Exploring culinary options with Danielle Ate the Sandwich’s new album Fumbling

Danielle Ate The Sandwich. // photo by Paul Andrews

Musician Danielle Anderson makes music as Danielle Ate the Sandwich, and her “clear and lilting vocals […] deliver point-blank lyrics with honesty and wit. ” Across her previous seven (!) albums, Anderson has covered the width and breadth of human experience by relating it to her own experiences, creating music which is quite personal while still being utterly relatable.

Not for nothing did her song, “It’s Not Jupiter,” get voted Best Song by a Local Band in the Pitch’s 2024 Best of KC.

Given that her eighth album, Fumbling, dropped last week and we’re in the midst of the Pitch’s Sandwich Week, we hopped on Zoom with Danielle Anderson to talk about her career, the new album, and, yes, sandwiches ahead of Danielle Ate the Sandwich’s release party at Greenwood Social Hall on Saturday, March 29.

The Pitch: How do you reach eight albums?

Danielle Anderson: I think I am just a song writer. That is how I define myself every day. I could write a song about something. I’m not that prolific anymore, but I think with the work of being a songwriter and an artist, releasing an album is the most tangible way to have proof of that, and so releasing albums and stuff like that–this is how I clear space for the next songs. It’s the way I can give it to people who are listening, to my fans.

Having eight? That feels wild, especially in the music industry today. Is anybody even releasing full albums anymore? I kind of feel like I’m an old lady on the cusp of the changing industry, but it still feels like the thing that makes sense to me: to say I’m a songwriter, I went through these experiences, I did it, now here it is in its 11-track glory.

What brought you to Kansas City?

I was living in Fort Collins, Colorado. That’s where I moved from and I was working really hard as a musician. I was touring a lot. I always loved Fort Collins, but it never felt like home. So, prompted by my landlord needing me to move out, I just thought, “I don’t think I want to stay here. I don’t think it’s it for me anymore.” I chose Kansas City a little bit on a whim.

As an artist, I don’t have a boss who can promote me to a different office, so you have the freedom and also the terror of choosing whatever you want to do and try. I picked Kansas City because it’s close enough to my mom, [who] still lives in Denver, Colorado. I had been here a few times on tour. I have great friends who live here, Erin McGrane and Jeff Freling, who are musicians and artists in the scene and and they were willing to be my ambassadors to Kansas City.

I just took a chance and I moved here in 2018—to start a new adventure and also to get away from the old adventure. I needed physical distance to figure out who I was and what I wanted next and to grow up. I don’t know if that’s immature, right? I kind of ghosted my old life in that way that I was like, “I’m actually just going to run away instead of stay here and work on this,” but I think it was the right choice. I love Kansas City. I’ve been here for six years now and have totally fallen in love and the art scene is so rad and I met my partner and we have a house together. So many things clicked for me that make it feel like the absolute right decision.

Fritz Hutchison, Danielle Anderson, and Al Hawkins. // photo courtesy the artist

Well, I mean, getting Fritz Hutchison and Al Hawkins to produce this record feels very much like the right decision, because they are both not only amazing musicians, but really cool people, as well. Their connections bring in so many different folks. Was that a help when putting together and making Fumbling?

That was such a help. Like you said, they’re so talented, they’re so cool. They were easy and fun to work with, but they know so many people and are so connected so, as someone who felt new to the music community, if I didn’t know who to ask, “We need a flute player,” they were like, “We know who to call. It’s Aryana Nemati,” and and they just have a musical answer or a KC community answer for every question I had.

Of course, I can reach out to these people out of the blue, but to have Al and Fritz to vouch for me, I think everybody’s much more willing to get involved because Fritz and Al are so cool. Just really good people, great artists, and great people.

How did you come to perform under the name Danielle Ate the Sandwich? I imagine there has to be a story behind it, right?

Yeah, there’s not really a good story. I came up with it when I was in college, starting performing music, so I was just performing at open mic nights, but signing up under my real name, Danielle, or Danielle Anderson, and I was like, “This is not hot enough.” At that time, I was creating a MySpace music page, so when I went to publish it, I was like, “I need like a band name or something,” then comes the list of ideas and I, to be honest, I really like pizza and spaghetti better than sandwiches, but I just didn’t feel like it had the right advertisement for who I am and what I do, and I thought sandwiches just felt more “come as you are” and “come in every shape and size” and “it’s not one way or another.”

I just sort of picked it, obviously not knowing that it would turn into my career and my life and follow me down the road 20 years later. But that being said, I could have changed it at any time and I never did. Now, it’s sort of confusing because it’s so obvious and ingrained to me that sometimes I forget that it doesn’t make any sense or people would be like, “Why? That doesn’t make any sense.”

And I’m like, “Why wouldn’t it? Oh, yeah, that’s a weird thing to do.” So there’s no real sandwich besides the desperation of a woman starting a MySpace page, trying to figure out what she wanted to call her creative output and landing on Danielle Ate the Sandwich because sandwiches are cool. They are delicious. And what do you do to a sandwich? Hopefully you eat it.

I feel like trying to figure out a sandwich for every song on this album is way too much of a task. But would there be a sandwich that would represent the the album itself?

That’s a good question. I’m pulled to say a grilled cheese because there’s a lot of songs about loss and the goal is always to try and comfort or reassure people. Maybe an elevated grilled cheese because, you know, there’s flavors of other things, maybe a pesto grilled cheese or some kind of thing with a surprising flavor that is refreshing or bright within sort of the warm, gooey, stuck, stuckness of grief because I want it to be comforting and I think it is, to me, and then I also want it to turn that on its head a little bit and say, “And we’re going to do it anyway, and tomorrow is a new day, so let’s linger here, but let’s also move on to the next thing.”

Danielle Ate the Sandwich’s release party for Fumbling is at Greenwood Social Hall on Saturday, March 29. Details on that show here.