Frontman Aaron Dowdy grapples with his ambivalence about Southern culture in the Durham-based group’s new record.
by Josh Klahre

Triangle-based band Fust is out with their third album, Big Ugly, on March 7. Though the title seems to portend something dark and mysterious, it’s actually an homage to a creek of the same name in rural West Virginia, where chief songwriter and frontman Aaron Dowdy has family. 

Dowdy loves to tell a story, and many of the lyrical themes found in Fust’s songs center on the small-town Southern tableau. Dowdy had an inclination for songwriting from a very young age: “I paid attention a lot as a kid; I always liked the kind of details of life.”

Dowdy’s feelings on Southern culture are complicated. But he likes it that way: the push-pull compels him to write songs. “I like the tension that is built around both commitment and resistance to a place,” he says. It took a decision to move north to Brooklyn for Dowdy to fully realize his fascination with home. “I started writing songs trying to explain what attracted me to this life.” 

On Big Ugly, listeners get a hearty helping of Dowdy’s unique, rich voice: it’s at times throaty and plaintive and at others twangy and yearning. Fans will notice a bigger sound on this record than previous ones, aided by a cast that includes Avery Sullivan on percussion, Frank Meadows on piano, John Wallace and Justin Morris on guitar, Libby Rodenbough on fiddle and Oliver Child-Lanning on bass. “I wanted each instrument to have a voice,’” Dowdy explains. “You can hear Libby’s personality in the fiddle, Avery’s in the drumming and Justin’s in his guitar lines. To me, that’s what makes the album interesting.”

Dowdy is currently a Ph.D. candidate in literature at Duke University; he’ll cop to being “verbose” at times. “But I’m not just throwing words in there!” he say. “They’re attached to melodies that, even if they’re simple, are held within the voice.”  

This article originally appeared in the March 2025 issue of WALTER magazine.