From American Songwriter 6/16/21
Planted inside Flux Studio in the East Village in New York, Don DiLego is pondering the past year, one predominantly spent at his Velvet Elk Studios in the Pocono Mountains in Pennsylvania, when writing wasn’t the main agenda. Mostly removed from music, DiLego spent his days gardening, building, chopping firewood, and occasionally flying the friendly skies in a Cessna.
“I live in a recording studio,” says DiLego, who also co-founded Velvet Elk Records. “When COVID hit, it was the first time in 25 years that I stopped moving. I wanted to make a garden. I wanted to mow my lawn. I wanted to start building things around the house. I wanted to do the opposite. I wanted to stop. I just wanted a break.”
Prior to the pandemic, and just days before the lockdown in 2020, DiLego was on tour in the UK, which was eventually cut short before the lockdown, with NYC musical stalwart and longtime collaborator Jesse Malin. Nearly one year later, DiLego, who released Magnificent Ram B Sessions in 2018, found himself reunited with Malin, piecing together his latest single “Dim Red Light (Make It Shine).”
“I haven’t had someone produce me in 20 years,” DiLego tells American Songwriter. “But Jesse heard the song was so supportive, and wanted to produce it.”
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