For a stretch of time after the release of Vivian Girls’ 2019 album, “Memory,” singer and guitarist Cassie Ramone didn’t share much music with the public. In the span of four years, she performed live twice.
“One was in Barcelona, and one was at my rehab talent show,” she writes in the album bio for “Sweetheart,” her 2024 solo album, made and self-released in collaboration with Richmond-based musician and producer Dylan White on their CD-R Records start-up. “I wasn’t really making music or even planning on making an album. But God has his ways.”
The old friends started collaborating on the album remotely, in between COVID waves and subsequent lockdowns. Ramone would send voice memos of skeletal song parts to White, who would flesh them out into demos in his recording studio fashioned in a Valley Structures brand ‘barn shed.’
“We were envisioning more of a Postal Service-type project at first,” Ramone says, “just sending stuff back and forth. But at some point, I think we both realized that this would never get finished without us being in the same place.” So from December 2023 to March 2024, Ramone made the drive from New York to Richmond in her 2006 Toyota Corolla to record “Sweetheart” with White in spurts.
Two years ago to the day, the songwriting team was still at work on the album. Tonight, Ramone performs in Richmond for the first time since releasing “Sweetheart” into the wild; Style caught up with them before their Richmond-born album and local live debut.
Style Weekly: What were your musical experiences with, or impressions of Richmond? For Dylan, prior to moving here, and for Cassie, before working on your album here?
Cassie Ramone: Scattered. I always liked Richmond and touring through. I spent more time there around 2008; the Richmond and Brooklyn punk scenes were pretty connected around that time. I’ve been there a handful of times in between then and 2023, and the experience was different every time. So it’s kind of like I was rediscovering it, or discovering it, or somewhere in between.
Dylan White: Before moving here, I’d only visited Richmond once with my wife back in 2017, and fell in love with the city right away. It was just an intuitive thing. We were living in New York City at the time, and over the following years, I kept imagining a life here. Also I knew that Sparklehorse was from Richmond, so that probably contributed to some little artist fantasy I had, and still have, about it. I love it here.
Dylan, you moved to Richmond during COVID times. What brought you to town, other than a global pandemic? And was “Sweetheart” your first recording project in your new home?
White: It was very much a vibes-based, gut feeling that brought me to Richmond. I was probably dumb for making that big of a decision based on that, but something just resonates with me here and always has. I’d only ever lived in the NJ/NYC area up to that point, and felt that I needed something new. I was burnt out from trying so hard in New York, and wanted to see if Richmond might allow a quieter lifestyle more focused on making music. I got more serious about production when I got down here, and “Sweetheart” was my first crack at a real release.
The concert this Thursday strikes me as a full-circle moment for “Sweetheart” — I’d love to hear about this material’s return to the site of its recorded home for the first time since you made it together.
Ramone: Yeah, it’s kind of crazy. On this date and week in 2024, I was in Richmond working with Dylan, and this was when the album was cohering. It’s a beautiful circle.
White: It does feel like a satisfying full-circle moment. Like any album, “Sweetheart” is a product of a certain time and place, and I feel like being here in Richmond gave me access to a more open, more intuitive, less thirsty approach to making music.
As much as White’s barn shed studio played a key role in making the album, were there any other Richmond locales or facets you can’t imagine making “Sweetheart” without? Be [they] natural elements, city landmarks or a place to grab coffee here?
Ramone: Oh totally. This answer isn’t that cool, but it’s accurate. There’s this drive I did at least once a day. You go from Dylan’s house and neighborhood, and then it gets deserted and goes into a cemetery, a really big field, train tracks, a dead man’s curve through the woods, a neighborhood with RVs everywhere, and then the Goodwill, the Starbucks and the mall. I would get coffee from Starbucks and sit in my car in the mall parking lot, listening to the working versions of the songs, and other music, and dreaming. I feel like that drive made itself into the music for sure. Sometimes I would drive out to Mechanicsville, too — also very inspirational.
White: I was working at Get Tight Lounge during the making of “Sweetheart,” so it’s kind of interwoven with the album for me. I also had a pretty serious Yerba Mate addiction at the time, and Clay Street Market kept me nice and jazzed.
Care to share anything about the upcoming year — what you’re working on, or anything you’re excited about — with Style’s readers?
Ramone: I’m working on a lot of exciting things this year [her old band Vivian Girls is playing the Mosswood Melton festival hosted by John Waters in Oakland this summer] though I’m keeping most of them close to my chest for now. All I’ll say is, there’s going to be something new sooner than you think. Besides that, I’m turning 40 in March. I have toured almost every U.S. state, and I’d love to hit them all before my birthday. So, dear Style reader, if you have any contacts for Wyoming, I would love to hear from you.
White: Lots of exciting stuff scheduled for this year but it’s too early to say anything articulate about it.
There’s a full-album video for “Sweetheart” that plays a bit like a travelogue. How did all the back-and-forth while recording “Sweetheart” impact the experience of making it, and do you think that aspect of it comes across on the record?
Ramone: By the time I started filming, I knew the record was going to be something really special. We didn’t have a record label backing us, so I figured: Make a record label, self release, and I also wanted to do something that’s never been done before — release “Sweetheart” as a full-length music video that I made myself. I filmed using Instagram stories every day for three months and taught myself Final Cut. It was just a part of my daily routine. Listen to the songs as they came together, work my delivery driving job, and film. It’s not really meant to be a travelogue though. I think of it more like a cool screensaver-diary, existing out of time and place. Like a weird dream.
Cassie Ramone plays at The Camel tonight with Colleen Green and Human Worm. Doors are at 7 p.m. and tickets cost $12 at the door, plus those pesky fees.
