Mr. Dream: A Dream of Vintage Rock

The men of Brooklyn based Mr. Dream describe the band as "big, dumb rock songs," "emotional landscapes" and "riff storms." Nick Sylvester, the drummer, jokes, "People think I'm physically much taller in live performances than on the record." They named the band Mr. Dream, Nick jokes again, because "we wanted to confuse fans of The Dream."Indie Band Mr. Dream

The friends met each other at a Jay Reatard concert. Matt Morello, the bass player, describes the connection as "I knew Nick and Nick knew Adam, meaning it's Nick's fault if anything goes wrong. We all wanted to play loud rock music."

But they are not telling the whole story. Their album, Trash Hit, was talked about on MTV Hive and in Rolling Stone, The Village Voice, Pitchfork and other big name music Bibles. They toured with Sleigh Bells and CSS and played at Webster Hall and the Paradise Rock Club. Who would have expected it in their childhood days when Sylvester played trumpet, Morello studied piano and voice and Adam played the trombone?

"Nearly everything I know about writing lyrics I've learned from Robert Pollard, who's a bona fide poet. He could find the lyrics to make a cutesy melody like 'Mary Had a Little Lamb' sound weird and interesting," says guitarist Adam Moerder, who shares vocal duties with Morello and learned guitar from YouTube videos and private lessons.

"I mix the songs, so if I don't like the lyrics, I bury the vocals as much as possible and replace them with drum fills," Sylvester says. "We all think about David Bowie a lot. For a good chunk of his career, he was able to stay super arty, but still write songs with a lot of emotional heft. James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem has been really supportive of us, and we learned a lot from singing for him at his final shows this past April. (Matt, Adam, and I were among the backup singers at Madison Square Garden.) I admire Sleigh Bells tremendously, and a bunch of other Brooklyn bands: Fort Lean, Yvette, Matty Fasano, The Men, Black Dice, Talk Normal, White Suns, Sleepies, Grizzly Bear, Twin Shadow. Too many."

"Tony Ferrante continues to amaze and inspire," Morello says, adding, "My favorite songs to record are always the most recent ones, because we're better at playing, singing, recording, being humans, etc., than we were before. We're in the middle of making some demos that are probably the best things we've ever done."

Sylvester's favorite song: "A rehearsal demo called 'Self-Plowing Man.' The basic premise of the song is that you shouldn't have sexual relations with automobiles. At the very least, you should think twice about it. The song has a country/western feel, not unlike what you might hear in a truck commercial."

The men tease that their writing sessions "involve chugging a lot of coffee, and staring absently at the floor, then every couple of hours we'll have maybe one good idea." And recording? "You know that scene in White Noise where the German tutor fixes the guy's pronunciation by reaching into his mouth and adjusting his tongue by hand? It's a lot like that."

Joking aside, Mr. Dream makes you feel like you are at a swinging party held circa 1964, one you don't know about but assume was really amazing from what you know of the 60's from TV…and that's pretty good for 2012.


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