The American Dream, Mayonnaise, and Life in the DMV with Doll Apartments

The great city of Rockville, Maryland, only thirty minutes away from the giant statue of Abraham Lincoln, is home of the indie-emo, mayonnaise-loving Doll Apartments. Doll Apartments is composed of singer/songwriter Lior Gazit, also known as Kiki, lead guitarist Asher Wyland, drummer Andrew Lloyd Hall, and bassist Liz Frolkova. I  recently chatted with Kiki about what inspires him to make music, how his experiences as an immigrant in the United States influences his sound, and drinking alone.

When did you  become interested in making music?
[Kiki] I started playing the guitar way back in second grade, but I didn’t start writing my own stuff until later on. I want to say I started writing in fifth grade, but that stuff was garbage, so I don’t know if that counts. I kept writing and getting better though. I got a little audio interface when I was fifteen and a drum kit when I was sixteen. I learned how to play all these instruments, but then I thought “Wait, I can get other people to play with me too.” 

Sometime around winter of 2021, I cultivated Doll Apartments. I found a drummer and a bass player by putting a flyer up at my local Guitar Center. A few weeks into that, our bass player recommended we bring in a guitarist that they knew. The rest was history. 

Making music with Doll Apartments

I’ve played in other bands, but nothing too noteworthy. Before Doll Apartments, I had a little solo project, which I hope never comes to the surface. You can probably find some artifacts of that on Youtube though, if you look hard enough. 

How did you come up with the name “Doll Apartments”?

Our first guitarist, Charlie, was really into juxtapositions. Over time, we sort of crafted it into this story about the unattainability of the “American dream.” So for context, my family and I are immigrants. We came to America with great expectations, but the first few years were definitely nothing like what we imagined. My parents ended up getting divorced, and a big reason for their split was finances. We moved to this new country, with great enthusiasm, especially for my mother, who is an author and believed things would be better for her in America.  Doll Apartments kind of refers to how everyone wants to live in these big doll houses, but in reality, it is unattainable, so we are forced to reduce ourselves to doll apartments. We ended up living in some pretty shitty apartments for a while, so it all plays into my identity and my story. That is how I interpret it. Our drummer will tell you it is a metaphor for a whore house.

What does your song writing process look like?

I have to have my guitar out while I’m writing. If I am strumming away and nothing comes to mind, I move onto the next thing. The other more common way I create music is by starting with a title. For “Subaru Girl,” I really liked this girl and wanted to channel those emotions into a song. I didn’t know where to start, so I wrote about my most recent experience with her, chatting in her Subaru. I just sort of built everything around that. You can change the title later on, but you focus on that title to create a story. 

Who do you take inspiration from in your music?

Man, I love the Backseat Lovers, they know how to put on a show. Same with Harrison Gordon. As for the midwest emo sort of stuff, I really like Dear Maryanne, Modern Baseball of course, and Kerosene Heights. Shout out Shift Meal from Baltimore, they’re great too. 

What's the story behind Operation Mayo?
So originally it was supposed to be a split album with Spitball! They have all of their equipment in their basement, and right before they started to record, their basement flooded and ruined a ton of their stuff. At this point in time, I sorta knew what I wanted to do for our part of the album, and we had three songs ready, but we didn’t want to just drop three songs. I ended up recording a fourth acoustic song, making it an EP. 

How did you get the name “Operation Mayo” for the EP?
I was sitting in a basement with my manager one night, just drinking and watching a dumb comedy or something. He was asking if I had any ideas of what we should call the EP. We were eating fast food and he was making fun of me because I put mayo on my food. After we talked about my love for mayo, I was like we should call the EP “Project Mayo.” Then he threw out the idea to use operation instead of project, and I liked that. He is actually the guy on the album cover, and it was his idea to be covered in mayonnaise. 

Do you do a lot of solo drinking? 

Ha, I try not to! My friends and I have this game we play, where we only drink when we are sad. We call it alcoholism.

Tour

We have an EP release show at The Hole on December 13. We just finalized our tour for February. Nothing crazy, but we are going up to Philly and New Brunswick. If we like that, we are going to tour again in April.