FearDorian and quinn Aren’t the Crazy Ones

Dorian Williams, aka FearDorian, is a producer, rapper, singer-songwriter, and DJ from Atlanta; Quinn Dupree, aka osquinn, or quinn, is also a producer, rapper, singer-songwriter, and DJ based in Atlanta. The wunderkinds recently put out a record together, Before You Press Play (out now on 3500), and to celebrate, they got on Zoom to catch up about the “fried” year that led to its creation. 
— Annie Fell, Editor-in-chief, Talkhouse Music

Dorian Williams: Yo, Quinn, what’s up? Where do we want to begin, my heart? 

Quinn Dupree: Shit, bro. The amount, the amount of bullshit we went through while creating this project…

Dorian: The amount of bullshit we’ve been through — we are so trauma bonded. [Laughs.] I think we’re trauma bonded to hell. But it’s fire, though. Because it’s just good to have you here while we go through this. I think if I was alone during all the shit that happened to me and you, I would be fucked up right now. I would have been evil. It would have been Evil Dorian.

Quinn: Exactly. I would have been mean as fuck, probably. I probably would have been big, rough, and tough or whatever. Because I ain’t going to lie, that shit almost took the New York out of me. I’m still not very New York.

Dorian: I’m not either, and I think that week was just really insane.

Quinn: I think everyone has those transitional periods where they get out of high school and they do all the things they dream of doing, and then they realize it’s not—

Dorian: It’s not what they imagined.

Quinn: It’s not what they imagined. They see everything around them and it’s so much darker.

Dorian: It was very dark. I feel like last year was a very dark year… We were doing so many drugs.

Quinn: That’s for sure.

Dorian: We were getting into such events that are low key canon, but… it was rough. It was really rough.

Quinn: I’d say for me at least, it started going to shit after the Market Hotel show with NOVAGANG. And Nettspend up there — you know the famous gif? Xavier doing that silly ass dance? I’m in the background of that gif. But that’s just a little side note…

Dorian: That was right before it went to shit for me as well. Because I was still in school. I was honestly pissed that I missed that show. When was that? July? 

Quinn: I think that was September of 2023.

Dorian: So I was still in school. I was really mad I missed that show. That was right before I started taking my own trips to New York, and the first ones weren’t bad at all. I was like, Wow, New York is the place to be. It was not the place to be. We would shortly come to find it was not the place to be. 2024 was… I don’t know. What the hell was that, man?

Quinn: 2024, we leaned into the whole rock star thing.

Dorian: Yeah, we we spent New Years together in New York in 2023. Right before all that happened. I got super fried on the couch and I just went to sleep. I woke up and, boy, did I not know what was going to happen that year. But I think it’s interesting to look back on where we are now in our lives and the music.

Quinn: I feel like nowadays, it can still be relatively fried, but nowhere near as much.

Dorian: Nowhere near as fried. It’s been pretty fried too this year, but… 

Quinn: At least I think this year, we weren’t the fried ones.

Dorian: We were not the fried ones. I think that also plays into the music. It’s almost like, “Hey, we’re not the crazy ones. You guys are the crazy ones.” Which, it’s OK to be crazy, but don’t be crazy to me.

Quinn: Yeah. I think the best way to put it is, “This is how I be feeling even when I step out the crib, go to a function or something. Y’all probably looking at me crazy, but I’m not crazy. Y’all drive me crazy. But y’all will never admit that you’re crazy, so it looks like I’m crazy,” you feel me?

Dorian: Yeah, I feel you. It’s like we’re in the city of crazy people.

Quinn: It’s like a city of little siblings. 

Dorian: It’s bad. But I have faith that it’s getting better. Atlanta, the scene was really fried this year. I feel like this year and last year was really bad.

Quinn: It was.

Dorian: We dove pretty deep into rave culture. And those nights… 

Quinn: We’re going to a party tonight.

Dorian: Yeah. But I feel like this is a new bloom. I feel like these little events are going to be good.

Quinn: Yeah. This new DJ Lowball shit, you’re taking on some good events. They’re not strictly electronic or nothing.

Dorian: And I hate that shit. I really hate that, because it’s like people hate Black music at these raves.

Quinn: Oh, for real.

Dorian: It’s crazy, the amount of ravers that are actually racist secretly. 

Quinn: I think all the POC people are starting to band together though. I’ve started to see that at some of these functions.

Dorian: Yeah, I think that’s also beautiful. Because I think a lot of people are realizing how lonely it actually is when you don’t. We need each other. I feel like as humans, we do need each other,

Quinn: And we also need to be leaving the house.

Dorian: Facts. We need to make friends and experience things. I feel like that aspect of life got neglected last year, because of all the partying and drugs and shit, from everybody. It kind of felt like that’s what the whole city was on.

Quinn: I think it’s because everyone got shit twisted — we all thought that you had to do drugs and be strung out to have a good time.

Dorian: Which is not the case. We can go outside and have a bonfire and watch a movie.

Quinn: Just a few beers will do.

Dorian: Yeah, or some wine. On some smooth shit. 

Quinn: I don’t even really smoke that much no more.

Dorian: Yeah, I don’t remember the last time I smoked, honestly.

Quinn: I think everyone goes through those experimental drug eras.

Dorian: Yeah, I feel like you — it’s not that you have to, but it will happen eventually.

Quinn: It’s a canon event for a lot of artistic kids.

Dorian: Yeah. And I feel like you kind of have to not let it make you or break you. You kind of just have to experience it and be like, “OK, cool. That was whatever.” And then bounce back and come back to, what you are. 

Quinn: That was the only reason why I was wiling, because if you go into it with a mindset like, Oh, yeah, we’re going to laugh about this in the future…

Dorian: Literally, I was the same way as well. 

Quinn: We was tweaking, but I don’t think we was on a slippery slope.

Dorian: No, it wasn’t like we were being like destructive.

Quinn: Because, you know, some people wake up the next morning and they need more. I think I’d wake up the next morning like, I’m never doing this shit again. [Laughs.] When it comes to acid, I might never do it again.

Dorian: Yeah, I’m good off that. Psychedelics in general. Even edibles — I don’t even like edibles. I’m good off all that, bro… I think the music that’s been made since version one of the project to now is vastly different, because of just all the shit we endured. It’s very interesting to see.

Quinn: I spoke with somebody the other day. He was like, “I like all of the songs that you guys have dropped so far, but I can’t help but notice the delivery on ‘distance’ is just so hopeless.” I’m like, ‘Yeah.” [Laughs.]

Dorian: [Laughs.]

Quinn: They can hear it in the music that we was not having the best day that day. That was a late night session.

Dorian: Yeah, it was not a very good time. It was very, very bleak. I don’t like being in the studio — we spoke about this before, but it just it feels so corporate. I hate that. I think being in the house, in the crib, watching a show in the background while recording is the best way. I really don’t like the studio, especially the studio in New York. Good lord. I know we keep bringing up New York, and people are probably going to read this and be like, “What the fuck are they talking about? What happened in New York”

Quinn: We sort of have a double residency. The people asking us about what happened in New York — they probably already know the caliber of what happened, because they probably had the same shit happen.

Dorian: It was a crazy time. But I’m finally happy for this shit to actually be be out. I wonder what what people will think.

Quinn: Yeah, me too. I’m excited.

Dorian: You think we’ll ever make another album?

Quinn: I think so. I think we might have to recharge, because it took a lot out of us.

Dorian: We’re not going to make another album together for, like, a couple years.

Quinn: Yeah, it’s going to be some years probably.

Dorian: I feel like we’ll still do little shit together, here and there. But I think we need a little time to live. We need time to make better memories.

Quinn: Yeah, I was about to say, I think people need time to live before they start doing shit like that again.

Dorian: I don’t even really know what my next thing is going to look like. I think I need to live a little longer, just to experience.

Quinn: I have an idea of what my next joint going to look like. I want to base it around a character, and I want the beginning of it to be something just dark, that starts out with a bassline. I’m describing what’s going on, what’s happening to me… Something like “Jigsaw Falling Into Place” by Radiohead.

Dorian: I think that’d be really fun. I’ve been thinking about the process of creating a concept album. Sometimes I feel like I have a limited amount of ideas, which is the reason why I want to keep writing, I want to keep living, and living in different places. 

Quinn: Also not rushing yourself to create all this.

Dorian: Yeah. I think I’m definitely going to take my time longer with this one. And I want to collaborate more on the next things that I do. Because most of the shit that I’ve done has just been a solo effort. I don’t know if I want to do a concept album. But I think the idea that you have is really cool. 

Quinn: I wanna have some features on that.

Dorian: When I listened to Earl’s new record, for example, I thought, Oh, this feels like when I heard Some Rap Songs for the first time, but just a refined version. Do you think in your next record that you’re going to go back to shit like your self-titled? And I kind of already do know the answer, because I’ve seen you express this before, but it’d be really cool to keep seeing you use more physical equipment. I know I have your OP-1 — and I actually have to get it repaired because one of the sounds isn’t working — that shit’s going to cost a fucking arm and leg. [Laughs.] But, yeah, I want to see you use your bass and shit more too. I think you using instruments and hardware is going to be really cool to see.

Quinn: One thing I really want to work on is definitely live instrumentation. I’m pretty good at bass, I’m not going to lie. Since I picked it back up, I’ve gotten pretty good. And on top of that, I want to work on my live performances. I really want to work on the way I structure them.

Dorian: I have also been thinking the same thing. Because I look at people’s live performances, and it’s really like performance art, which is sick. I tried this new thing where I put a lot of interludes in the middle of the set, because usually I’m just like going track to track to track to track. But I think having interludes is cool. I think of Cities Aviv’s live shows — they’re just fucking crazy, the whole atmosphere.

Quinn: Yeah, I want it to be something like that, something where I could just have something in front of me to play a bunch of stems. And then I have that Auto-Tune pedal thing. I bought one before we went to LA, and I never ended up using it for the LA show.

Dorian: That’s fire you got that.

Quinn: It’s got other stuff, too, like harmonization, and I could loop my vocals and shit like that. I can’t wait to fuck with shit like that. 

Dorian: Well, it’s 4:10. I’m about to go on a double date in a little bit. So, I guess to wrap up… What’s your favorite song on the album?

Quinn: “act like u know,” bro. No question.

Dorian: I concur. I will say, that is my favorite song as well.