Up-and-coming Athens, GA group Dream Culture are coming off of their second EP, Post Habitual, on which they fine tuned their UMO and Tame Impala influenced brand of psychedelia into a refreshingly groovy sound for a small town known for their heavy hand in college rock.
Transverso sat down with Evan Leima (vocals, guitar, keyboards), Chad Andrews (drums), Billy Ross (guitar) to discus their beginnings, their record, and moving forward.
TRANSVERSO: So what is Dream Culture’s origin story?
LEIMA: I met these guys through drum line. It was my senior year, we’re all drum line people. I started hanging out with them once they got into high school and then Billy kept telling me how awesome his basement is and it took me forever to go over there but once I did I was like “Oh! The hype is real!” I was making music for a while on my own and then Billy was doing that as well. Chad lives close to Billy and he would walk over to his house. That was in the suburbs when we formed. It’s finally gotten to the point where we don’t need to practice that much anymore. When we have new material that we want to learn we’ll usually take a weekend to get down on it. But we now only particle like one a week.
What was the process of making your debut Self-Titled EP?
ROSS: Well, we recorded it in my basement. That was the biggest space we had, so it was the most logical space.
ANDREWS: And also the coolest space.
LEIMA: There’s a really good vibe to it. But the first EP - I generally record everything by myself - I would go over to Billy’s house and we would hang out and I recorded it on this big 24 Track Tascam thing. I would do the drum track, then bass track, then the guitar track and so on. The EP was recorded from December 2013 to like summer 2014. It actually took a while for it to come out after it was all done; we finished it in the summer but it ended up not coming out until like December 2014.
And who mixed it?
LEIMA: It was mixed by this awesome guy named Miguel Ruiz. I used to work at Buffalo’s Cafe down in Suwanee, [Georgia,] and he would come in and get wings etc. and then eventually I served him and figured out he was a regular and it turns out he was an audio engineer. I recorded the vocals with him and he mastered it. All the instrumentals on the original EP I mixed myself. Which I still to this day think that it was a terrible idea and I shouldn’t have done it. But you know, that’s how it is.
Why do you think it was terrible?
LEIMA: because I was terrible! The drums were really loud.
ROSS: The hi-hat was really loud.
LEIMA: So yeah I kind of wish I hadn’t mixed it. I’m not unhappy with it, but I wish I didn’t mix it. But he mastered it really well! He did a good job on the vocals.
Tell us about Post Habitual.
LEIMA: Post Habitual was recorded at The Glow recording studio up in northern Athens with Jessie Mangum out. A lot of people know him because he does these awesome summer singles, the MOEKE Records Summer Singles series. So what happened, the way I hooked up with him is that I recorded a single and a B side and I went to go get the tracks mixed and mastered by him. By that time I had acknowledged that me mixing was a bad idea. So I brought those to him and we just really hit it off. I went in and we had all the same favorite bands and he said my favorite bands and he was really digging what I was doing. He said he really believed what we were doing and asked if I wanted to go record with him and I said yeah. I had some songs lying around some of the songs were like a year old. Like "Every Day" off the EP is like a year and a half old?
ROSS: Yeah, it's really old.
LEIMA: It’s an old song. It’s funny though, because Radiohead has songs that are like 10 years old and stuff. I guess its not really old but in terms of Dream Culture’s existence its old. There’s one song on it that I wrote while I was there. I recorded everything there and mixed and mastered there.
What's next for Dream Culture?
ROSS: Shows.
ANDREWS: Promotion.
LEIMA: Yeah, shows. It’s been really good. “Imperfect on Purpose” was pretty good. I'd think the original EP was kind of like an opening statement. Its been cool to have a real kind of piece of art now that people will listen to it and wouldn’t know that we are just a bunch of dumb idiot teenagers that have no idea what we are doing. We are going to be doing a lot of shows. Obviously Dream Culture is still active and I can see some singles coming out in the next year. And Billy has his own project called Spanish Spanish and I’m going to be playing drums for him.
Tell me about Spanish Spanish.
ROSS: It’s just my own project where I write and record all the music. So now I’m just in the process of writing and recording a lot. Not worried about anything else other than getting a lot of music down.
LEIMA: I haven’t been writing a lot of music lately because with the EP it as all written already, rather than what I’m used to where I could just record and mess around whenever I want. It was at a studio somewhere where I had to book sessions with Jessie and it was weird; I didn’t really want to start working on stuff in my studio because I wanted to focus on the EP. I really want to make something with a female vocalist and start producing for someone else’s stuff because I don’t want to oversaturate Dream Culture. I’ve been trying to collaborate with some local artists so we’ll see what happens.
You've been compared to a lot of other psychedelic artists like UMO. Talk about what influences you.
LEIMA: I’m really into this Swedish band called Dungen. I also really like Unknown Mortal Orchestra. I really like what Ruban [Nielson of UMO] is doing. I got to meet him when he came for the Urban Outfitters show [in Athens] and he signed my guitar. Super cool dude. He was just so opened to us about asking him all of these nerdy questions. And there is this French band called Moodoid. I was very lucky because when I was in Paris a couple months ago and I was only there for a weekend and that week there was a show and it was free. They are really cool. One of those crazy flamboyant bands. It’s a dude and three chicks and they all wear make-up and glitter and stuff and tuxedos.
ROSS: They’re perfect.
LEIMA: So those are probably the three main influences. When it comes to the sonics and guitar sound I was definitely going to a UMO-y vibe. As far as drums go, Jessie’s main philosophy with the mixing is he’s going for a blend of 60’s funk and Ringo mixed together. Kind of like a really compressed sound. It helps that we were all on drumline because we are so on time all of the time. There’s never been any dragging or rushing issues.
Anything else you want to add?
LEIMA: Big shout out to Jessie at The Glow.
You can catch Dream Culture, along with touring members Graham von Oehsen (keyboards) and Freeman Leverett (bass), on December 12th at the Independent Public Alehouse.