An Interview with Ike Dweck
BY STEPHANIE HARO
All Image Credit: Ike Dweck
Towards the beginning of his Safe With Me tour, we had the opportunity to sit and chat with Ike Dweck right before heading on stage at his Chicago stop. Ike Dweck is a Brooklyn-born and raised independent singer & songwriter who doesn't feel the need to fit himself into a single box. His natural knack for storytelling allows his lyrics to cut deep and connect with old and new listeners alike. Together, we discussed his history with writing, gaining his start on social media, and adapting to life on tour.
I was reading up on you, and you have a heavy history in writing. What sparked your interest in switching it up and turning it into music?
I felt like it was more of a medium shift for me. I used to write poetry a lot, and I love reading books. So, when I first started writing poetry, I might have still been in middle school, like when that kind of hobby came about. And then as I started learning to play guitar, the stories that I wanted to tell, or that I was writing poetically in, like my little journal, like at 3o'clock in the morning, soon became songs. I realized that I had a bunch of things I wanted to say, and writing poetry was always therapeutic for me. Then making music just took that to a whole new level.
One of your big draws is your lyricism, how do you mend the story you want to tell into a song?
Oh, that's a good question. I think it kind of happens naturally, like they go hand in hand. The story doesn't happen before I touch the guitar. It's more like I have to have an instrument in my hands, whether it's the piano that I'm playing terribly or a guitar that I’m playing less terribly. I think a song eventually happens or comes about after I'm messing around and playing with melodies, so sometimes it's just gibberish or whatever emotions I'm feeling that day that help inform what the song is going to be. Still, they need to be happening at the same time. I'm never like, ‘oh, I want to write a song about this, let me go pick up my guitar,’ it's like ‘I'm feeling a little bit of something, let me go play music,’ and then eventually a song will just come out of that. I think there's a lot of refinement when I'm writing. I typically will get an idea as I'm playing the guitar, and then my nitpickiness when it comes to lyricism happens halfway through the process. When I finally get to that idea, I get really specific with what I want to say and how I want to say it, but usually, that's not like the first step. It kind of happens, you know, gradually as the song builds. Mine might be a little weird. I kind of just try to let things flow.
You stay on top of your social media, when you started releasing music and identifying as an artist, did you think social media would come with that, or was managing that presence something you had to learn?
I didn't start posting on social media with Music, I started posting during Covid, just for shits and giggles. I was just having a good time, and that's how I built my following. My goal the whole time was just to get an audience of any sort, and then, I would throw in covers of some songs here and there. Then eventually, I decided to go full on, like, abandon everything else I was doing, and just go all in on the music. It was kind of like a big 180 for anyone who was following me, they were like, ‘wait, he's doing music now’, but yeah, hard transition. For others it kind of looked like, ‘oh, he's a musician now,’ but it was really all along I was like, ‘I want to do music, but I don't really know how to.’ I was just kind of fooling around with it (social media), so I basically just tried going viral, doing anything, and then eventually tried turning that audience into people, who'd be fans of the music. I guess you could say, I did it a little bit in reverse.
You're originally from Brooklyn, as you mentioned. How does the music scene in Brooklyn compare to what you've seen in other cities while on tour? How prominent is folk music in the Brooklyn music scene?
There's a lot of folk history in New York, especially by places like Greenwich. I'm not that tapped into the music community within Brooklyn, though. I will say, I don't even record my songs in New York. I'll write my songs in, like, my bedroom in Brooklyn, but whenever I'm going to produce them, or just finish them most of the time, I'm going to LA, or Nashville to spend time with friends and just finish the songs there. So, I wish I could say that I'm more involved in the music community in New York, but I'm just not. It's always just been my friends who live in different cities, and I only really write with my friends, so most of the time I’m catching a flight, and going to write with them. If I lived in Chicago, I'd probably still be doing the same thing I'm doing now, just in a different city, if that makes sense.
I don't know if I make folk music. I think I just throw it out there because that's the closest genre to what I'm doing. It’s not like I’ll throw a bit of mandolin in there, or a banjo, like, ‘oh, it's folk music.’ I kind of just write the song, and then, whatever the song calls for production-wise, that's the genre it falls into. So sometimes it's folk, sometimes it's more country-ish, or like folk pop-ish. I just like writing songs, I like telling stories, so whatever production helps reinforce or tell that story, that's the genre it leans into. So I think folk wasn't something I chose, it just happened naturally. Yeah, less of a label, I stay flexible with it.
What's your post-show ritual? How do you de-stress while staying on the road?
I'm still learning how to do that. I have no idea. I am terrible with anxiety. I have such bad anxiety when it comes to like everything, so I think working out has been a nice way for me to clear my head when I get the time in the morning. I haven't gotten the chance to like working out after a show, because I'm usually really, really tired, but honestly, even hanging out, chatting with people on the road with me, is just a great way for me to get rid of that nervousness. It lets me distract myself and let loose a little bit, being social is a nice way for me to de-stress.
Where can people find each of you and your work?
Search my name on Instagram, TikTok, Spotify: Ike Dweck. Ike is like Mike and Ike. Nobody ever knows what Ike is, my real name is Isaac, but everybody calls me Ike.
Ike Dweck’s Safe With Me Tour continues throughout the rest of the year with shows in Houston, Toronto, Montreal, and many more.
Follow Ike Dweck on his socials!
Instagram: @ike.dweck
TikTok: @ike_dweck
