Must Listen: a Trio of DREAMERS

by Natasha Wolff | May 9, 2017 1:35 pm

At the ripe age of 18, Nick Wold of DREAMERS[1] moved to New York City from Seattle, Washington. There, he worked in a bar one day a week, lived in a rehearsal space in lieu of an apartment, wrote music and dreamt of making it work. With serious determination sparked by the breakup of his first band, he recruited bassist Marc Nelson and drummer Jacob Lee Wick and formed DREAMERS.

DREAMERS
Image credit: CJ Moy

Wold says that growing up in Seattle helped shape his taste in music immensely. “I grew up in the 90s when the whole grunge thing was going down,” he says. “My older sister was in high school during those years and really showed me the light as far as what was cool. I still have a huge fondness for the grunge scene.” 

His musical influences stretch beyond grunge though. When Wold moved to New York City, he was living in the East Village where The Strokes were reviving punk rock music. He says he was obsessed with The Strokes[2], Nirvana and the Sex Pistols, and these are the bands that inspired Wold to create DREAMERS. “Our concept is hard to describe,” Wold admits. “We all grew up listening to The Beatles so we have this thread from The Beatles, the punk era, 90s grunge and into today’s computerized sound. All of those sounds are combined to create DREAMERS.” 

The band has spent the last two years touring with the likes of Stone Temple Pilots, X Ambassadors, Atlas Genius and The Griswolds[3]. 

“We’ve become total road-dogs. We’ve played more shows than I can remember. One show that comes to mind was a couple of months before we played the Bowery Ballroom with The Griswolds. We were playing it with The Mowgli’s[4]. Right before the show, we were doing a photo shoot and Jacob fell off a railing and landed on his lower back,” Wold says. “We thought for a moment he was going to be paralyzed forever, but he was okay. He played the show like a champion. At the end, we would always come back on stage during the encore and jam out. Colin from The Mowgli’s[5] had no idea about Jacob’s fall and in his blissful ignorance, picked him up and threw him up onto his shoulders. There’s this great picture of Jacob on Colin’s shoulders screaming and Colin obliviously smiling,” Wold says, laughing.

DREAMERS
Image credit: CJ Moy

DREAMERS’ first studio album This Album Does Not Exist comes from the band’s favorite pastime of having deep conversations at parties. Wold says that the guys love existentialism and thinking about existence in general. The name of the album stems from the idea that everything is subjective and doesn’t necessarily exist in the way you think. “In a way, it’s a theme of our lives. The songs are simple on the surface but get more complex the deeper you go,” Wold says. 

Continuing his love for existentialism, Wold tells me a little about one of his favorite bands, Die Antwoord, meaning “the answer” in Afrikaans. “They’re this crazy duo who slightly resemble Robert Manson concept art,” Wold raves. “When we played Lollapalooza[6] last year, we had time to catch one set at the end of the day. We had a choice between LCD Soundsystem and Die Antwoord. I chose Die Antwoord and got blasphemed by my friends,” Wold says. 

You can catch DREAMERS this summer at FPSF[7] in Houston, Texas, Bottlerock[8] in Napa Valley, California and Firefly Music Festival[9] in Dover, Delaware.

Main image credit: CJ Moy

Source URL: https://dujour.com/culture/dreamers-rock-band-interview/