Dan Knishkowy pays attention.

As the indie singer-songwriter behind Adeline Hotel and the founder of Ruination Record Co., his work often feels more concerned with noticing than providing fixed answers. Whether he is writing through a profound life transition, or building community among fellow artists, Dan shows a refreshing willingness to remain fluid and inquisitive rather than rush toward resolution. Listening to Adeline Hotel’s discography, one thing becomes clear: it takes courage to slow down enough to stay present – especially in a world that rewards efficiency and encourages us to present only curated snapshots of our lives.

That attentiveness and truthtelling runs through much of Adeline Hotel’s recent work. The 2024 album Whodunnit documented a period of personal upheaval with remarkable honesty and immediacy, allowing listeners to witness the messy middle of Knishkowy’s divorce before hindsight had a chance to tidy it up. He writes about heartbreak without bitterness, uncertainty without retreat, and observations without censorship. Rather than sanding down life’s rougher edges, Knishkowy allows human complexity to remain intact.

If Whodunnit felt like a captivating stream of consciousness of a man in transition, the 2025 album follow-up, Watch the Sunflowers, feels like an observation of what grows afterward. The record turns toward wonder, attention, and the surprises that emerge when we keep our eyes open to them.

Ahead of Adeline Hotel’s appearance at Bellforge for the first Summer Sounds concert of the season, we sat down with Knishkowy to talk about songwriting as a form of untangling, his thoughtful building of artistic community, and what it means to remain connected to the work that resonates most deeply.

Bellforge: One of the things that struck us about your 2024 album Whodunnit is that it doesn’t feel like a record written from the safety of hindsight. Many artists create from a place of reflection, after the dust has settled and the lessons have revealed themselves. These songs feel different. They feel like they were being written in real time, from inside the experience itself. There is a vulnerability in allowing people to witness the messy middle before the answers arrive. What drew you toward that kind of immediacy and emotional honesty, and what did songwriting make possible for you during that period that other forms of processing might not have?

Dan: Thanks so much for noticing. I’m not sure if I was drawn to it, so much as thrust into it, and just tried to write my way out. How the songs appear on the record is more or less the stream of consciousness from which they were written.

It was important to me to not over edit — the goal was to present things as they arrived at the source, even if it felt too long, or had too many spiraling tangents that at any moment might roll off the tracks. That tension was an honest reflection of whatever private processing was happening.

Bellforge: Listening to Whodunnit and your most recent album Watch the Sunflowers side by side, we were struck by a shift in focus. Where one record feels concerned with navigating change and a way through, the other seems to linger in stillness, observation, wonder, and the act of paying attention. At Bellforge, we’re always turning to creativity and nature to help us slow down and notice what we might otherwise miss. What drew you toward those themes? What does “watching the sunflowers” mean to you, and what have you learned from slowing down enough to really pay attention?

Dan: I hadn’t really considered that before, but I see it now. As you mentioned before, there’s a very “present” high-wire act happening in Whodunnit, first-thought-best-thought untangling in real time.

There’s a line on that record, “I will let your flowers grow.” I guess, without realizing it, the follow up album is the patient observations of the ways that growth inspires and surprises.

It’s a much more adventurously produced album, so there’s also this kaleidoscopic effort to stretch the limits of what I could discover in the songs myself.

Bellforge: Beyond your work as a songwriter, you’ve spent years building community through Ruination Records and championing the work of other artists. Much of your work seems rooted in relationships, collaboration, and a belief that artists are stronger when they’re connected to one another rather than operating in isolation. What experiences led you to that perspective? And what do you think healthy creative communities need in order to thrive?

Dan: Releasing music is so fraught with logistical and existential problem solving and the main thing I would feel and hear from friends was how lonely that process can be. So, it just made sense to me to try and create a community where people can share skills and resources, and provide a shoulder to lean on. There’s such a scarcity mindset in music, understandably so, but I really believe in the “rising tide lifts all boats” model for Ruination — I also just think my friends are making the best music out there, and wanted more folks to hear it.

Bellforge: You navigate the music world from multiple vantage points, wearing many different hats: as a songwriter, label owner, and someone meaningfully invested in supporting your fellow artists. What strikes us is that your work often seems guided by values that don’t always align with the industry’s most conventional definitions of success. You’ve spoken publicly about artist ownership, fairer models of support, and building community rather than simply maximizing profit. Has your definition of success changed over the years? What does a successful creative life look like to you now?

Dan: I think a successful creative life has to be centered around the work resonating with you, the person making it, and then of course, the connection you find with other people through that.

Outside of music, I do work in labor, so I certainly believe artists should be paid fairly and well, but I think it’s useful to remove financial concerns from the actual process of creating and instead park that until the process of presenting the work publicly begins.

The distinction alleviates the pressure of creating for what you think some imagined audience might like and buy, and instead keeps it about your own artistic ambitions — ultimately, I think staying true to that is going to provide a deeper sense of sustainable fulfillment whether it achieves “industry success” or not… and also, I think audiences tend to resonate more with art made this way anyway, though perhaps that’s wishful thinking!

Bellforge: We know how well a song can bring us back to ourselves and feed our souls. Joy shows up in many ways: a record, a piece of art, a home-cooked meal, a nightly ritual, a furry friend, or a TV show that helps us remember to laugh, nourish our spirit and resist despair. In a world that frequently feels heavy, where are you finding the light and joy right now?

Dan: Lately, I’ve been reading a series of Japanese detective novels by Seichō Matsumoto, and listening obsessively to Silly Sisters by Maddy Pryor and June Tabor — their take on “Grey Funnel Line” in particular I’ve got on repeat.

Bellforge: Who is a regional artist whose work people should be paying attention to right now? It can be a musician, visual artist, poet, etc.? What is it that you love about them and their work? What piece of theirs should we start with or where can we find them?

Dan: My friend Adrian O’Barr from Portland is an incredible guitarist and songwriter, previously of the band Wildflower, and now writing music under his own name. He perfectly encapsulates the feeling of the New England coastline, mixed with Irish traditional influenced guitar pieces. I can’t recommend it enough. Check out “Open Ocean” from Wildflower’s 2024 record Green World.