Rabbit Interview with Marcel from Dream on Dreamer about their new album 'It Comes and Goes'

Dream on Dreamer are exploding back onto the airwaves with a fresh new sound and a huge national tour to celebrate! The boys are back with their fourth studio album It Comes and Goes and will be journeying all over Australia to showcase their melodic new sounds. Front man, Marcel Gadacz, took a moment to have a chat with Tayla Sudall about the struggles the band has had to overcome in order to become the unstoppable independent act that they are today as well as how they’re feeling leading up to the album’s release and the incredible ticket sales for their upcoming national tour.

​MG: Hello!
 
RR: Hey Marcel, it’s Tayla from Rabbit how are you going?
 
MG: Good, how are you?
 
RR: I’m good thank you! So, I just wanted to have a chat with you today because you guys have just dropped your brand new single Voices off of the upcoming album It Comes and Goes, so how’s the response been so far for Voices?
 
MG: It’s been good so far! Yeah, we’ve just been sort of putting out a new song every week for the past sort of month or so, so it’s been good! Yeah, from what I’ve seen so far, we only just put it up yesterday, it’s been really, really good and people are, I guess, digging the new direction that we’ve kind of headed in with the new album
 
RR: Yeah! Yeah, that’s awesome and like, I had a listen to the song first thing this morning um, I really enjoyed it, it’s pretty catchy I’ve been humming it all day –laughs-
 
MG: -laughs- oh man, awesome!
 
RR: But I had a quick look on YouTube just before I rang you and it’s already clocked over 7,000 views there so that’s awesome, congratulations!
 
MG: Aw, thank you! I didn’t even, yeah, I didn’t even know that but yeah –laughs- that’s cool! That’s awesome!
 
RR: It’s exciting! So, It Comes and Goes will be the bands fourth studio album and you guys are heading off on a national tour, so has this just kind of become normal life for you guys, or do you still get super excited about it?
 
MG: Um, I think we almost at a stage now where we actually get sort of like, excited for this whole thing again, you know? We’ve been doing it for so many years and there was a point I remember when touring became a bit of a… you know, you kind of just prefer to be sort of, home, and not on the road and you kind of prefer to… There was a time I remember when I’m like I can’t wait to go home and like, cook my own food or sleep in my own bed or something like that you know?
 
RR: Totally!
 
MG: But um this time it’s just like, because we’ve kind of spaced this tour out so it really compliments our normal lives as well I guess like, you know so we don’t have to be away for such a long time and also just you know, it’s more exciting to have a few breaks in between and get back out there on stage every night so it’s kind of the perfect balance that we are kinda doing with this next run, but in saying that you know, touring is one of the most funnest experiences as well, so, yeah –laughs-
 
RR: Yeah, it sounds good; you’ll have some breaks to go home, that’ll be good
 
MG: Exactly!
 
RR: Yeah! Um, so the tour is kicking off next Thursday in Sydney but you guys will be venturing all over Australia and after so much experience with touring, where do you think in Australia you’d be most excited to play?
 
MG: That’s hard to say, I think, well judging from our sort of like, the pre-sales that have gone out and the way that people have perceived our new songs and everything like Melbourne has sold out, the first Melbourne show that we put up there, so we added another one so Melbourne is definitely going to be an awesome show um, but also Brisbane is like, really, really not that far behind from also selling out and The Brightside is a really cool place, we’ve played there in the past and every time we go to Brisbane it just kind of seems like, I guess their connecting with us the most out of Australia and Melbourne I guess, so I think those two places are my personal favourites but in saying that you know it’s just really, every show, like, sometimes you play shows in the middle of no where and it’s still one of the best shows that you can play because everybody’s really involved in it and you know, as long as everybody is in a good spirit and the energy is really rad, it doesn’t really matter where you are –laughs- like, it’s just a good time
 
RR: Yeah, it’s good that you’ve been releasing so many of the singles off of the album too, you’ll have some people being able to sing back to you and whatnot so that’s cool –laughs-
 
MG: Yeah, yeah! Exactly!
 
RR: And so the new album It Comes and Goes, it’s out tomorrow and as I just said you’ve spoiled us with quite a few singles off the album but what can we expect with the rest of the songs, do you think you guys are going off in a bit of a different direction, or?
 
MG: Well, I guess from our older material this is definitely the most melodic album that we have you know, in terms of um, well in terms of vocal approach as well like the instruments are still very heavy and stuff but when it comes to vocals I think I just really challenged myself to develop, it’s still personal but almost like a newer kind of direction in terms of my vocals because um, I guess I’d gotten to a stage you know when we first started doing it that it became almost… you know it was really hard to I guess stand out in the sense of like, well screaming, heavy shouted vocals and stuff so I guess like, I almost feel like I’d gotten to a stage where it was boring for me –laughs- because like, it might sound really weird but you know like, I wasn’t stimulated by it anymore, I had to learn something else, I had to regain something else and that was focussing more on clean singing and sort of developing the whole kind of style as well and I think that’s what was exciting about this release and what definitely sets this release apart from all the other ones
 
RR: Yeah, totally! I love the clean vocals, I think it sounds great, you’ve done really good!
 
MG: Ah thank you!
 
RR: So um, in the press release for the new album it was written that, this album details the struggles that you guys have gone through as an independent act and some of the really unfortunate circumstances at home, so could you maybe elaborate on that a little bit for me and kind of tell me what the inspiration was going into this album?
 
MG: Yeah, so with that being said like you just, what you just mentioned as well with being an independent artist it’s I guess you know, you’re in a… well I wouldn’t say you’re kind of on your own but I guess that was also by choice I mean we were signed for most of our career and then we finally had gotten to a stage where we didn’t have to be signed anymore –laughs- you know, and that sort of was just like a blessing because yeah, like from just experiences, being a signed band basically what we were doing was being away for 6, 7, 8 months or even more of the year and basically being… exactly what we’re doing right now except um, you know, I dunno, I don’t wanna get into detail that much but –laughs- I’m just happy that um….
 
RR: Yeah you guys can do things on your own terms now so that’s cool
 
MG: Yeah, and you know basically how a label works is always just going to be like, you know, they’re acting almost as if they’re a bank so, no one’s giving you any free money, ever in life, no label is ever going to give a band money, it’s never going to be the case. It’s like a bank where you kind of, you know aw we need a new album so let’s um, let’s go to America, let’s make that happen and how are we going to get $50, 000? Oh damn, we don’t really have that because we’re touring musicians and we most likely don’t have that so hey! Let’s reach out to the label and they will give us the money and then we’ll have to pay them back 3x as much –laughs- you know it’s like, you could basically just go to a bank and be like yo I need 50 grand, can you make that happen? And you know, you’ll have it back in a year kind of thing. Anyway, that is all very technical but um –laughs- it’s not negative but it was just a very big learning curve for us as well, and we are very happy to be where we are right now and um, in terms of personal fallbacks that we had on the album that definitely inspired me to just be doing what we wanna do, which is ahh, I guess something that will make us happy and satisfied personally, you know, no matter what it is, that’s kind of what I’m spreading and most of my life right now is just to be doing what you feel like is… essentially what makes you happiest or the potential happiest state you can be in and that came from an experience that I had to go through, you know, I was diagnosed with cancer for a while and I had to find my own way back out of it kind of thing and I refused sort of, like, all commercial treatments I guess and went down a naturopathic approach and I, yeah, I got healed within a few months and that was sort of like a big wake up call for me
 
RR: Wow! That’s incredible!
 
MG: Yeah, you know, and that was like a really big wake up call for me to really concentrate on something that will make me happy because at the end of the day you know, we are here for a limited time and we just have to, I guess, do and push for the things that make us happy the most and make us feel fulfilled the most and you know, it was just one of those things, that’s why we didn’t really have any boundaries on our sound or what we should be doing because like, who knows what we should be doing? Like, who’s saying? You know? Who says what? Like, it’s really… it’s your life and you know, you can really just determine your own kinda structure and you know, as long as you don’t hurt anybody along the way, you just kind of you know that’s how life should be lived in my eyes
 
RR: Yeah, that’s awesome, I think that’s great! And I mean, you guys have described the album as well as like the most intimate full-length that you guys have made and so I think it’s really cool to see um, you know, making music with real lyrics that people can get down with and really relate to
 
MG: Exactly!
 
RR: And so like the journey for you guys, like you were just explaining, it’s been epic like, health scares, legal issues and all sorts of things and so what has kept you guys motivated and determined to keep going and to become the band that you guys are today?
 
MG: I guess we’ve established something very meaningful to a lot of people in the sort of 8 or 9 years that we’ve been a band and we’ve sort of grown to be like, our own little, like, whatever you wanna call it –laughs- our own little, I wouldn’t wanna call it a trademark but you know, like there’s definitely our own little feel to it in terms of our art, I wouldn’t just call it like our musical venture, I will just call it art in general because it’s just our way of expression and um, I guess that’s why I feel like we you know, what kept us going was the simple fact that we have established that platform that we were working on for so many years and we still had a lot of room in terms of where we wanted, or what we wanted to put out as Dream on Dreamer and I guess we were on… like everybody was on their own journey kind of and I guess we, when you know you’re in it and you’re doing it constantly, you kind of forget what it is so when you take a step back you kind of realise what it is that you’ve created in a sense and that was our biggest inspiration, to just sort of be like yeah, let’s just do something that we would want to listen to and represents us the most and that is It Comes and Goes
 
RR: Yeah! And it’s clearly worked ‘cause I mean you guys have released Stay, Don’t Lose Your Heart, Let It In ah, before Voices today obviously, um but in total these songs have gotten over 12,000,000 streams through YouTube and Spotify, that is amazing! How does that make you guys feel?
 
MG: Thank you! Um, it feels really good and you know why, it feels especially great because since we’ve been putting out those songs, it was like the first time we were independent artists so to say, I remember when we put out Don’t Lose Your Heart, that was our first song that we had put out after being a signed band, and that was… not to really brag about the numbers or whatever but like, it’s definitely worth a mention like, that song was the first song that had hit 1,000,000 streams on YouTube for us in our whole career you know, even as a signed band on channels on YouTube that were way bigger than that and had way more subscribers than our channel at the time you know it was just like, it was a really good thing to see how… like you weren’t really dependent on that platform itself to be able to be heard you know like, that was just something that was purely from our, like, that was a personal achievement almost you know, it could’ve gone both ways, it could’ve been like hey I don’t like that new sound but getting the feedback like that was definitely a strong indication that we are onto something and we definitely should be following our heart more you know?
 
RR: Yeah it’s awesome and like, a lot of the time, oh, well not a lot of the time but sometimes when bands go in a different direction it does tend to go that way, people say it’s “selling out” or whatever, so it’s really exciting that no one’s really taken that tone –laughs-
 
MG: Yeah, I guess it’s awesome because I think with a lot of bands like you just mentioned in those kind of scenarios you can sort of hear that it’s a forced sound you know, like they are clearly going for something more commercial, they’re clearly going for that –laughs- but like, when it’s a natural sort of development, I think you can sort of hear that and it doesn’t really matter what you’re doing, if you’re going really, really heavy or really, really dark or really, really light or you know, whatever it is, it’s just like you can tell, I think especially nowadays with an accentuated music market you can really hear what bands are doing it for the right reasons and for a valid reason I guess, yeah, that’s sort of what we try to do
 
RR: Yeah! No, you’ve done really well and you guys did, like as we’ve been saying, you guys recorded this album yourselves with only a little bit of help from Dave Petrovich, who helped produce the EP Hope and so he helped you guys with some vocal production. What was it like recording this album yourselves? was it like, way more stressful? Or was it a little bit better? ‘Cause like you said, it’s more on your own terms, or?
 
MG: Yeah, exactly, I think it wasn’t as stressful so to speak because we weren’t really, like there wasn’t really a deadline or whatever it was just we were working on our own schedule and that pretty much, and we um, we didn’t really want to stress ourselves out because it was just um, yeah, it was really organic and no one was looking over us and saying like this has to be done at a certain time or this has to be done on a certain day, we could just literally you know, even if we wrote 10 more songs, we had the time to, or we made that time to just be like, those songs aren’t that great, let’s not even use them you know? So it felt like, yeah, it just felt more organic and natural I guess to bring those songs together and again, I think you can hear that on the record
 
RR: Yep, that’s exactly what I was about to say, I think you can hear it, you can tell from the music. And so, you Marcel, you yourself have been tasked with creating all of the artwork and the visual components surrounding the release of this album, so is this something you’ve always been interested in doing or did you just kinda get thrown in the deep end here? –laughs-
 
MG: Noo, I’ve actually got a degree in graphic design
 
RR: Oh amazing!
 
MG: Yeah I went to Uni a couple of years ago now probably like 7 or 8 years ago now but um, yeah that’s just always something that I had to do, not I had to do but I wanted to do for this band as well like I’m working with a lot of other bands as well, doing their merchandise and the artworks and all that kind of stuff but for us it’s especially I feel like, it’s part of… you know as much as I love putting my vocals to it and my lyrical aspects I think it’s really important for me to also create that brand that I’ve envisioned you know? Because it’s just really, really hard like there’s a lot of artists that are probably in that position where they see a vision or they see a certain something that they want to express artistically but they just can’t because they’re working with somebody that isn’t them –laughs- you know so it’s like, I remember the very start, they very start was really hard because there was external designers and they would send us anything, there would always be something that I would be like Oh my God! It’s not right!
 
RR: -laughs-
 
MG: -laughs- you know? I couldn’t put up with it at that stage I was like I gotta do everything myself
 
RR: If you want something done right, you gotta do it yourself –laughs-
 
MG: Yeah! So you know, I can only blame myself if I’m not happy with something –laughs-
 
RR: Well that’s good! And so have you had a lot of input on the um, like the film clip for Let It In, did you have much input on that one?
 
MG: Um, not really to be honest. Because we’ve been working with Jason the director/producer of that film clip and the Runaway clip that we put out afterwards, we’ve been working with them for many years and he’s like, very, I guess personally involved in our lives as a friend as well you know, so it’s like, he knows what’s going on and he knows what kind of vision we’re chasing and um, he nailed it on every one of those videos like he really did come up with a concept that was just, yeah, at the start when that whole concept was sort of put forward to us I was kind of like alright, if you think we can pull that off, then that’s fine –laughs- alright, I’m gonna let you do your thing and we obviously trusted him and he literally, like he has friggin outdone himself I think and yeah, we were super happy with how all those videos came out that he did
 
RR: Yeah, yeah! The Let It In film clip is really emotional and so it’s good ‘cause the songs super emotional so it’s good, he’s done well!
 
MG: Thank you, thank you!
 
RR: So, yeah, so like we were saying earlier the ticket sales for your upcoming national tour are going crazy and you guys have sold out Melbourne like you said, so are you thinking, oh and you added another show to Melbourne
 
MG: -laughs-
 
RR: So are you guys thinking about adding more shows to any of the other venues? Since they’re all selling out pretty quickly as well!
 
MG: I’m not too sure, I think we’re just sticking with what we have right now, I mean we have a lot of like other Victorian shows as well that are like more I guess um, suburbian, and places that we haven’t gone to in years and I think it’s just a, you know, there isn’t really need for that, like Brisbane is about to sell out as well in the next couple of days and there has been talks of maybe adding another show but at this stage, like, our album hasn’t even come out yet so I don’t really –laughs- it’s just kind of, I don’t know what’s gonna happen –laughs- just gonna sort of let that do its own thing
 
RR: -laughs- Yep, it’s very exciting! Um, well yeah, seriously thank you so much for taking time to chat to me today, I can only imagine how busy you guys are so I really appreciate it!
 
MG: That’s alright, thank you so much for having me honestly, thank you
 
RR: Yeah no worries! And um yeah, sweet, I can’t wait to listen to the album tomorrow and good luck on the tour you guys are gonna kill it so I’ll talk to you again soon
 
MG: Thank you very much, sounds good!
 
RR: See ya!
 
MG: Alright, see ya, bye!