Help Donzii Record Their Next Album!

Hello! We - the people of DONZii are going to be recording our next album independently! It is an exciting and risky endeavor, and have made some difficult decisions to arrive at this place, but we feel it is the best choice for us as artists and will help us create the best record we can.

Our plan is to tour from Miami to LA this Fall, ending up out West where we hope to begin the recording process in November.

Donzii has been doing well and we are so incredibly grateful for this. Over the last 3 years, we have both quit our steady jobs to attempt a transition to solely making and playing music for a living, which we are so proud of. We still hustle side jobs - Dennis moves stuff with his van, does some art handling, or sells some instruments he finds. Jenna holds therapeutic group movement classes, works for an SEO company, and does DJ gigs. The reality is that many independent musicians cannot afford to tour and record music while sustaining themselves simultaneously. Most of the artists we know have multiple side gigs in order to afford being able to play music - and these are bands that tour much of the year, have substantial online streams, and are still having a hard time getting by on just their creativity alone. All to say, it is a frustrating narrative - that the musician is romanticized as someone who has to suffer in order to produce great music.

We feel the role of the artist is to reflect and embody their own experience for their audience. There is enough suffering implicit in being alive, enough pain experienced by simply breathing to not necessitate extra violence for the reason of perpetuating a tired narrative. As a musician, you must accept being at the bottom of the pay scale for much of the journey. Sadly there is no infrastructure that adequately supports the culture of live music in the USA - which creates a cycle of financial gaslighting for artists, venues, agents, etc. This brings us to why we are asking for support to help us get to a new place with our band. We are asking for help to get us started on the journey of treating this as our business that will sustain all involved.

A bit about us from the core members of the band Dennis and Jenna:

Jenna: When we started this project, I thought I was going to go on a completely different path. I had just started Graduate school and my plan was to get a nice job at a hospital or something along these lines. I convinced Dennis, whom I had only been dating for about a year to move to NYC with me. Within a week of moving to Brooklyn, my Mother, Marcia passed away. She suffered from schizophrenia for much of her adult life. Growing up, I often was brought along for the ride in her hallucinations. My father suffered depression severely and both of these forces culminated into a childhood riddled with emotional abuse and confusion. This led to a difficult journey of me trying to find myself, sometimes caught up with drugs, a wrong crowd or my own self-sabotage. I bring this up not to be a tear-jerker, but because it is important to the history of this band. When my Mother passed it sent me into a deep sadness, but it also opened a new space up in me - one that did not have the unrelenting feeling of worthlessness I had grown up with. This coincided with my budding creative relationship with Dennis, an incredibly talented and kind-hearted musician. As I came to know him, I quickly understood that music is his life, and he wanted to dedicate all his time to writing and playing, which moved me so deeply to witness in earnest.

Back to the story... At the time of my Mother's passing, he had been teaching me drums. During our lessons, he would play bass so there was something for me to play to. As the weeks and months passed, Dennis and I rented time at a shared studio. I started singing, and for the first time in my life, I left some of the shame to the side to let myself begin to shine. After working long-distance with a friend back home in Miami, we came up with our first three songs.

Hi, Dennis here - I am humbled to ask for your help in achieving our dreams. There are so many causes that need help right now, and i thank you for taking time to hear our story. I grew up in Miami playing in every kind of ensemble I could, orchestra, jazz band, punk bands on the weekend. I ended up getting a scholarship to a conservatory in Indiana, but after 1 year, the head of the school told me I didn’t have what it takes and to find another passion. That made me sad, but then it pissed me off. So I went on and graduated from Berklee College of Music. When we started up the DONZii, it was at a time we didn’t realize was so precious. We played with drum machines and delay pedals till 3 am in what seemed like outer space - never knowing we would keep it running for so long. Through the years there have been some unforgettable and affirming moments - to me, the best is to meet someone whose music I really love and get to play for them. Like anyone, we want this next release to be the best thing we’ve ever done, and we want to make it completely on our terms - so we’re super excited to work with an acclaimed engineer out in LA this November, but we need your help with it!

To date, we have released 3 ep’s and an album with our good friends at Greymarket Records and Born Losers, and have played with some of our most admired and influential artists. As a group, we love bringing joy to our audience, sharing performance art and therapeutic philosophies through music and the stage - creating a world of nuanced understanding, relishing in the light and dark, and finding each other through art.

Independently releasing this record is not going to be easy, but we feel with all our hearts that it is the right path in order for us to actually experience growth.

We are graciously asking for help to make this a reality.

Here is the breakdown:

$10,000 to record and mix the album.

$800 for album art/design

$1,400 drive across the country to LA (while playing shows) where we will record the album.

$1,400 to pay for some players to travel to the studio/pay their rates

$2,400- living expenses for the core members of the band while recording (To be able to take time from other gigs to fully devote ourselves to the production of this record)

All donations over $50 will receive a DONZii postcard

All donations over $100 receive a DONZii surprise

All donations over $500 will receive a test pressing

All donations over $1000 will receive producer credit on the album

Bio:

From the humid, subtropical strangeness of Miami, crossed with the jagged quickness of New York City, Donzii emerged. Combining performance art with a penchant for drum machines and bass driven songs, Donzii and Jenna Balfe create an invigorating voice. They became quickly known for their performance art narrative and skilled musicianship which amassed a cult following in Miami. Their sound, replete with mythical utopian guitars, can be compared to No Wave and Post Punk, yet they do not align themselves with any one genre.

Donzii is:

Jenna Balfe - Vocals

Dennis Fuller- Bass/Drums Machine,

Danny Heinze- Guitar

Violeta De La Guardia - Keys

Auxilary percussion/instrumentation: Jake Fraum, Yamil Rodriguez, Mauricio Abascal

Spotify

Bandcamp