INTERVIEW: Those Who Dream Talk Their Latest Single, "One of My Kind"
Over the last few years, Those Who Dream have been one of Perth’s best-kept secrets. While the group’s sound is far from what we’re come to expect from the local scene, the brotherly duo “Cooper and Josh Mayer” have found a way to thrive within the isolation of our “remote” city. Given the recent rise in popularity of Pop Punk (majorly thanks to the “mainstreaming” of the genre, pushed by Travis Bakers & Co) the group have picked a great time to break into the nation & international touring scene. We had a chat with the band about; their new song, “One of My Kind”, the excitement leading up to their tour with pop-punk legends Mayday Parade and the influence behind their self directed cinema worthy music videos.
IN: You’ve just put out a new song titled, “One of My Kind”. A style/sonic that is quite prevalent in the song is the cinematic influence. The song itself reminds me a lot of the recent soundtracks for the Marvel Universe films. Knowing that you’ve both big fans of the Marvel series, I was wondering if that directly influenced this track?
Josh: My main influence behind this track was the “new age pop feel’ with big synths and a washy pre-chorus that tightens up into a hard chorus. In terms of the cinematic influences, I always have pockets where I’m really obsessed with Hans Zimmer and Christopher Nolan films. The soundscape I created was very influenced by Interstellar and all the movement songs that Hans Zimmer does. In a sense, there’s a cinematic influence but the main influence was new age along with acts like Nine Inch Nails, 5 Seconds of Summer and Carley Rae Jepsen. The cinematic influence was more of an afterthought to make the song more “epic”.
Cooper: All our music videos are very cinematic and we’ve been inspired by horror movies and anything that presents the story on a big scale.
Josh: There are lots of sound effects too. A lot of hits and raises we use in our songs are taken directly from movie pact samples from sound designers. One sample pack we really like is sounds from the muti-verse. I didn’t really draw influence from Marvel but I can see where the two words collaborate.
IN: The music video for, “One of My Kind” is probably my favourite you’ve put out so far. I noted you reference 5 Seconds of Summer as an influence on the track and I can definitely see and hear some references to their song Teeth. Was that a key inspiration behind the song and music video?
Josh: 100%. When we first watched that music video, we were like, oh wow, we’d love to do something along the lines of this. They created a very neo-noir look with the performance shots and all the different set-ups for each band member. The main influence probably came from the performance shot and the concept of the drum shot. This was also an accidental thing but 5SOS also had projections in their performance shots and we also wanted to mess around with that with our performance shots. The overall video draws influence from many different movies and other music videos but the performance aspect was mainly drawn from 5SOS.
IN: We spoke a few years ago (late 2019) and we were discussing plans for all these national and international tours, then as we all know things got a little crazy in 2020. It’s somewhat serendipitous now because if you’re looking to push yourself as a Pop-Punk based band, you really couldn’t have picked a better time. Just to list a few examples, groups like Yours Truly are doing well both nationally and internationally, Teenage Joans are widely acclaimed as one of the most exciting up and coming bands in the country and even in Perth, Sly Withers have recently scored a top 10 album. Given that this is arguably one of the best times to launch yourself into national and international touring as a Pop-Punk band, how are feeling about finally getting into it this year?
Cooper: The genre thing is so exciting. When we first started the band we know we had a lot of Pop-Punk influences and that’s sort of our roots. Back then, it just wasn’t as popular.
Josh: It excited us but it just wasn’t mainstream. There definitely weren’t any top 20 artists doing it. Machine Gun Kelly is a big reason why a lot of that’s happening. New age Pop-Punk isn’t exclusively influenced by 90ies Punk and early 00ies Alternative Rock, it has influences from Rap and Hip-Pop. I think Travis Baker and MGK are responsible for bringing that to the forefront.
Cooper: It’s exciting because it means we can embrace that side of ourselves. We obviously have influences from pop/synth-pop music but we love Pop-punk. It’s a full-circle moment to be able to tour with Mayday Parade in Australia. There literally our number #1 inspiration.
Josh: When we started, we decided to write out a list of bands we wanted to take influence from. I think Sleeping with Sirens was on there, Mayday Parade was on there, we had All Time Low, Panic! At The Disco and more. They were on our list and now were on their bill.
Cooper: It’s exciting for us to bring our slightly weirder live show to their audience. It’s Pop-Punk but not quite as you know it.
IN: Speaking of touring with Mayday Parade, given that you grew up listening to this band do you have a special childhood/teenage memory that you associate with them?
Josh: In 2014, when we were living in Sydney they played at the Hi-Fi. I remember being at that show and afterwards, all myself and Cooper felt like doing was rehearsing. Watching their show and watching them perform was so influential to us. Being in that atmosphere really drove home our love for music. To be on the same stage as them, honour is an understatement.
Cooper: I would listen to this playlist that would just have my favourite Mayday Parade songs on it on the way to school every day. Then, I went home and put on my All Time Low shirt and went to see Mayday, it was one of the best nights of my life, and now we’re touring with them.
IN: I’ve been following (and have personally known) your band for quite a long time but, I have noticed your social media presence has become increasing “unhinged”, particularly in the last 18 months. What has been your inspiration behind your more recent social media presence?
Josh: We didn’t intentionally make our social media chaotic but when watching everyone around us and how they communicate with their fans, nowadays it’s important to be yourself online. People have an advanced view of artists and they can see through the BS. You’re doing yourself a disservice if you’re not being authentic. This is who we are, we’re a bit loose as a band. The reason our online presence has become that, is because we’ve become more comfortable in our own shoes.
Coopers: I’ve fairly analytical when it comes to social media and the data speaks for itself. If I just share some cheese marketing post it will only get a few hundred likes, but if I post the most cursed images I can find on the internet it will get 1500 likes. I’m going to keep doing that because it’s what the people want. It’s really funny now that we’re verified because we’ll post the craziest thing and it will have the verified tick next to it.
Josh: People just don’t respond to cookie-cutter posts anymore the standard is set high, it’s not really about the quality of you’re content it’s more about how hard you can go on being yourself.
Cooper: Our community has also grown a lot recently and with a lot of new people following us I like to present a very clear picture of what you’re getting yourself into.
Those Who Dream’s new song, “One of My Kind” is streaming everywhere now!
