Artist Spotlight: Meet Dream Bodies
Can you tell me more about "Don't Look Back?"
This song has a history behind it. Dexy Valentine of the band Magic Wands and I had a project called Starlit Motel years ago. There were a slew of really cool great songs conceived in those sessions. Dexy wrote the original incarnation of “Don’t Look Back” during that time. This song has been such a beloved favorite of ours that I revamped it for my current music project Dream Bodies. I will elaborate on that in the next question.
How did you approach the arrangement and composition of the music for "Don't Look Back?"
The arrangement of the original was very stripped down and minimal. It was conceived on a Casio keyboard with a drum machine that had a chugging choo-choo train beat to it. Dexy was playing the bassline on the keyboards and I was strumming the power chords on guitar. In this version, I flipped around the Arrangement entirely: the chord progression I was originally playing on the guitar. I made the synth bass arpeggio that you hear. And the ethereal synthesizer pads in the new version are also playing the original progression that I was playing on the guitar. The percolating rhythm of the arpeggio in the synth bass is essentially emulating the choo-choo train drum beat rhythm of the original. I put a more dancy sequenced drum pattern in the new version. Then for the guitar parts in the new version, they are completely unique and unrelated to the original. I put my usual treatment of delay, chorus, and reverb on it and play my usual style of plucked arpeggios on the guitar for that. Then I added a middle section and an extended break for feel. In the final chorus I added a harmonized guitar. I changed a few of the lyrics, but the overall sentiment and emotional core of the song remains the same: Leave what happened behind you, move on, wait for the train to take you to your next destination. Where that is, only the stars know: the great unknown the waiting future. But one thing is for sure when the sky turns blue and black, it’s time to go…
What impact do you hope this song will have on your audience?
I feel like it’s an immediately catchy and accessible tune. The dancy beat, the pulsating bass rhythm, the fluttery guitars, and lyrics that I feel like are universal and that anyone can relate to. In that sense, I hope it only builds on the momentum that I have currently generated with my first two singles. Dream Bodies is a new project that was only launched back in February.
What are some of the biggest challenges you have faced as a musician, and how did you overcome them?
That’s an interesting question and there are a lot of different answers. I could give you. But one that I feel is incredibly crucial to me as a creator, whether it being a musician or a writer or a poet, which I also do, is getting over being a perfectionist. While of course it’s good to have the very clear vision of what you’re trying to create in your mind, it can also be very paralyzing and stunt the creative flow when you’re in the middle of it to constantly be editing what you’re creating instead of just being in the moment and letting it come out, Then you can go back and edit things later and revamp and look at different versions, etc. but when you’re in the moment, you just have to have fun with it and not be overly critical, kind of like you would do when you were a child. You’re just enjoying the pure creative act. Much easier said than done, I will admit.
What do you enjoy most about performing live and connecting with your audience?
Obviously performing live and creating and recording the music itself are two entirely different animals. For me, creating the songs and recording them is a very intimate and insular world. But when you perform them live, you’re giving them to people to hear and so you can’t be in your head or Introverted. If you’re making meditative music, sure. But people come to shows to hear music in a live setting, which is exciting because if they wanted to just hear the song in it’s original format, they would just stay at home and listen to headphones on their computer. But there’s something raw and real and vital and essentially untamable and unpredictable about performing live, even if you’re performing your own songs and you’ve done them 1 million times, every single set you play is different based upon your energy levelor your emotional connection with the song as it’s coming out of you. And that’s why people love going to live shows.
