Originally published in Verbicide issue #9

Omaha, Nebraska is a hotbed for great music, and one of the nicest surprises to emerge is Neva Dinova. An obscure local band for the better part of the last decade, their self-titled LP was released by crank! A RECORD COMPANY last year, and the coming months will bring listeners not only a split with fellow Omahanians Bright Eyes, but a new full-length as well. Catchy and sublime, Neva Dinova is one of the great secrets of the music scene waiting to be discovered by those who feel a lot of music today simply lacks substance. Calling from my little Montana apartment, I got the chance to converse with frontman Jake Bellows shortly before the late summer ND tour.

For the first question, who came up with the name Neva Dinova, and what does it mean?
Well, that was my grandmother’s name. We lost her a few years ago — about eight years ago now.

Whoa. Sorry. So you guys sort of have a “Pearl Jam thing” going with your name.
What?

Rumor has it Eddie Vedder’s grandmother was named “Pearl” and she made good jam. Like, preservatives.
No kidding?

Yeah. You and Pearl Jam, man. Naming your bands after your grandmothers.
Well, they’re important.

Sorry to have dragged it up.
No, no, it’s just one of those things. I liked her name and wanted to keep it around!

Your band has been around for 11 years. Did you, at any time up until the last year, have any interest from labels, or were you just self-releasing and playing locally?
Pretty much, we would just go in and record and press a few, make some tapes and CDs…but it got expensive and nobody really wanted ‘em. One CD we made was so much fun because we decided not to put any art on it. Just handed out a bunch of Sharpies, blue ones and black ones, and we drew cartoons on every CD — like on 400 CDs or something! My favorite one said, “Boot: It’s What’s for Dinner,” and it had a plate with a boot on it. (laughter) Cracked me up…

So what do you think took so long for you guys to get signed? I mean, 10 or 11 years to get signed…Neva Dinova’s a really good band; don’t you think somewhere along the line, someone should have realized what they were missing out on? I mean, it just amazes me it took so long; was it something you were looking for, or avoiding?
Well…I dunno. It’s kind of a fickle business! We just kind of made a decision to keep playing music, and we would occasionally send stuff out to labels, but we didn’t get much of a response, so we stopped sending stuff out and said, “Well, it’s just about making music anyway!” We just concentrated on that. We didn’t even send out our last CD; we recorded it and one of our friends sent it off to Crank, and that’s how we got in touch with those guys, they gave us a call about it.

I was actually going to ask about how they found you. That’s pretty cool. Friends taking care of you, eh?
Yeah, some buddies of ours actually put a record out on Crank, and they sent it off…

Who’s that?
You know Cursive?

Yeah.
They put a record out on Crank a while back, and so they had connections with them; I think Matt Maguinn, actually, sent it out for us.

So does everybody in the band still have to work on the side?
Yeah, everybody has a job but me, actually. I had a good excuse for a long time because I blew out a disc in my back, so I had to have back surgery and I was all crippled up and on pain killers for like three years! I was out of my mind for a while!

Were you still playing and writing music, at least?
Yeah, totally, I never quit doing that. But anyway, I wasn’t working for a long time, but now that I can…I haven’t started yet (laughter). I should probably! But I’ve got a good buddy who runs a Chinese restaurant named Fuji…he always hooks me up with food when I get hungry (laughter).

So, do you have any desire…well, not really “desire,” but if the opportunity presented itself so that you could get signed to a big label, go on MTV and tour with the Foo Fighters and stuff like that, do you think it might be something you’d jump at to make music potentially a career?
Well, you know…big steps like that make me nervous. Just because, I feel like…take the way you’re doing things with this magazine. If you build a nice foundation over the years and grow things slowly, you’re going to feel like you’re more stable than you are if you just throw all your cards down and let somebody else take over what you’re doing, you lose control…next thing you know, you could screw up. You know, with a major label you could find yourself $100,00 in debt, blackballed from making another record until you pay those guys back…so that whole business kind of makes me nervous! Also, when you build up so slowly, you’re really building credibility that major labels can’t build up with a band. They can throw money at you, but credibility…the [indie rock crowd] is a fickle bunch.

Who is largely responsible for writing the band’s music?
Usually what happens is I’ll be messing around with a song and I’ll throw it down on a four- or eight-track with a few parts, you know, basically what I heard in my head. I’ll bring it to practice and everybody gets a little levity to do something appropriate, which just makes sense. We work together as a band. Most of the songs I guess I bring to the table — well, actually, all the time — but we all work on them.

And you’re the lyricist, right?
Yeah.

What is your writing process like? Do words precede the music, or vice versa?
Usually I feel like they all come at the same time. Like, the words, the music, and the melodies — I’ll just start messing around on the guitar, and it’s like writing: you get a new pen and pad of paper and, next thing you know, you have a page full of stuff. Just because it’s fun to write.

Are there any writers, poets, or lyricists who inspire your lyrics?
I’ve got some favorite poets, for sure, and there are some lyricists that I think are awesome. Like A.E. Housman is one of my all-time favorite poets. I like Richard Hell, I think he’s an awesome poet. Just the name Richard Hell throws you off…But I don’t know how that works, your influences…it becomes such a hodge-podge by the time you write something down!

What are the stories behind some of your songs? Notably, “Brooklyn?” It’s a creepy song!
Totally creepy! It sounds all fun…

Yeah, it sounds all happy and fun, but the story it tells makes you say, “whoa.” It catches you off guard.
The story itself is not quite as sensationalized as the song…you know, you ever had that where…let’s say, there was this girl, Alison, who I knew in elementary school. After I graduated from high school, about two years later, I thought, God, I wonder what Alison’s doing? I hadn’t seen her since fourth grade! So I stopped by her house, you know, and it ended up being homecoming night, and her mom’s like…“Oh my god…Jake?” I said, “Hi…is Alison home?”

Did you say this was homecoming night? I thought this was after you graduated.
It was after I graduated, but it was her homecoming night, so she comes out in this beautiful dress, and she’s sick so her cheeks are all pink-rosy-red, and she has this platinum blonde hair that’s tangle-free, always…so she comes out and she’s sniffing and blowing into a handkerchief, and I could just say, “Hi.” It was one of the most uncomfortable situations I think she’s probably ever been in. I didn’t realize I was being such a nut by stopping by until I got there and we’re standing on the porch, and I’m thinking, Holy fuck, what am I doing? (laughter) And she’s freaked out, and her mom’s scared…I was like, “I’m just gonna get going!” (laughter)

So that’s what inspired the story you tell in “Brooklyn?”
Well, I guess it’s situations like that when you develop a fixation on a young lady, and you don’t even know that much about her, but you’ll, like, go and sweep the seat after she leaves, grab a piece of hair…tie it around a crazy doll in your room and light a fire under it (laughter).

One other song I have to ask about is “Lucifer’s Lament.”
I think tragic stories have a way of sticking with you, I think they’re fantastic. And I can’t think of a more tragic story than Lucifer’s story: top of the heap, God’s right-hand man, jealous of the humans…cast out and forced to live among them.

Do any of your songs have deliberate, direct religious connotations, or are religious symbols more or less just used as metaphors?
I don’t think the album has any religious connotations; they actually asked us when we were releasing the album if we wanted to pitch it like that to Christian radio or Christian magazines…but I feel like if they actually read through the lyrics they’re not going to be really impressed! Yeah, we’ve got “Jesus Choir,” “Lucifer’s Lament”…

“Did You Disappoint Your God?”
Yeah, exactly, and it sounds all religious, but when you read the lyrics it’s no longer, um…“evangelical.” I just feel like some of the biggest and most tragic stories are best represented by religious allusions.

So what do you guys have planned for the coming months with touring, upcoming records…groupies…MTV videos…
Oh yeah, they’ve been calling! (laughter) We’re gonna do a new record—

Full length, right?
Yeah! But before we do the full length we’re gonna do a split with a friend of ours; we’re gonna put six songs on it: three of his, three of ours.

Cool, all new material?
Yeah, all new.

Who is the split with?
Bright Eyes — we’re working with Conor. That’s why he was calling right when you called.

Your next full-length is going to be a Crank release most likely, right?
Yeah, it will be, and I’m excited about that.

Do you guys have a deal with them where you have to do a certain amount of records?
Well, we’re gonna do two for sure — the first one and this one, for sure — and we set it up in the contract where then we’re probably going to look at things and make sure everyone’s still into it — I mean, the band and Crank…make sure they’re still into helping us and working our record, and we’re still into them doing that…we’ll figure it out…things are going really well, I like those guys! We’ve become friends…they came down to Austin and hung out with us and shot pool, and we ate some wild-ass corn dogs that were, like, I dunno what!…Fresh off the…dog…? (laughter)

Fresh off the rats’ intestines?
Yeah, exactly! (laughter) Melts like butter…