Sloppy Jane’s Haley Dahl on The Beach Boys Album That Rewired Her Brain

By: Josh Kitchen / June 16, 2025

Brian Wilson passed away less than a week ago, and since then there has been an outpouring of messages filled with love, mercy, and deep gratitude for the music he gave the world. His influence can be felt across nearly every genre in modern pop. Beyond his songwriting and groundbreaking contributions to pop music, Wilson consistently pushed boundaries—treating production itself as an instrument just as vital as his angelic harmonies or Bach-inspired piano playing.

In the world of modern experimental music, few artists are pushing boundaries with as much ambition—and emotional depth like Brian Wilson—as Haley Dahl of Sloppy Jane. Known for her theatrical, full-band orchestrations and unflinching lyrical vulnerability, Dahl’s music balances the raw with the grand, the chaotic with the carefully arranged. At the center of her 2021 breakout album, Madison, is a radical production choice: recording in a West Virginia cave to achieve natural reverb and spaciousness that no studio could replicate. It’s a move that echoes the spirit of Brian Wilson—not just in sonic boldness, but in using production itself as an instrument.

Photo by: Walter Wlodarczyk

That connection runs deeper than surface influence. Like Wilson, Dahl layers vocal harmonies into intricate emotional textures. Her arrangements are in constant dialogue with themselves—melodies, countermelodies, and background chatter all swirling together into something deeply felt and highly constructed. And like Wilson, she writes with a kind of wide-eyed ache: honest, searching, and occasionally heartbreaking.

When news broke that Brian Wilson had passed away, I reached out to Haley, knowing she’d have more than a passing reaction. In this conversation, we talk about where she was when she found out, how his music shaped her life and her process, and which Beach Boys album completely rewired her brain—one she listened to exclusively for four straight months.

Photo by: Griffin Lotz

What were you doing when you found out that Brian Wilson had passed away?

I was actually in the recording studio with my collaborator, Ryan Howe. We were in the middle of working on some new material, and we happened to be in this kind of minor disagreement. Not a bad argument or anything, but we were going back and forth about a chord progression I wanted to include—something kind of weird and ascending that didn’t totally fit. And then, right in the middle of it, we both got texts that Brian Wilson had died. That ended the disagreement. And I got to keep the weird chord progression.

Brian was clearly on your side.

Exactly. I remember thinking, “I feel like Brian would’ve liked it.” We didn’t even talk about it—we just moved on. The chord stayed.

I think for people who truly loved Brian—there’s been this quiet emotional preparation for a while now, but it still didn’t feel real.

That’s exactly how it felt. We all knew it was coming, but it didn’t make it easier. He was 82, and he had a full life, but it still felt like he was too young somehow. He just seemed eternal.

Have you been able to listen to any of his music since?

Not yet. I know a lot of people have been revisiting his catalog, but I just haven’t been ready. I feel like once I do, I’ll totally fall apart. It’s too soon for me to listen in that context.

I hear you have a story about The Beach Boys', "Smiley Smile" record.

I started playing music in high school, and I always liked The Beach Boys and had some understanding of Brian’s work. But I think there’s this turning point for a lot of musicians where it suddenly clicks—and then everything changes. For me, that happened in my early twenties.

Still from The Ember Knight Show Getting Mad

Me and one of my best friends, Ember Knight, who is also an incredible artist were going through a specifically hard-fought time together in our early twenties. We decided to go on this unplanned Route 66 road trip—no GPS, no maps, just the weird service roads and getting lost. When we were leaving L.A., we put on my CD of Smiley Smile, and for some reason it hit me like nothing else. It was exactly what we needed at that moment.

We made a decision right then that we were only going to listen to Smiley Smile until we had memorized every harmony, every arrangement, every vocal part. I listened to that album exclusively for four months.

My brain has never been the same - in a positive way! It changed the way I think about music and in general, really - a total rewiring. It's embedded in me. The arrangements are so conversational—every part talks to another part, and everything feels like it’s reacting to itself. At the time, Sloppy Jane was still a small punk band. I had this itch to do something bigger, stranger, more orchestrated—but I didn’t know how to get there. There was something about his music that was so strange, bizarre, and technically counter-intuitive but extremely universal. I just felt like the answer was in there for me, and I just completely let it engulf me. I do think that I shaped my knowledge about orchestrating and arranging from that. The music that I write is much different, but maybe where we crossover is this conversational quality to the music.

And Smiley Smile is such a unique entry point. It came out of "Smile" not happening, and yet it became something entirely its own. That always felt like a powerful lesson to me—that even when your vision collapses, something beautiful can still come from it.

Yes, exactly. I’ve had debates with people over Smile versus Smiley Smile. I love both. But Smiley Smile is the one that found me first. It’s the one tattooed in my head. And it feels perfect to me the way it is.

Plus, only one of them has “Gettin’ Hungry."

That's what I'm saying, it's so fun. I just love the chatter in it, not just between the instruments, but between the people in the room. It feels like Brian’s own thoughts are reacting to what he’s creating. I love it so much, and I definitely copied the chatter, that's all over my stuff. There's almost an audience of music built into the music.

You've mentioned that your approach to songwriting is obviously different from Brian’s, but I think the connection is there. There’s a through line, especially in how you treat sound and atmosphere, but also thematically. A song like “Party Anthem” comes to mind - and the lyric, "I’m sorry I couldn’t be everything I needed to be." That is Brian Wilson coded.

Wow, thank you. That really means a lot. I’ve always hoped that Madison is my Pet Sounds—that someday people will understand how much I put into it. I’m working on a new album now that feels a little more immediate and energetic, but I think Madison will always be something really singular in my catalog. I hope that as more people discover my work, they’ll go back and find it.

It feels like you made Madison in a way that’s similar to how Brian made Pet Sounds—not just for where you were at the time, but as a foundation for everything that came after. And recording it in a cave—that felt like a Brian Wilson move. Not imitation, but kinship.

I don’t think people realize how much of a reaction Madison was to the current way people make music. These days, there’s this emphasis on speed, cheapness, and convenience. Everyone’s optimizing. I’m not interested in that. I love grandeur. I love using space. I love working with large ensembles. That comes directly from studying records like Pet Sounds.

There’s this intentionality in Brian’s music that’s so rare. Every line, every instrument, every harmony has an arc. You can isolate any part and it tells a story.

Absolutely. Even in his simpler pop songs, the detail is astonishing. Every instrument is doing something deliberate. It’s not just “here’s a part, now loop it.” Every single layer was thought through from start to finish.

And sometimes he’d write a bass line that made no sense on paper—but it worked in context. Carol Kaye [Of the Wrecking Crew] would ask, “Are you sure about this?” And Brian would just say, “Trust me.”

Exactly. That’s what I mean about musical conversation. The bass might not be on the root of the chord—it might be harmonizing or creating movement. I did that on parts of Madison too. It’s counterintuitive when you look at it on a chart, but when everything talks to each other, it makes sense.

For me, Brian Wilson’s music genuinely changed what makes life good. I think I’d have a completely different sense of joy and purpose without it. I know there’s no real way to sum this up, but—do you have any final thoughts on Brian Wilson?

I don’t think I’ll ever have a final thought on Brian Wilson.