Sometimes, when you call your idols they answer. Joe Sutkowski, frontman of the New York-based band Dirt Buyer, answered my call on the release day of his second album. “Dirt Buyer II” debuted on Friday, Oct. 20, and it is remarkable.
Dirt Buyer’s music is like a deep breath after a long night of crying. They embody that heavy-hearted feeling of love and the guttural pain when it is taken from you too soon. Sutkowski’s voice is natural, like a walk through a misty forest. His lyrics are reminiscent of romantic poetry and his guitar tells its own story in each song. “Dirt Buyer II” is a hopeful, stronger and more honest continuation of the band’s first album, “Dirt Buyer.”
Like their first album, “Dirt Buyer II” begins with a theme song. “Dirt Buyer II Theme” sets up the rest of the record, building slowly, with instrumentation growing heavier as the rhythm sways. Compared to the theme song of their first album, “Dirt Buyer II Theme” is filled to the brim with remorse and regret.
“I wanted to paint a super strange and fantastical picture using some weird imagery and just kinda running it on as far as I could take it,” Sutkowski explained over the phone. “I feel like I kind of shut my brain off when I’m writing songs like that.”
Sutkowski builds his songs like a poet builds their poems, “dumping a bunch of puzzle pieces on the table and then going through and putting them together.”
Sutkowski stated that the first two songs of the album are his favorites because of the lyrics.
“I just really like the words in those songs,” he said. “I’m very proud of them.”
Personally, I think the album’s best moments come a bit later. But first, who even is Dirt Buyer? Why should we care? Dirt Buyer consists of Sutkowski, who shares the stage with bassist Tristan Allen and drummer Mike Costa. But before that, the band emerged as a project between Sutkowski and Rubin Radlauer, who is most well-known for his band Model/Actriz. Sutkowski explained that the duo’s first Dirt album “was kind of an accident.”
“We were playing a lot of different kinds of music and we were planning on having a fake record label where we were just all the bands. We kind of stuck with the emo band that he called Dirt Buyer because it was the most generic East Coast emo band name he could think of. But it became a really serious project and I ended up moving to New York with little to no plan, I just knew that I had to be here — It turned out to become my life.”
Since their first album in 2019, Sutkowski’s mindset, songwriting and inspirations have evolved tremendously.
“How have you changed since 2019?” I asked.
“Oh man, a lot, a lot of therapy.”
On his newest album, Sutkowski shared that, “Dirt Buyer II deals with a lot of disdain. Feelings and sentiments of trying to grow as a person and just dealing with the day-to-day, you know, just the eternal plight of existing in the first place.”
The second album was more than just a “passing project.” Sutkowski’s songwriting was intentional and refined.
“It feels like an evolution, it feels like a very natural next step for the sound of Dirt Buyer, and it’s like the next chapter in, just my self-discovery. It feels very complete, and like the end is the end of that time of my life.”
Sutkowski’s inspirations are varied, drawing from bold, finger-picking blues to 60s and 70s Brazilian music. He draws a lot of his technique from solo jazz guitarists like Joe Pass and Chet Atkins.
Lyrically, Sutkowski is mainly inspired by 90s singer-songwriter bands such as Sparklehorse, or slow-core bands like Duster. He likes Alex G and early Leonard Cohen, too.
“I like old souls, you know?” he said. “People who can just write the shit out of a song.”
His biggest inspiration is William Blake’s “Songs of Innocence and of Experience.”
“That’s like my Bible,” he explained.
Performance-wise, his inspirations are even more diverse. Sutkowski recited a story of seeing My Chemical Romance on their “Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge” tour in 2005, and he was “totally blown away.” He also discussed a live video of Muse playing a sold-out show at Wembley Stadium.
“They take up the entire stage, just energetically speaking,” he said, elaborating on how they taught him the power of a trio and making the most of any situation.
Sutkowski also grew up around a lot of music. In the ‘90s, his dad fronted the Glenn Miller Orchestra, “So I grew up around a lot of jazz and seeing him perform.”
“Oh also, he was f–cking awful. I haven’t spoken to him in a really long time. He did give me the music bone, but I guess I’ve been able to write a lot about how awful he was,” Sutkowski shared, adding that, “generational childhood trauma is perfect fuel for a band like Dirt Buyer.”
Despite this, “dealing with that trauma and achieving self-discovery, I think is really rewarding. Even though it’s the hardest thing you can do, you become a better version of yourself because of it.”
This better version of himself is reflected in Dirt Buyer’s newest album, where Sutkowski has replaced his broken, melancholy sound with a fuller, stronger and more powerful tone. Songs like “On & On,” a self-described power-pop song, illustrate Sutkowski’s newfound strength and resilience. This track is very different from Dirt Buyer’s typical melancholy ambiance.
“The lyrics come from just being okay with taking what you need and not feeling bad about it,” Sutkowski explained, reminding me that it is okay to “leave space for self-empathy and growth as a person.”
Other peaks in “Dirt Buyer II” include the songs “Gathering Logs,” “Heartache” and “Fentanyl,” all of which relish in Sutkowski’s heavy, honest tone. “Gathering Logs” is selfless and regretful, yet hopeful in its tempo and instrumentals. “Heartache” is stunning. The vocals and guitar make your heart stop and then soar. As soon as the song ascends, it retreats, leaving you feeling ever so empty.
“Fentanyl” takes all of these emotions and shares them in a hopeless story that Sutkowski retold with a heavy heart. He explained how he was taking the train one morning to meet his friend for breakfast before work when a guy with no shoes on came running towards him, frantic, explaining, “my friend is overdosing, can I use your phone to call 911?” Looking around, Sutkowski knew that there was no one else who could help, so he stayed until paramedics arrived.
The guy overdosing did not make it. “They put him in a wheelchair and then put a sheet over him, and they put him in the back of the ambulance and left without saying anything to me, which was really crazy.” Sutkowski had to go to breakfast and then work after all of this, but the song popped into his head instantly and he recorded the demo the second he got home from work. “That’s it, baby,” is how he ended that story.
“Tears My Heart In Two” may just be my favorite track, and it has stayed on my mind the most since the release of “Dirt Buyer II.” This song is truly devastating. The lyrics “When I turn around, and I see anyone but you, tears my heart in two,” are aching and yearning as Sutkowski’s voice echoes with emotional vibrato and a lonely guitar riff.
“It’s a grand gesture to existential heartbreak,” Sutkowski stated.
“Dirt Buyer II” is beautiful and emotional, angry yet honest. Its highs will make you forget about the few lows, such as some forgettable harmonies and tracks. Above all, Sutkowski has been trying to perfect his songwriting, and in this album he did.
“I’ve always thought about it as absorbing their power. It’s just been a lot of years of trying to write a really good song and thinking about the things that make a song really good and doing it in the way that I can,” he explained.
Thankfully, although this album serves as a satisfying ending to his debut, it will not be the last we hear from Dirt Buyer. Sutkowski already has studio time booked for next month to record his new album, “Which is really really exciting, and I think it’s really f–cking good. Because I’ve worked really hard and I think it’s a bit more toned down, a bit more subdued and less angry, but it’s still Dirt Buyer.”
So take Sutkowski’s advice, and “just do what you want and do it the way you want it.” Albums like this start with you.
