Dana Why is the musical alias of Dana Yurcisin, NJ-born and bred singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and producer. A maximalist at heart, his productions are brimming with experimentation that spans genres while retaining the strong, melodic foundations of pop. Having self-recorded and released four albums and two EPs between 2009 and 2019 under the name Static Sex, Yurcisin started releasing music under his own name in 2020, a choice that came with his increased comfort in mixing his voice front and center in his songs. The Lyre (Mint 400 Records), a self-produced/mixed/mastered and sprawling 15-song set of rock epics and tumultuous, heart-on-sleeve storytelling, is his first full-length statement as Dana Why, boldly introducing a new era of bigger, more hi-fi productions for the artist. The album is set for release on January 21, 2023.

“My fiancé had broken our engagement. I had lost my job. I was feeling unmotivated regarding anything except getting high and cranking out an obscene amount of demos… it was probably the most prolific time in my life, regarding musical ideas…” – Dana Why

In many ways, “Jersey Devil” feels like the centerpiece of the record for me. The Lyre was written during a very tumultuous time in my life — the loss of a job, a broken engagement, having to leave Maine due to unemployment when I would’ve killed to stay, another relationship starting and ending — and Jersey Devil encompasses a lot of that. Feeling out of control of your own life, made hardened and bitter by external forces, a loss of a sense of self. It’s a place so painfully difficult to build yourself back up from, and only time reveals a path forward. I wanted the video to convey a similar sense of disassociation. I started by making a “fake” model of myself to sing the song, using software I was totally unfamiliar with until I realized I wanted to involve a bunch of my friends and expand on the idea. I then started getting my feet wet with AI, using a platform called Stable Diffusion to generate these totally fucked up animations that felt so perfectly in line with the nightmarish imagery the song elicits in my mind. After moving all of the furniture in my apartment to shoot some performance footage, I was lucky enough to get an incredible day of weather in Double Trouble State Park with my best friends Biff Swenson and Melissa McLaughlin helping out. For those unfamiliar with Jersey Devil lore, the mythical creature is native to the Pine Barrens, of which Double Trouble is a part of, so shooting there was the perfect cherry on top.