FEATURETTE Answers : Melodic Mag
All questions answered by Lexie Jay
How is Dream Riot unique from your previous releases? How would you describe this new album?
For our first release Crave, a lot of the scenarios ‘Featurette girl,’ as we call her, found herself in were a fantasy relationship, jointly made of some of Jon and my past relationships. I fused these into a narrative for her story, and that became the album. A lot of the reason why I did this is because I hadn’t really found my voice yet, and wanted to show off the sounds we were feeling, but still needed a story to embed those sounds in.
Since then, through performing and speaking to people about our project, and even just in growing up, I’ve really found what it is I want to write about, and have really started to fuse ‘Featurette girl,’ and myself. I’m a lot less introverted than I used to be when I was just starting out. I’ve got a lot more life experience and fully formed opinions that I want to share in my narrative, and I think this honestly and truth is probably the biggest change from Crave to Dream Riot. Our sound has obviously developed a lot more as well, thicker, fuller and not afraid of the power of silence. I like to think we’ve found our stride. This album deals with uncomfortable truths about our modern society and digs deeper into how we face these issues.
Are there plans to tour in the future?
We’re crafting them as we speak! I’m stoked to announce that we’ve got some dates lined up on the west cost for the first time ever, we’ll definitely keep you posted as our tour continues to take form, but right now it’s looking pretty sweet! Definitely going to be featuring some badass female-fronted acts!
What are your favourite songs off this album?
All of the singles we’ve released so far are super close to my heart, we’ve really slaved over them these past few years and to finally have them out there – it’s like you asking me to pick a favourite child – haha! But if I had to choose, “You Do You” is my favourite because the story around its conception, is so touching and personal for me. We’ve started doing this thing where we write a little bit about the context of the song when we release a music video for it, so you can check that out on our YouTube page. That song, especially, is such a labour of love because as far as the visual component is concerned, Jon and I did so much of it by ourselves; from location scouting, storyboarding, production, set design, art department, hair, makeup, wardrobe to co-direction – you name it! I even got to film one of the shots! It was such a pleasure to work so closely with the DoP/Director Ian Macmillan to bring that piece to life.
What was the writing process like for this album? What were some of your inspirations?
I’m actually thinking about making a playlist on Spotify of all our musical inspirations that went into this album because people have been asking that a lot! Sonically: Petit Biscuit, Flume, Han Solo, Bülow, Grimes are all in there somewhere. So much of this project was sound design heavy, and a ton of the credit for that goes to our producer Marc Koecher. He’s been such an asset in taking our ideas and making them come alive. He’s a master of creating his own sounds from scratch, this whole album is pretty well devoid of stock instruments and presets. It was a real labour of love for all of us!
Then lyrically speaking, I have wanted to speak out about some dark truths that have been on my mind for a while, so it was a pleasure to put my thoughts on issues like mental health, the climate crisis, social media and other issues with our current society, into poetry. It was very cathartic and now that it’s out – it was honestly such a release to go through that writing process.
What is your favourite thing about working in the music industry?
We love meeting other bands, sharing stories and seeing what we’ve got in common – it’s usually so much! Hearing crazy touring stories is always the best. It’s great to hear what they’ve experienced and start to dream of getting to that place too. It sets a bar for us and pushes us to get to that next level, and hopefully exceed it. We’re really competitive, for better or for worse, so we always try to aim high. I think this is one of those industries where there’s always going to be another level, and that really fuels us.
If you could choose three artists, past or present, to go on tour with, who would they be?
I always say Phantogram because we look up to them so much – they were a big influence when we started writing music and it’s inspirational to see how far they’ve come. I think touring with K. Flay would be so rad, she’s got such an energy to her – I just went to see her at The Phoenix recently in Toronto and the way she connects with the audience is palpable. A third would have be Tove Lo, opening for a Euro-tour for her would just be wild I think. I’ve seen footage from some of her shows, massive or small, and she looks like she knows how to have a fantastic time!!
Thanks so much for chatting with me! xx Lexie Jay
You can check out their new video here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DMlhfDwlrM
