About five months ago, I asked Dalton Manning aka Vacation Coup, if he’d be interested in remixing the new Nomadic Firs single, “In It,” which came out in August 2025. Our mutual friend Evan Hurly—also a rad artist and beautiful human—suggested I talk to him about doing a remix for the single.
Dalton and I met because we both hang out at Hummingbird Apothecary in Knoxville. It’s more or less a safe harbor for many local bohemian hipsters and healers looking for something else besides alcohol culture and the everyday circles surrounding it. Not that there aren’t other reasons to be there—there are—but that’s why I went, initially. Then I found community – beautiful humans doing beautiful things.
I wanted the remix to be more than a simple release that comes out on a Friday. Vacation Coup is an interesting entity. I’ve gotten to know them over the last year and change; they carry themselves in the world independently, but with conviction and purpose. They aren’t void of compassion, service to others, and a general curiosity for the humanity around them. You can tell they walk with an integrity—one I admire, relate to, and the kind of energy I have been calling in for the last three years as I seek tirelessly to find my people for the next chapters of life. The fact they also make music is just an extra “hell yeah!”
Lets talk to Vacation Coup!
How do you approach music making? How does life play a part in that approach?
Acknowledging that making music is still work/labor has been important to my approach lately. Instead of expecting magic to happen every time I sit down to make something, I use a lot of time to find and organize samples, make templates, watching how-to’s on YouTube, etc.. I like to spend a lot of time experimenting with new sounds/ rhythyms/ techniques and just getting lost in it with no intention of finishing a track.
I have been an SP 404 nut since 2012 and having something tactile to preform and experiment on helps the magic flow. I’ve began using DAW’s more lately, but keeping some kind of live touch based performance feels important for some reason to like have that imperfect human element in it.
I reckon I have a pretty busy life, and struggle with making time to sit down with intention to create music. I have a lil home studio/office, but I gotta switch up my environment to stay engaged. I have ADHD and a million hobbies so making music production as portable and accessible is very important. Love using the Koala app on my phone. Some of my favorite beats have started there.
What are some of your favorite music makers that might influence your relationship with sound?
Love hip hop. J Dilla, Madlib, Jpegmafia and Timberland are some of my favorite beat makers/producers but I also love that bedroom southern production Soundcloud shit like it sounds like it took 15 minutes to finish in FL and is just the hardest shit you’ve heard somehow. Lately I have been listening to a lot of hyperpop and electronic music. Frost Children, SOPHIE, 100 gets, Charlie XCX, Arca all have kinda taken over my listening wise in the past few years. I just discovered Flume like 3 months ago and he’s been an obsession lately and inspired me to get into learning synthesis and messing with glitchy sounds and coming out of my sampling box.
Typically anything that carries a lot of emotion I’m attracted to, but my tastes have no center which I think allows me to incorporate a lot the stuff I hear into my sound. Emo, country, math rock, classical, bluegrass, salsa, soul, metal, blues, hardcore: you name it, I’m listening.
Outside of music what holds your interests?
Mainly, I like tinkering and piddling around, working on things. I love bikes, skateboarding, gardening, paddling, fishin, camping, backpacking. So those are the outdoor things that hold my interest, but I also have my nerdy ones: any social sciences, anthropology, social justice stuff, theology, ecology or anything about plants I’m all over.
Curious about your value system and how you show up each day as an individual.
My core value system in its simplest form is just do my best to do good in the world around me. I think of anything that promotes life as good, and anything that destroys it as evil. I guess that’s my lowest common denominator value system wise. Keeps it simple and easy.
I think it aligns with a lot of different spiritual teachings and political ones as well. I’ve always been wary of authority and hierarchy. I believe people and communities are capable of governing themselves without punitive justice systems, and in that sense I’m an abolitionist. I believe everyone should be treated with dignity and have as much autonomy and control of their own lives as possible. I think no one is coming to save us, and all we have is each other in the end, so we gotta learn to care for one another in ways that make our social systems of domination and control obsolete. We keep us safe. Another world is possible!
Don’t think about it. Close your eyes, what’s the first thing you see?
A harbor, maybe mediteranean, cobblestone streets, old pre colonial buildings. A place I have never been. Reds, golds, orange, its twilight hour. Im on a stone wall just after sunset.
Describe your perfect day.
I wake up in the woods. Make breakfast and chill by a stream while I have some coffee and scheme on the rest of the day. It’s mostly sunny, late spring weather, and everything is lush and in bloom. I pack up, ride back home and hang out with my cat while I make lunch for me and some friends while some records spin. We ride to a quarry to go swim, then head back to town for some dinner. After we’re done, one of us checks the news on our phone and announces that the US empire has collapsed, and a global revolution has taken place. No one has to work tomorrow because global celebrations have been called for. Never again will anyone have to go back to bull shit jobs for starving wages. Exploitation and domination are over because a virus that only affected the ultra wealthy and war profiteers killed everyone trying to dominate and control society. Their wealth divided up will be able to meet everyone’s needs and more for the entire world for the next few centuries. So we party and celebrate till the sun comes up.
Appreciate your work on this project and it’s been fun to learn a little more about you. Thank you for the time and our growing friendship.
Thank you for inviting me to work on this with you! It’s been great getting to know you.
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