Verse Magazine interviews Dream Season

Alternative rock band, Dream Season, has been paving its way through Adelaide’s music scene since the release of their first EP, ‘Stalemate’, early last year. Now, with their first single of 2019, ‘Alive’, charting at #27 on Triple J Unearthed, the band is already reaching new heights.

Dream Season (L-R): Luke Stav, Liam Martin, Jordan D’Sena, Michael De Duonni, and Brandon Gould

With Luke Stav and Michael De Duonni’s guitar riffs leading you into ‘Alive’ with bated anticipation, the addition of pithy rhythms from drummer Brandon Gould and bassist Liam Martin surge together in heated energy. Combined with soaring vocals from lead singer Jordan D’Sena, the five-piece climbs into a fulminating chorus that’s both explosive yet transcending.

I spoke with the boys in the wake of the release to chat about the new single and find out what Dream Season has planned for us next.

Let’s start from the beginning. How did you all meet and kickstart Dream Season?

It all started by mixing and meeting each other in high school and at house parties throughout the western suburbs. Jordan met Luke and Brandon, who both knew each other from high school, at parties and it basically started from there. After speaking with others and by word of mouth, we found Michael and Liam, who liked the same music and we started Dream Season!

Tell us a bit about your new single, ‘Alive’!

‘Alive’ is about a lost relationship and feeling confused and frustrated. We have all experienced either a hard breakup or just the pure emotion of feeling confused in any situation and just not knowing what to do next. ‘Alive’ is basically about one bad dream that’s become real and having to deal with that situation in whatever way you can. The response so far on the single has been amazing! We wanted to create a song that was a step up for us and portrayed a new sound, different from our last EP, and we feel like we’ve achieved that with ‘Alive’.

Where do you get inspiration for new songs?

We’re always up to date with each other’s lives. You hear about how bands are almost like families so we like to share our experiences with each other. Whether that’s breakups or things happening at work or in life, we always openly talk about it when we catch up, which not only helps each other out, but it helps inspire lyrics, guitar riffs, or new songs. We like to write together as a band and all the songs we’ve written have some story or inspiration behind them.

What’s the best part about being in a band?

The best part is definitely playing live gigs with your mates and having fun! It’s also pretty cool having people who genuinely enjoy your music buy tickets to your gigs and seeing them singing your songs back to you! That’s the kind of thing that keeps us going!

What are some difficulties with music and songwriting that people generally don’t think about?

The biggest thing with songwriting would be the clashing of ideas. If you write something that is quite close to you, you can become attached to it. Whether that’s the melody, lyrics, or a riff that you really like, it can be hard to let it go or change it. So, for us, it’s always great to get an outside opinion from someone that we trust when songwriting. Another thing that is difficult is life! We all need to support ourselves with jobs, which help support and fund the band. Sometimes other things can also get in the way, which adds time to the music and songwriting process whereas bigger bands have a lot more support and they can work on their music every day. If only we could too… we’d have an album out this year!

What do you guys like to get up to outside of band commitments?

We all have quite a few things going on and we’re all quite different!

Michael: Gym and working too much.

Luke: Snapchat and watching online pokies streams.

Liam: Fat Controller dancefloor at 3AM and blues music.

Jordan: Watering plants and cooking.

Brandon: Slinging burritos and buying gold jewellery.

Dream Season’s played all over Adelaide but what’s been your favourite venue so far?

We’d have to say Jive. We did our first show at Jive and it was a sold-out show and we had such a great response. We’ve been back and played there a couple times since and it’s just got such a great vibe and it’s so easy for people to get to.

What can we expect next from Dream Season?

New music! We just did a bunch of gigs over the last couple of months so we’re now focusing on our next release and finishing the writing and recording process for a new EP, along with any shows that come up along the way. We’re about to film another music video so that shouldn’t be too far away! We’re also looking to play at some new places, so don’t be surprised if you see us playing across the border sometime this year!