Upon returning to his hometown, El Paso native Seth Dodson, a former music festival director who’d worked for Pitchfork in Chicago, Ill., took a contract position as the director for a new El Paso Community Foundation project: Sol Summit Music and Cultura Festival.
The event would be the first major locally organized festival in the region since the loss of Neon Desert Music Festival in 2020. Under his new role, Dodson took on the challenge of finding acts for a weekend centered around highlighting local talent. Among those chosen was Doom Well, a band Dodson praised in an interview for their “fantastic” and “queer weirdo” aesthetic.
Two years after the release of their self-titled debut album, Doom Well is far from interested in finding a specific sound, focused instead on trying to capture a feeling unique to the Chihuahuan desert.
Led by musicians and siblings, Myles and Elliot Lavis, Doom Well is taking the stage on Sunday, May 3, to help kick off the second and final day of Sol Summit in Downtown El Paso.
The performance, on the heels of a fall 2025 tour across Texas, will be followed by a west coast tour this summer and the release of the band’s sophomore LP. Here is our conversation with El Paso’s Doom Well.
What is your name and what is your role in Doom Well?
Myles Lavis: My name is Myles Lavis, and I’m the singer and guitar player of Doom Well.
Elliot Lavis: And my name is Elliot Lavis, and I play the keys and the tambourine.
What is Doom Well and how did it start?
Myles: Well, it definitely started with the two of us. Me and Elliot are twins, and we’ve always been musically involved. And yeah, when we were 18 years old, we were like, this music needs to be written down. Now we have a full band, six members including ourselves. We’re really excited, we’re putting out a new album this year, so it’s really great.
Tell me a little bit about your musical experiences growing up.
Elliot: We’ve always had music in our lives since we were really little. My grandmother was an opera singer, and from a very young age, we were always singing, doing little puppet shows in our living room. We were kind of sheltered musically; I feel like we didn’t really know much about rock music and older music. It wasn’t until we were probably like 16/17.
When we were younger, I feel like we were very much into musical theater. And then all of a sudden there was kind of like a shift, and I feel like through each other discovered music of the past. Bands like the Cocteau Twins, Mazzie Star, The Doors, and I feel like we both came from the theater too; we were lovers of theater. I feel like that was our first love, and I feel like we’ve kind of taken that approach to our music now.
Myles: I’m a music student here at UTEP, here at Fox Fine Arts. But yeah, I’m loving being a student and being able to learn all different types of music. I’m even taking a music culture class right now where we’re learning about all these different types of Mexican pieces and history and it’s just so fascinating to mix rock and classical and heavy metal and all these different types of world music together in one life. You shouldn’t be confined to just one genre, that’s what I’ll say.
Elliot: Yeah. I think a lot of people always ask this to define our genre of music, and it’s just music. We’ve always struggled to give an answer. It’s kind of hard to put in a box and I feel like, especially being queer, sometimes it feels like society does want to put you in a box. And it’s almost like taking that belief and spinning it on its head. Like, if you’re going to put me in a box, then I’m going to decorate this box and make it the most ridiculous, beautiful box you’ve ever seen.
Doom Wells sound has incorporated sounds from the worlds of goth, folk, country, and alternative to create what you would describe as a solitude sound? How would you describe it? And what led you to pursue this sound?
Myles: I feel like it’s less of the sound and more of the feeling that you feel from the sound. I would say like solitude doesn’t have to be a bad thing. It could be a thing of strength and one that you really can find through music. I’m sure everyone has connected with a song, like whether it be like a rock song or a rap song or whatever, and that makes them feel strong with themselves.
Elliot: I think also being here in the desert, at the frontera, the landscape is very lonely. It can be very desolate, but a lot of what these new songs Myles is writing on this next album is kind of about how, yes, we are a desert, but we used to be in Oasis, we used to be in ocean. And finding the beauty that is here in El Paso is something that we also really believe in and try to showcase.
Doom Well released its debut album in 2024, since then the band has toured parts of Texas and the greater southwest, opened for acts like Ariel Pink, and is now scheduled to play at a major music festival, what is in store for the future of this El Paso act?
Myles: More, more, more. Just collaborate with more musicians, more locals. We’re planning a West Coast tour for the summer. We’re going to hit up like San Diego, LA, Las Vegas, and I’m excited. I haven’t been to those places before, so it’s really exciting.We’re putting out a new album this year. I won’t say the name, but it’s going to be really cool.
Tell us about this new album. What can Doom Well listeners expect.
Myles: I think they could expect…
Elliot: The color blue.
Myles: The color blue, white lights. There’s going to be a lot of ballads, but then a lot of fast ones. It’s going to be a Double LP. There’s going to be a lot of songs on it, and I think lyrically it’s very poetic, but it’s also very like simple in the lyrics, it’s like laying out a lot of like simple feelings.
Elliot: I just feel like we’ve been really taking our time on this album in a different way that we could have done with the first one. And these songs are really special, and we’re really just taking our time.
Myles: Oh, also, we recorded this one to tape, which is really cool. We recorded this one at Sonic Ranch. That was our first time there, and we recorded with Manuel, he’s the best ever.
Elliot: From Estereomance.
Myles: Yes, another great. They’re also going to be playing at the festival, at Sol Summit.
What was it like recording at Sonic Ranch?
Elliot: It was crazy. It was definitely a dream come true. It’s kind of surreal to be there. I had this different vision of how it was going to go, but to get to be able to record on tape was really special. To be able to hear the hiss of it was just really magical, for sure.
Myles: Yeah, it was really cool. I really liked it. I feel like every recording experience is like its own little thing and so it was really, you know, we’re used to like recording just like out of our home or, we’ll do it at The Falstaff where we rehearse, so it’s just cool. It’slike every time it’s like a learning experience.
So you guys recorded on tape, it’s different than how most people record nowadays. Is that something you wanted for this album, to record on tape?
Myles: Yes. Well, I mean, it wasn’t like my original intention, like it was offered to us that we could do it that way. And so I was like yeah. This album is going to be very grand.
Elliot: I feel like sonically things are just getting bigger and we’re trying to take what we did with the first album and accomplish it in just a bigger, more powerful way. Sonically, I think the landscapes have expanded a little bit, and also I think the range of emotions on this one is really different from the last.
Myles: Yeah. I feel like the last one was really like cut and dry. And this one we’re having a little more fun. I think we’re really giving into like a lot of like, kind of rock garage, rock motifs, a lot of soul motifs.
Elliot: Getting the opportunity to perform these songs live is something that we didn’t really get with a lot of the last album where it was made before we got to tour it around. And I just think that playing some of these songs out on the road and then getting to record them really just changes the way all of us play, from the bass player to the drummer and some of the vocal performances.
I think from when the song is first learned to by the time we get to record it, it’s almost like it just becomes recording, becomes a performance, that is different from the kind of ways that people record music now.
Myles: I think there’s like a lot about El Paso on this next record. Obviously, everything we do is about El Paso, but this one a lot of the names on the record are going to be names that El Pasoans might recognize. I feel like this one’s really kind of like references the city.
A part of the El Paso live music ecosystem is live vinyl sets and acts. What are some of your favorite tracks to spin, and what effect, if any, have those tracks had on your music?
Myles: When I’m at the club, it’s totally different. (Laughs)
Elliot: I feel like it’s part of the same world for sure. I think a lot of our vinyl collection was just our personal collection, of things that we would just play for ourselves.
Myles: I’ll order like a slow, like This Mortal Coil record for home. Stacey Q is great, Two of hearts. A lot of the eighties. We love the eighties. What’s the other one I like? Boy Toy.
Elliot: Boy Toy (Toy Mix) by Tia. She’s Canadian from the eighties, a single that I play that every single set. We also play This Heat by The Flamingos.
Myles: A weird track, like a rare lost 80 song. That one’s cool. (Also) Ru Paul.
Elliot: It kind of depends on the set too. If I’m playing a set at the gay leather bar, it’s going be different than when I’m playing at the coffee shop in the morning, but we like to definitely change it up.
Myles: Nothing from the radio, never.
Sol Summit Festival director talked to him recently, his name is Seth Dodson, and he said that he was drawn to your sound because it’s uniquely queer. Do you feel it’s important for an El Paso festival of this size to give a platform to homegrown queer artists?
Myles: I think it’s like so great. There’s so many incredible queer artists here in El Paso and like getting that voice out there is important. Let’s push the message, baby. I love it.
Elliot: Especially I think being a queer band, playing this genre of music that is really specific, we’re kind of in our own lane. And the fact that we’re from El Paso and that we come from the queer community in El Paso, it feels good to feel like I’m representing a big part of my community.
Doom Well is a part of a lineup that features musicians old and new, on a day on which the Flaming Lips, JHAYCO, and BTS will take a stage across El Paso. Why should people go see Doom Well? What sets you apart?
Myles: I think first of all, local is the best. (That’s) number one. Number two. Because I’m going to wear a fabulous costume. It’s going to be really good.
Elliot: We’re going to look fabulous. We’re doing a new cover with the full band, that I think people are going to know. A fan pleaser for sure. And there might be some drag; Deidre LaQua might make an appearance. Also Taconeta, two tacos. That sounds great. (Taconeta) comes with a ticket.
As a queer band, how are handling pushback from Texas policies that may affect your performances?
Myles: Texas should be scared of us. I don’t really care, number one. And it’s an art performance, so that’s what drag is.
Elliot: You know, when the administration started, part of me did really feel scared. Should I be so unapologetically myself, in some of these spaces sometimes. But I’ve just come to a point where i refuse to make myself smaller and make my art any smaller just to feel safe like this is my home, and if anything we’re going to be louder. I’m going to be more campy and more ridiculous, as we’re just gonna get bigger and bigger.
Myles: And I feel like people assume like because you’re in Texas you can’t be an artist. You can’t like do drag and be a singer. And it’s like, why do I have to move to New York or San Francisco to do that when my art is about my home.
Sol Summit is highlighting a lot of different artists from El Paso, Sparta included. What are some of your favorite El Paso artists?
Myles: Sultanes del Yonke are really great. Mario (from Sultanes del Yonke) was actually a student here as well at Fox Fine Arts.
Elliot: Our friends in Estereomance are going to be dropping a really cool set I know that I’m excited for. DJ Topo Chica, best vinyl DJ in town. We love her. There’s so many bands in the city, we have so much talent here.
Joaquin Madrid is a writer and may be reached at [email protected].
