A CONVERSATION WITH... DOLDER
At The Great Escape, singer-songwriter twin sister duo Dolder share some secrets about their music and their dreams for their career.
Photo by Imogen Mosley
We’re Zara and Dani, and together, we are Dolder.
You’ve mentioned in interviews before the influence that your dad's music and life has had on your music, but what made you guys want to follow it for yourself in the first place?
We have been so ingrained in this world forever. It was sort of a given that this is what we'd love to do. We both picked up instruments young, and we've been singing forever. We've been harmonising since we were four. It's in our nature. It's our dream. We're living the dream. It's great.
Are there any songs, whether from your catalogue or just in general, that you guys love singing together?
Anything Eagles, anything Beatles. We started with The Beatles really young. We’d always have Dani as Paul and Zara as John. I think that's how the harmonising started.
Our favourite song of ours to sing together would be ‘Occasionally’, which comes out on our EP in July.
What can you share about the upcoming EP?
It’s literally a diary entry about our life over the past few years. We wrote it over the last year and we recorded it in New York with an amazing guy called Oli Deakin. We had the best time with him. He's ridiculously talented. It's our body of work that we're most proud of and I'm so excited for the world to hear it.
Photo by Imogen Mosley
Are there any themes that you're really diving into with it?
It’s a mixture of yearning and heartache. Whether it's a breakup or it's just missing someone, but there’s hatred, female rage,and being overly dramatic. We're very good at that. Our themes across all of our music are real female experiences and feelings. All the things that the girls are probably scared to admit and just be the cover girls for that, I guess.
Are there any lines that you can share that you're really glad that you wrote or able to include?
The whole of ‘Occasionally’, but especially the line:
“Occasionally he loves me, but I love him all the time. Occasionally he sees me, and suddenly he's blind.”
Were there any sonic, lyrical, or general inspirations that you really were drawing from while you were creating it and producing it?
We were listening to a lot of CMAT and a lot of Lola Young. They are both such honest writers. We take so much inspiration from them and look up to them so much. It's just so magical to see women showing exactly how they feel. It’s a take it or leave it attitude. We need to say these things. We need to be honest for other girls to have that safe space and community where they can evolve, grow, and learn from us. They can relate to us and grow with us, and I think that's really important.
There was someone who messaged us the other day and she said that ‘Charlie’, our song on the first EP, was helping her get through female friendship issues. Which is so interesting because we'd written that about a multitude of different boys, so that's coming from a completely different place for us. It made me so happy that fans can interpret it into their own lives and incorporate it into those sort of personal experiences. Being totally honest and real is really important to us, so the fans can have that space to feel with us.
It’s amazing that you guys are so open and vulnerable with what you’ve experienced, it’s really clear that the fans need that. But is it hard having that close connection between your art and your life? Or do you like having that close connection?
That’s the only way we can write. It’s so difficult to make up a scenario and write about it, we really need to see exactly what happened to really feel it. We don't want to go and sing a song or sell a song where we’re not showing exactly who we are. We ripped ourselves open and handed it to you on a platter, you know? It’s so important to be vulnerable as well because everyone’s a bit scared of that. We’re very lucky in our relationship that we've always grown up so close and we've always been able to be vulnerable with each other. That’s why it's so easy to be in a session and talk about exactly what happened and exactly how we’re feeling. We can be crazy together and not care.
Is there any topic that you guys haven't covered yet that you would want to?
We struggle to write love songs, specifically love songs that don't have a knife in your back whilst you're singing it. There's a song that’s our next single, ‘Sleeping Pills’ -- it's technically a love song, but it's made to be quite depressing. It’s like ‘I can't sleep when I'm not with you and I need to take pills because of it.’
We struggle writing nice songs, but we will get round to it. There's space for it somewhere, but that's definitely something that we're not used to expressing. Because we see heartbreak as ridiculously common and it can be common in any relationship, so being able to give someone relief from that feeling is our aim.
I’m sure tons of people in the audience at Great Escape needed some relief and are feeling very grateful for you guys. So how are you feeling about being at The Great Escape?
A lot of our friends have played here over the years and we've been wishing we could play.
It's amazing and it's very surreal to actually be here. It’s great seeing so many people that you know out and about, even if you don’t know their name. Today’s show was also amazing. We came off stage and a woman came up to us straight away and she was crying her eyes out and she was like, ‘I'm in bits.’ And we were like, ‘No, you're going to set us off.’
Having that experience with people afterwards and like seeing how we've really got through to them is like the most special thing ever. So I'm really looking forward to tour.
Is a tour on the 2026 calendar or is it later in the year? Any other plans you can share?
Another EP, for sure. Plus some more touring and travelling, and we’d love to do a headliner tour soon. But for now, we’re manifesting some amazing touring slots like with Maisie Peters or Gracie Abrams.