Words and Photos by Willa Rudolph
WILLA GOES WEST: VOL. 1
Get to know Hysteria57
Hysteria57 is an L.A. based grunge-emo band, with lush, wall-of-sound instrumentation and soft and dreamy vocals. Lead singer Dakota Cosgrove sat down with Alt Citizen to discuss the inception of the band, her songwriting practices, and their new release, “Money Song.”
Released yesterday, June 24th, “Money Song” opens with a wash of feedback before collapsing into a haunting emo riff that lingers in your ears, carried by crashing drums and a low, persistent tension. The track feels both raw and hypnotic, balancing chaos with restraint. Just as the instrumentation swells, it pulls back to make room for Dakota’s deceptively sweet vocals: “Men in charge, fighting with each other,” she sings. “No more job, for your mother. / Wake up and smell the money. / It’s waiting to be spent.” The band masterfully slows everything down, stretching the anticipation before launching us into the chorus, where the song delivers its sharpest and most unforgettable line: “Money is for spending, Girls are for saving.” What began as a sort of joke in Dakota’s writing process became the track’s thesis. It’s provocative and weirdly devastating.
Sonically, the production leans more electronic than their usual, weaving in chopped-and-screwed vocal manipulations, warped textures, and telephone-filtered ad-libs that flicker in the background. The result is disorienting in the best way. “Money Song” is simultaneously playful and unsettling, catchy, and cutting.
Hysteria57 is Dakota Cosgrove (guitar, vox), Christian Renard (lead guitar), Mia Szabó (bass), and Gil Young (drums).
Dakota shows up to our interview with brand new pink streaks in her hair and LV sunglasses on a grey morning in Los Angeles. It’s chilly outside and we sit in a little courtyard, surrounded by trees and flowers. As she sparks up a Marlboro Light, we jump into the interview:
How did Hysteria57 come to be?
DC: It was kind of an unconventional start. I’d been working on music on my own for a while. I wrote this song “Reason to Pray,” and my friend Max [Epstein]–Photographic Memory–I was connected to him through my old band Out West. He was recording us, and through that he asked me to play guitar for Wisp, so we had a connection through that.
You toured with Wisp, right?
DC: Yeah, I played with them from the very beginning up until Coachella was my last show. So Max and I were on tour together, and when I had this song I asked if he’d be down to help me record it. We recorded “Reason to Pray” in a day. The meat of it. My friend Albert came in, laid down a bass line, and my friend Zack wrote some drums for it. It was done in a week. After that, Photographic Memory was going to play a show at the Moroccan Lounge opening for After. He was a fan of the song and said, “You’re gonna open for After. It’s in a month and a half.” I didn’t have any other finished songs, I didn’t have a band. So I was like, Okay, I have to get a band together and write a set worth of songs in a month and a half. It was a very quick inception. Because of that, it’s been a slower start because it all just started with a song and didn’t have a foundation. I only had an idea for this project, and it kind of grew off of that.
How would you describe Hysteria57’s music?
DC: It’s funny, I was just talking about this last night with my new band members. It’s hard to describe because I am really inspired by emo music. Like, specifically 90’s emo. But there’s not a lot of feminine energy or presence in that scene. Nowadays, there’s a little more of that, but, I’d say it has some emo influences. But also alternative. I also really love writing hooks and adding pop elements into heavier instrumentation. So I guess it’s kinda emo, kinda alt, kinda indie. We were calling ourselves Fashion Emo, but that’s not a genre. I just really love fashion.
What 90’s emo bands in particular, if any, inspired you?
DC: I really love, of course, Jimmy Eat World, I love Texas Is The Reason, Mineral, Jejune… I have been listening to a lot of Saves The Day recently. Those are my biggest musical influences, I’d say, for emo.
What about the LA music scene inspires you? Or doesn’t?
DC: I feel like there’s a lack of community here. The scene in the 2010’s was really huge, and a lot of bands were coming up together. LA is such a big place. There’s a lot of emo music in the I.E. [Inland Empire], and in proper LA, huge bands come out of here, but there’s not really a sense of community and scene. Whereas smaller cities like Austin–the scene there–everyone comes out to shows and is excited. People are doing stuff all the time here and don’t really have time and it’s not a big part of the culture here. I don’t know if it really inspires me that much. You know, the grass is always greener, though. I’m like, Maybe I should move to New York. There’s a really nice group of emo, screamo, skramz bands there, that are all involved with each other and play with each other’s bands. That sort of energy is something that I crave here. It’s not as much a thing here. People are more isolated in their bands and groups.
I’ve found that a little, too. Since I just moved from NY, and I was so entrenched in the scene there… Even LA vs. NY as cities: New York has so much more congestion of people. There’s just so much. And it’s geographically a smaller city. So I think it makes sense that LA is a bit more disparate, but I hope we can bring a little more of that here!
DC: Yeah, I agree.
Where are you writing from when you write a song?
DC: I’m really driven by lyrical content. I write a lot of poetry. So that will often inform the song. I know a lot of people start with a melody and bring lyrics around that. I sometimes find the words will inform the way I sing them. Lyrics inform melody for me. Usually, I’ll write a guitar part and write it around the feeling and emotion behind what I’m saying. I usually start with a rhythm guitar part and some lyrics and melodies, and then I like collaborating with other people on leads and bass parts because I feel like that really influences how the song takes shape. I love getting inspiration from other people because everyone has habitual ways of writing, and sometimes you can get really stuck playing in the same key or playing the same chord shapes all the time. Sometimes someone will play a bass riff or lead guitar part, and then I’ll play something I would’ve never played if I was writing alone. So I really like writing with other people. For me, the lyrics and vocals really are at the forefront of what I’m thinking of when I write.
So would you say you’re a songwriter, singer or guitarist first?
DC: I would say songwriter first. That’s how I started, and that’s why I started playing the guitar because I wanted to write my own songs.
When did you start playing guitar?
DC: I had an acoustic guitar growing up that I’d learn Elliot Smith covers on, and The Shins and Modest Mouse and stuff. But I never really committed to it because I was a pretty serious dancer my whole life, and that was my biggest thing. I went to NYU Tisch for dance. I didn’t really start actually playing music until after college. When Covid hit, I went to Redondo Beach to stay with my mom because I didn’t want to stay in my tiny Brooklyn apartment that was a shoebox. She moved there from my hometown Davis, a college town near Sacramento.
So, yeah, I moved in with my mom and spent time by the beach during Covid. During that time it felt like the perfect opportunity for me to actually start learning how to play guitar seriously and be able to learn the tools and ability to express what I want to express. I didn’t really know how to yet. During that time, I was making songs on Ableton and teaching myself how to play the guitar during 2020/2021.
You used YouTube to learn?
DC: Yeah, I used YouTube, but I didn’t really learn traditionally. I learned through Smashing Pumpkins or Deftones covers. That informs how I write because those are the chords and genre I was learning from. Off the bat, I started playing in drop tunings a lot. Drop C, Drop C#.
What’s your musical guilty pleasure right now?
DC: Hmmmmm, I used to think pop music was a guilty pleasure, but now I just embrace everything I like and try not to feel cringy and just like what I like. I listen to a lot of rap music, like Fakemink. That’s a guilty pleasure: just, like, ignorant, mindless rap. SoundCloud rap. I used to be really into Nettspend.
I love the guitar riff of “Angela.” How did it come to you?
DC: That song was heavily co-written with Sam Takano, the original guitarist for the project. There’s two guitar parts. He had the bulk of it. Then we sat down, and I wrote the lead verse part. We expanded on the chorus together. I had so many versions of the vocals. Different lyrics, different melodies. The instrumentation is so strong, that I was like, I need to match this and land on the perfect lyrics and melody for this song. I knew the chorus needed to be super epic. With lyrics, I just started singing “Angela,” and I didn’t know who that was. I just liked how it feels in your mouth and the syllables fit well, so I started envisioning writing about this girl from the perspective of someone who knew her, but I didn’t really know who she was. An Angela came into my life after the fact, and the song happened to be about her from someone else’s perspective that I know.
Just psychically?!
DC: Yes. I wrote it through someone I know’s perspective before I even knew her name.
What’s the song about?
DC: The content is about someone you love so much, that is very toxic to you, and you don’t really know how to express that or get away from that situation because it’s both something you love but something that’s killing you. I feel like that’s a pretty universal feeling.
So tell me about your new release, “Money Song.”
DC: It’s a song I wrote during the inception of the band when I had to write a bunch of material at once. Originally it wasn’t my favorite song, but after the production and everything came together, it’s something I’m proud of. I wrote it in one night. I wrote the line: “Money is for spending, girls are for saving,” kind of as a joke when I was free styling. Then I thought it was kinda cool. The guitarist sent back a lead. We wouldn’t play it much live, but we wanted to rework it a little bit and record it in Texas. So the engineer and producer, Jackson [Baker]–his project is called Witches Exist. He added some strange electronic elements, like chopped and screwed vocals for the end. Something we’ve never done before. I’m really excited about it. It’s my favorite song that will be released so far. Jackson put a lot of time and care into the production. In the past we’ve just been recorded, not really had any input from a producer. Jackson’s ideas just… he’s not influenced by the same music as me. So it was interesting to have different perspectives in the room. The end is like chopped and screwed vocals: “Cash rules everything around me.” I was originally thinking of it as a sample thing. But then he ended up recording me and Jalen’s [previous bassist] vocals, and chopped and screwed them. I’m really excited. I feel like it’s kind of unexpected.
What does summer make you think of?
DC: I’m such a summer person. A lot of emotional people love rain and gloom, but it could be a super awesome day, the best day, and it’s gloomy out and I’m just not having a good day. It could be a sunny and beautiful day, and I could be sad and crying, and I’m like, This is the best. I’m a Gemini, so I love summertime. It always makes me think of being in school and getting out for summer break. Everything is just, like, epic and amazing. Those feelings are always present for me during summer time.
What are your goals this year with Hysteria57?
DC: My goals with Hysteria this year would be to continue building a foundation with my new band. I would love to work with a booking agent this year, as well, and hopefully be able to play some more shows outside of LA–either doing a lil’ West Coast run or going to do a one-off show in New York. Just playing bigger shoes and connecting with a wider audience that might not just be–sometimes the audience/communities/shows in LA is kind of insular, so I want to be able to showcase my music to a wider audience and crowd.
Listen to Hysteria57’s new track “Money Song”