote “Sweet Cis Teen” I felt like I had the weight of the fucking world on my shoulders, and when I realized I was trans it felt like just another way in which I was letting myself down. Obviously I don’t feel the same way now, but I think that’s the experience for a lot of people when they’re first figuring that out. One of the biggest obstacles when you’re a young person can be coming out to your parents and it’s nice to know that there’s something out there in the world that I made that shows people that they’re not alone in thinking that and feeling that. It’s truly special to me.

 

While each member has moved onto to different projects and different cities, they carry with them plenty of lessons learned from their time in The Scouts

Brennan: Thanks to this band I am always reminded to have fun and to hold onto humor and keep friends close no matter how grim things get.

Lea: It just reminds me how important it is to support the ideas from people you love. What we did with The Scouts was just so real and natural and fun and nothing felt out of place. Being in this band taught me to focus on what feels right.

Otto: This band for me was often about unlearning all the weird rules that come with having professional training in music. That thing where you’re so in your head about how things sound, and what the music is, or who it’s for.

Brennan: The Scouts gave me the knowledge and the confidence to continue playing live music solo. At that time I would have Lea set up my two pedals on stage because I didn’t know the in and the out.

Otto: Every year since this band started I’ve gotten better at tuning the internal voices out, and it’s led to me having a more pure relationship with music. That started with The Scouts. While I’m much less angry and I put a lot less pressure on myself now, I still like to look back on the person I was in the band to find the fire in my belly when I feel like I’ve lost it.

Brennan: I learned so much through The Scouts and through playing with Lea and Otto and the band really put a fire under my ass and really made me wanna play more and explore what I can do in other bands and in other genres.

Lea: The Scouts taught me so much about being a performer and also about being a member of a music community. It gave me the confidence to keep pursuing the guitar and everything I’ve accomplished now within music now is due to my time in this band.

Brennan: I’m a lot more myself these days. When I was in The Scouts I loved this part of me, but I was just like all over the place. I dressed really eccentrically and was really loud, but I’m much more comfortable in myself as a human being now than I was then. That said, I wouldn’t trade it for the world. I loved that time in my life.

Lea: I just had these ideas in my head and I simply had to get better at playing to make them real or they weren’t going to happen. That applies to pedals and amps and other gear as well, which has sorta become my career. I very much owe that to the Scouts.

Otto: Being in The Scouts was me relearning what made me fall in love with playing music, and I’m so grateful for that experience.

Lea: There’s no rule book to being in a band, but being in The Scouts changed not only how I am as a bandmate, but also how I am as a friend. 

Brennan: I have nothing but fond memories of that time, I feel so very lucky.