D. A. Wallach '07 (Musician, CHESTER FRENCH)
By Sara Melson '90
D.A. Wallach’s popular, ever-entertaining, and elucidating blog is called "D.A.’s Wild Ride,” and for good reason. His ascension, along with bandmate Max Drummey (together they make up the group CHESTER FRENCH), from college student to public pop persona can only be described as dizzying. The duo’s debut, LOVE THE FUTURE, recorded at Harvard during their senior year, was released on Pharrell’s Star Trak label in 2008, just a year after graduation. A huge array of flattering press ensued, with the pair written up in numerous magazines and featured in glossy color photos in adorably ironic outfits that were best described by Vibe magazine as "glee-club glam.”
In a GQ article from 2008, Pharrell is quoted as saying that CHESTER FRENCH sounds like "Brian Wilson singing over Motown tracks with a rock edge.” The same GQ article describes the band’s sound as "cross-pollinated,” with a "never-ending supply of pop hooks.” And Vibe says that for CHESTER FRENCH, "musical boundaries are just imaginary fencing.” People magazine says that the record has elements of the "Beatles, the Beach Boys, and Prince.” "There is so much music that I love,” says D.A., "and I suppose that's why my natural inclination is to blur boundaries, cross categories… I like thinking about what happens when you take ideas or motifs from one style or attitude of music and migrate it to another.”
D.A. played the drums in high school, but had never been a singer, or done choir, musicals, or the like, before coming into his own as the frontman of CHESTER FRENCH. "I got into the drums mainly because it was fun,” recalls D.A. "I loved how, as a drummer, you could really effortlessly jam with people without needing to learn much about a song. I drummed in the pep band at school and eventually rose to the level of top Louie, Louie drummer in the band. I played that song at dozens of pep rallies. Then in high school, I had a crew of friends with whom I jammed every weekend. I rarely have musical experiences these days that are as cathartic and magical as the ones I had in high school, despite my friends and my awful musicianship at the time.”
His initial college plans involved pursuing his major of African-American Studies with the possible intention of going into academia or public policy. D.A. says that "the morphing took place” when he joined the band, which initially was comprised of Max and himself along with three other members. "I got beat out by a better drummer,” says D.A., "so the other dudes asked me if I wanted to try singing. After we started playing around campus for a few months, I guess I just really got infected by the desire to grow the group and to attempt to write better material than those we were doing.”
Max and D.A., having pared the band down to a duo, recorded a six-song EP in the recording studio in Pfoho House after their freshman year. "We had some great help from older members of the studio, who were prior grads of Harvard who had stuck around after college to keep using the studio,” says D.A. "They taught us how to truly record a full band, how to engineer for any sort of project that might come through the door. As I go to studios all the time now, I'm actually surprised to see how much we learned compared to even professional engineers. Engineering is a dying art.”
CHESTER FRENCH's music is smart, undeniably catchy, blisteringly funny, and refreshing in its refusal to take itself––or the entire pursuit of fame, fortune, and success––seriously. The chapters of the band’s free album, "Jacques Jams Volume 1: Endurance,” which was released concurrently with LOVE THE FUTURE to entice fans into their sphere, read as follows:
CHAPTER 1: Starting A Band
CHAPTER 2: Trying To Be Cool
CHAPTER 3: Realizing Being A Nerd Is Cool
CHAPTER 4: Arriving In LALA Land
CHAPTER 5: Becoming A Douche Bag
CHAPTER 6: Regaining Your Hard On
CHAPTER 7: Love The Future
D.A.’s persona as a performer is effortlessly flirtatious and sexy. He grins, preens, and poses, in turn beguiling and hilarious, his wide-eyed, mischievous innocence masking an ironic blasé and easily bored intelligence. He’s got all the right moves: subtle gyrations, suggestive head cocks reminiscent of Mick Jagger, and an understated, elegantly minimal dance style that is both nerdy and strangely enticing. While Max generally stays in the background, banging away on various instruments, wild hair flailing in face Cobain-style, D.A. owns the spotlight with unabashed ease, confidence, and panache.
Despite D.A.’s obvious talent, he claims that lately performing has lost some of its luster for him. "My interest in performing has waned somewhat,” he says, "because I now am much more into the ideation process than I am the execution process. I've recently been doing some songwriting for other people, and I love it, because I get to sculpt the idea of a song for someone. It's all about the ideas. It's fun to get on stage and let go and perform, but ultimately I don't find too much direct fulfillment in it.
"It's very interesting to me to see my love of performance evaporating a bit. I think when I was younger, I very much craved attention in a way that I don't any more. Not that the pursuit of attention was the main motivating force behind my various hobbies, but it was always a part of the equation. I wanted people to watch me; to have fun being entertained. Magic was my first passion, and I got into it because my dad had also been a magician when he was young. It was the activity my dad and I really shared. Everyone else was playing catch in the front yard, but I was practicing card and coin exercises in the house. I somehow very early came to love music… My dad liked jazz, and turned me on to it, but prior to that, I discovered The Smashing Pumpkins, Michael Jackson, Janet Jackson, and a few other key influences… Aerosmith, Beck, The Beatles, Bob Marley… I really came to love great songs from a very early age.... or at least artists who were sort of defined by great songs.”
D.A. seems to have the kind of personality that lends itself to celebrity, or at least to allowing others into his world in a very big way. He has the distinction of being the first artist ever to use facebook, and has nearly a million Twitter followers (@dachesterfrench). His blog, DA's Wild Ride, quite ambitious in its scope and import, is a forum for D.A.’s wealth of knowledge on and fascination with a wide range of relevant subjects.
"I certainly still love being social, I love conversation. But conversation moves in two directions, and that's more interesting to me than broadcasting in one direction,” muses D.A. "Politics is interesting to me for its power to impact history and the material lives of people, but it involves such an awful lifestyle, and I'm decreasingly optimistic about the practical potential of our political system. It is just so deeply dysfunctional.”
While a political career may or may not be in his future, D.A. Wallach is likely to be one artist whose imprint will extend well beyond the realm of pop music. For the meantime, though, fans of the band can expect "lots more music,” he says. "And I think all the new stuff I'm working on, including the new CHESTER FRENCH album, is a lot better than anything I've done before in music... Recorded music is most magical to me, because it represents time-travel. When I put on some intimate Bob Marley record with a single tracked vocal and an acoustic guitar, he's right there with me, fifty years later. And I can close my eyes and I'm there. When I record now, I want to capture a moment for someone later in the world to enjoy.”