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NICK WOLDon Dreamers
press conference
WORDS by Tessa Swantek TALENTNick Wold PHOTOS°by Gina Gizella Manning PR°1824
Nick Wold, lead vocalist and guitarist, plays alongside Marc Nelson, bassist, in the pop rock duo Dreamers. Wold sits on Zoom in a red and green knit dinosaur cardigan contrasting his turquoise blue hair, a fitting image for the highly saturated rock fantasy world that their music lives in. Dreamers’ name comes from the fact that most of their music comes to Wold in his dreams; He says, “It’s almost always melody or music or vibe first. I come up with songs a lot in a dream. I had a dream where I was in a weird place and John Lennon was there and he played a song and I woke up and was like ‘that's an actual song!’ That’s usually how it goes. It’s music and then figuring out what it means for the lyrics.”
As a child, he recalls “writing dream journals as a kid,” and says “You have this other existence when you’re asleep. I always thought that was crazy and such a good place to draw from.” Wold brings a lucid element to the hazy, and a hazy element to the lucid as he straddles both existences. Through lyrics, he is able to let the dream-like waves of music pull in words that match the wave pattern to create clarity and depth. For Wold, words and honest expression are beckoned by music as he says “I’m inspired by life when it’s sad or so inspiringly awesome that it feels sad for a minute. When I was a kid I had these deep crazy feelings but there weren't words for it. But in a song I could find them.” Once his dream’s melody becomes a reality and robust piece of work, he then looks to distort that reality to bring it closer to fantasy. Wold shares, “I’m always tech nerding out on stuff. I'm really interested in AR Projection Mapping. I do a lot with VR. I like interesting ways to dress up the music. They do visuals now where you can look through your phone and see dinosaurs walking on stage.” Dreamers’ goal as they say is “not to make revivalist music,” but to make music that “feels new through technology” despite being influenced by a 1960s John Lennon apparition.
When asked how he would describe his music without referencing other artists or genres, Wold says, “I would say nostalgic. I always thought of my music in an ideal world being a sad person’s happy moment. Because music that was too happy never captured the depth of the human experience to me. But music that’s like, ‘Life is pain, fuck!’ doesn’t capture it either.” He describes this musical identity as analogous to his favorite movies; “My favorite movies are somewhere in the middle of action based and deeply abstract- deep concepts being conveyed in a way that’s also really fun- like Inception. I grew up in Seattle and love Nirvana because they could do both at the same time. They’re so deep but also just rock and it’s really fun to mosh to.” Unlike artists who find depth of emotion in stripped back acoustics, Dreamers finds it in depth of noise. Wold moved from Seattle to New York at 18 to study Jazz Saxophone at NYU’s Steinhardt School, a passion that extends farther back than he can remember. He says, “My mom tells me I was two years old and wanted to play saxophone. My neighbor growing up was a sweet old lady who was Principal Violinist in the Seattle Symphony. I went over to learn stuff and she showed me the piano. I never thought it would be my job or my passion until I became a hormonal teenager who was super depressed. I felt like life can’t just be going through the motions so that got me into it.” The saxophone is said to be an honest instrument, as Stan Getz, renowned Saxophonist, has famously said “if you like an instrument that sings, play the saxophone. At its best it’s like the human voice.” The saxophone allowed Wold to not only funnel his overflowing emotions into the instrument’s mouthpiece, but also to become his mouthpiece. For him, the feeling and fantasy seems to live in the music and words, like a moth to a flame, quickly follow.
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“I think one of the coolest things humans do is live shows. I love a bunch of people standing at night under the stars making a huge sound.”
"My favorite music inspires me to be a better person. Music is one of the few art forms that can be pure in a way and be righteous. There’s so much bad in the world. I think music is one of those places where you can be real.”
The honesty and humanity in music is what Dreamers seem to chase. While Wold values technology and innovation he says, “Innovations don’t change anything about the soul of music because it’s still all about the creative mind doing something really cool.” For him, this soul is best felt in the intense noise of a crowd under the silence of a starry night. He says, “I think one of the coolest things humans do is live shows. I love a bunch of people standing at night under the stars making a huge sound.” Dreamers are currently on their No More Bad Days Tour, and Wold says he hopes their music does what great music does for him which he says “inspires me to be a better person. Music is one of the few art forms that can be pure in a way and be righteous. There’s so much bad in the world. I think music is one of those places where you can be real.” He uses this word, ‘righteous’ quite often- to him, music is just, safe, and sincere at its best. It’s a place where he can experience a sense of sad nostalgia that makes him feel happy and inspired. Like he said, Dreamers’ music is a sad person’s happy moment in which he seems to be able to identify himself.
The humanity of other artists is just as important to him as the humanity in music. He recalls a particularly striking time on Dreamers first big tour with Stone Temple Pilots, and says, “it was with Chester from Linkin Park. That band was so welcoming to us. They put our name really big on the banners and showed us the way. Chester bought us hotels. They showed us the way with the idea of being righteous and that artists should look out for each other. They were so nurturing.” Sometimes you imagine people you idolize as this huge fantasy, as if they only exist in a dream, so when you see their humanity that is behind the music, it tends to be nothing short of striking. He shares that he was most starstruck when he went to a festival and says, “I found myself pissing right next to Nick Valensi from The Strokes.” So for him, when you find yourself beside your idol at a urinal, all your dreams mix with a funny reality that is just one of the feelings Dreamers expresses.
When asked what his long term goal for his music is, he says, “I would hope that I made some real art and manage to get it in the hands of people. In LA I met a lot of people who don’t care what their music is as long as it sells. Most people who make their true art never get heard, and most people who get heard never make their true art.”
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