by Giliann Karon (@lethalrejection)
Merce Lemon carries Pittsburgh’s sticky college basements and grassy patches on her back. From a young age, her parents immersed her in the city’s rich DIY scene and culture of reciprocity. Her poignant lyrics, inspired by nature and mundane interactions, carry this legacy.
Her third album, Watch Me Drive Them Dogs Wild, was born from pandemic restlessness and a summer of sleeping outside. This experience forced her to look inward and tame her impulses, where she grappled with an omnipresent and aching grief. She emerged with a deeper gratitude for the community that nurtured her since birth.
“I could not be alive alone. None of us could be alive alone,” a longtime friend once told her with a smile. Watch Me Drive Them Dogs Wild bears witness to community care and selfless reciprocity.
photo credit: Justin Gordon
GILIANN KARON: What was your musical journey, and which artists influenced the music you make?
MERCE LEMON: I grew up around music. I've been going to shows since I was a little kid because my parents played music, brought me to shows, and hosted bands. It was a natural trajectory.
My biggest early influences were Kimya Dawson and the Moldy Peaches, which I bring up a lot. My parents and I saw Kimya when I was a little kid at this DIY spot in Pittsburgh. In classic DIY fashion, she asked the crowd if anyone had a place for her to stay tonight. My parents hosted her and we all became friends.
GK: Your dad is an archivist and your mom is a letterpress printer, careers that both preserve and replicate old-fashioned practices. I love how your music is so timeless. Can you just talk about the connection between your upbringing and the type of music you make?
ML: I don't know if it's always a conscious decision to these moments, but it's something I naturally gravitate towards. My parents have similar time capsules with the work they do. I think the way I write and relate to other music preserves moments like that.
I listened to a lot of country music growing up, especially George Jones, with my dad. He’s so timeless. I try to encapsulate so many inspirations without sounding exactly like them, which I think is because of the eclectic mix of media I consumed when I was younger. I never had to think of what I wanted to sound like. It naturally came out of me.
GK: What’s so special about the Pittsburgh music scene?
ML: I lived here until I was 17. During that time, I just went to shows. I saw Frankie Cosmos, Told Slant, and Florist at the Mr. Roboto Project, which is the iconic Pittsburgh DIY spot. I didn’t play; I mostly consumed.
I moved to Seattle and started playing my own music again. When I moved back to Pittsburgh three or four years later, I was immediately welcomed into the scene as a performer. It feels like a small town, even though I know it’s not. It has a super rich art scene. I feel very supported.
I feel a little out of touch with it because the college houses change every year. I used to be able to keep up with it and have played in so many Oakland DIY basements.
GK: Your bio opens with a quote from a family friend about how none of us could ever be alive alone. How does Pittsburgh's strong community impact your ethos and lyricism?
ML: I owe a lot of that to my parents again. A big reason I moved back here was because I felt so held and supported by my family and our friends.
I never had a babysitter. My parents had a group of friends with kids of similar ages. They all took turns taking care of us. If a parent was busy, they’d drop their kid off at a friend’s house. My parents paid for a babysitter once. It's seared into my memory because we made photo booth videos for hours until my parents came home.
This sense of community inevitably comes out in my songwriting. Even though there's sadness in a lot of my songs, I think there's also hope. I couldn't have one without the other.
GK: That's so sweet. There’s so much talk about “a better world is possible” in a very abstract sense. It’s inspiring to see people practice that.
ML: It feels special to be a part of that. I’m lucky I grew up in this environment instead of having to seek it out.
GK: What did you watch, read, and listen to while writing Watch Me Drive Them Dogs Wild?
ML: I’m not sure. I think it's too broad for my brain to narrow it down to something because I wrote it over a span of many years. The oldest song is “Crow,” which I wrote pre-pandemic. I remember playing it with my dad band. I'm more inspired by interactions with people and with nature than any direct media I consume.
GK: It's very cool that you look to interactions and nature as inspiration. I like asking artists that question, but I've never heard them talk about things that you can't grasp.
ML: Relational experiences have been a huge inspiration. The only direct inspiration would be from a George Jones song where I actually took some of his lyricism.
GK: I listened to your album while sitting in coffee shops, driving with my family, and walking around my neighborhood. Each setting allowed me to pick up on different themes. In what sites do you think your album will have the greatest impact on listeners?
ML: I like the idea of it being a walking album. One thing I’ve started to appreciate is getting to know plants. Finding nature in a concrete city is so special. Plants I've seen my whole life I used to dismiss as weeds. Now, I have a deeper understanding of how they've been used and why they exist. For example, mugwort grows crazy here. Technically it is a weed, but you can dry it, and it smells great. It gives you weird dreams. St. John’s wort grows on the side of bike pathways. There are so many special little things that if you’re paying attention, there’s a lot of magic within, even growing in cracks.
GK: “Birdseed” is the opener, which sets the pastoral tone for the rest of the album. How did you decide on the track order?
ML: That's always hard for me. On this album, “Birdseed” felt like it couldn't go anywhere else. I decided it wasn't going to be a single, but it was an important song. It opens with my voice before any instrumentation, which I think is a cool way to start an album. It’s uppity and probably the least sad song on the album.
At one point, “Watch Me Drive Them Dogs Wild” was the third song, and “Window” was the last, but “Window” felt like such a sad way to end the album. I didn’t want to leave people on that note. Whenever I do the track order, I run it by my dad. This was my first time I was pressing vinyl, so I had to think about how the first side ends and second side begins. I went back and forth with “Window” and “Dogs”. I could switch “Crow” and “Foolish and Fast,” and it would work either way. Otherwise, everything fell into place naturally.
GK: How'd you come up with the name of your album?
ML: The song came first. I have such a hard time naming things and I didn’t have a name for this album for a long time. But when I wrote that song, I was like, “Why don’t I just make this the name of the album?” It was kind of staring me in the face.
It was the last song I wrote. It felt very unattached to everything else on the album, so it’s funny that that ended up being the song that encapsulates all the other songs. It's just such an evocative image to me and can take on many meanings depending on how you interpret it.
GK: Who are your favorite local artists?
ML: I have to give a shout out to my dad’s band, which is called Her Suit. Everyone in my band has a solo project.
My drummer Pat Coyle plays under his name. Benji, who plays bass, also plays under Clear Creek SP. Reid, my guitarist, plays under I4A, which stands for Ideas for Advertisements. Spencer, who played keys on the album, plays ambient music under the name Alvin Row. We recently played a show at my friend’s sauna, which has an outdoor space. He was playing ambient lap steel, and it made me cry.
Feeble Little Horse is an obvious one. They’re friends of mine, and their music is so undeniably fun. Gina Gorey is a fun band that has been around for a couple of years. They sound like a live tape recording. People always ask who they should play with in Pittsburgh. I need to make a proper list.
GK: Last question! What’s your favorite fruit, and how do you prepare it?
ML: I'm going to go with the obvious one, which is blueberry. It shows up on my album. I don't even know if my all-time favorite, but the way I’ve interacted with it – both in the wild and in pick-your-own places – has left an impression on me. I have such good memories associated with them. The wild ones are tiny but kind of pack a punch more than any of the store-bought ones could. For a few years now, I've picked many gallons of blueberries every summer and frozen them. I only have a little bit left by the time the next blueberry season comes around. I try to keep it in rotation.