What is your bands name?
The Dream Eaters
What is your genre of music?
Our music jumps between genres, we really don’t fit neatly into any one genre. People often say we sound like the metal band Ghost. I don’t really see that – at all – but it comes up quite a bit. It certainly works to give people a rough idea – I think if you mixed Ghost with ABBA what you’d arrive at is something like what we sound like.
Give us a little bio about you.
We met in 2015 when we were bartending at the same bar in the Gowanus neighborhood in Brooklyn. We started making music, pretty casually at first, and then after a while the intensity picked up and we started releasing a lot of music. We started touring pretty routinely in 2017, and then once the pandemic kicked in we started focusing on videos and pretty soon that started taking off and here we are.
What made you go into music?
Passion and stupidity. You sort of have to be unrealistic to get into making music. It’s about the most unrealistic thing you can do. Even if you’re really good at it, that guarantees nothing. You have to believe in yourself to an extent that is fairly delusional.
Who are your influences?
It’s always weird to try to narrow this down here are literally hundreds of them. There were times in my life when I was influenced by artists that I would never listen to now – not because they’re not amazing, just because I’m in a different place. But of course an influence that I had 20 years ago influenced me to become whatever I became then, and what I became then is still part of me, so something that I was listening to when I was 13 is just as much an influence as something I listen to now. And of course every artist is just naturally influenced by everything around them. So anyway there’s way too many to list here, but in brief, if you call this brief: Motown, Philly Soul, 70s soul like Stevie Wonder, Sly Stone, Curtis Mayfield, Marvin Gaye, Aretha Franklin; 70s prog: Yes, Rush, Genesis; 80s metal: Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Ozzy Osborne, Heart; 80s new wave/post-punk: XTC, Souixsie and the Banshees, New Order, Depeche Mode; 80s art pop: Peter Gabriel, Kate Bush, Gary Numan; 90s art pop: Air, Daft Punk, Bjork, Stereolab; 2000s neo-soul: Erykah Badu, D’angelo, the Roots.
Are you signed?
I have my own little label, Song Dynasty. That doesn’t really count though. We’re the only artist currently on it.
You released your new single ‘Program Me, I’m A Machine’, tell us more about the song and the meaning behind it.
It’s sort of like Stepford Wives if that was a musical. The song never says this directly but it’s about the desire to control women’s bodies, which is unfortunately more relevant now than ever.
Describe the track in two words.
Robot wife.
What was the writing and recording process like?
I wrote it and recorded it very quickly and sent it over to Elizabeth, who then recorded the vocal and nailed it on the first try. It often takes us several rounds to get an arrangement and a vocal we’re happy with, but this one came together right away.
Who did you work with on the single?
We don’t really work with anyone besides the two of us. I do most of the writing and production, and Elizabeth sings. She also helps me choose which songs work, although we’ve been working together so long that I already know what she’s going to say, so now I only really send her stuff I’m pretty sure she’s going to like.
Do you have any live shows coming up?
We’re playing in Brooklyn on May 10 at the Meadows. After that we don’t go back out onto the road until late August, and we don’t know the details yet.
Let us know where we can get tickets if so.
https://dice.fm/event/6dvnyb-the-dream-eaters-corpus-chicanery-trashdaddy-10th-may-the-meadows-new-york-tickets
What else can we expect in 2025?
We plan on doing a quarterly EP – we have no idea if we’ll actually be able to pull this off as it’s a shit-ton of work. But that is the plan, one EP for each quarter. The first one “The Dream Eater’s Quarterly EP: Q125” is already out.
Where do you see yourself now in 5 Years?
Ideally we’ll be doing exactly what we’re doing now on a scale that is slightly grander but not too grand.
What quote or saying do you always stick by?
You’ll stop caring what people think about you when you realize how seldom they do – David Foster Wallace
When you are at a gig, what are 5 things you cannot forget?
Ha, I’ve been gigging for so long that I wouldn’t forget anything, thanks to the overwhelming anxiety that I get weeks in advance of any show.
Do you have social media accounts so your fans can follow you?
The easiest way to get to all things Dream Eaters is to just go to our site – thedreameaters.com – and it’s all right there.
