Interviewing The Dreamiest Pop Band: Dreamgirl
Sixteen-year-old me would not believe it if I told her that one day she would be interviewing her favorite dream-pop band, Dreamgirl. I’ve been listening to Teenage Blue since high school, so when I saw their name on the SXSW lineup, I made sure I was there.
Dreamgirl performed at Seven Grand in the middle of the night for an event presented by Park the Van Records. They played every single song I dreamed of hearing live and included new ones I hadn't heard yet. I truly felt like I was living inside one of my dreams. Once their performance was over - I went to the back of the venue to ask one of the band-mates if they were available for an interview. I was directed outside to the lead singer, Lacey. I was sooo nervous, LOL.
SXSW Interview:
My name is Lacey, and I play keyboards and tenor guitar, and I sing. We're from Kansas City, Missouri. Other members include Skyler Smith, he plays the jangly guitars that we all know and love. Ian Dobyns is on drums, and in the writing scheme of things; he also writes guitar parts, basslines, and cool keyboard pads. We've got Jo Grainger here, our resident bass boy, and then Grady Philip Drugg, who plays music on his own. He plays touring guitar with us.
It's been a long time since I've had to play at 1 a.m. in the morning. I would say thank you. Yeah. I think, you know, all things considered, we had a great time. We had so much fun. I hope it sounded okay. I was pep talking myself - like
Austin History:
We played here in, I think, February of 2019 for the first time. Grady, our touring guitar player, lived here, he grew up around here for his childhood and then lived here as an adult for a while. So we've I think we've played in Austin twice now, so we played at a really cool DIY venue. It's escaping me now, but the last time we played here, we played a mohawk, and yeah, Austin never disappoints. Great food, great people like always - treated very nicely. We love coming here.
Describing Austin:
Sunny. At least when we're here, I value that I am a sunshine person. I like it. Cool. There's so much art like there are so many artists here, like in music and, you know, all of the arts, journalism, sculptures… Like, it's wonderful to come to a place where there's so much happening. So I would say, yeah, cool/happening. And then just to be fair, I guess weird, right? It's a wonderful, huge, diverse place and then you have these shit back laws that the state puts on a place. It really seems much more like, you know, insightful to what it needs as opposed to like what other parts of the state like we're from Missouri and unfortunately Missouri politics, like copycat Texas and follow that. So yeah, it is fucking weird.
Astrology:
So now I like this, and this might be because I'm a Leo. I love knowing about it. One of our fans actually did my chart like the full thing - can I look it up really quick? Is that okay? So my sun is in Leo, my moon is in Sagittarius, and my Mercury is in Virgo. I mean, we're all super, I think, into believing things that are important to other people. I grew up in the Catholic Church, and I definitely find more reality in star science than that thing. And you can believe in more than one thing as well. So like, I know I love the Saints personally. Like, I still value the Saints, even though I wouldn't really consider myself religious. Don't go to church. Not super well versed in astrology but like would like to be. I feel like lots of people that I respect know about it and have spent their time like, you know, doing their research and it's cool. And whenever it's been applied to my life, it seemed real. So it's fucking cool.
Favorite Performance:
I love Sweet Thing. Um, I love that song. I think it's so much fun. It's one of the first songs that we made. It was on Illuminati, uh, which we. Yeah, it's like from the old days of Dream Girl where we recorded in mine and Skyler's living room, and another bandmates living room/basement/bedroom, uh yeah! It was before we had any means to like recording, you know, using any kind of equipment. So I love Sweet Thing. I think it's one of our timeless songs, I guess it never gets old to me. So I also love Weekend For The Girls. I love when the fast part comes in. That's always really fun, too. That's always really fun to play. Yeah, I guess they're all fun to play. It's my favorite thing to do, so.
What’s Next?
We've got a whole new round of merch and songs. The plan is to release an album either this year, 2022, or spring of 2023. So new music always. Yeah. We’ve got a bunch of stuff we just don't know how to release these as EP's or -like what's the most you know, cohesive way to put all these songs together. Look forward to new music and, and we look forward to playing for everybody and seeing everybody again, specifically Texas, West Coast, and we're going to some places that we've never been before. We're going to Florida, like for the first time to play there. I only went as a kid, and we did the Disney stuff, which was magical when you're a child. So I'm hoping it'll stand up like it did 22 years later. I don't know. You know, like Florida. Cool. We're in Florida!
Shout Outs:
KVRX! Shout out KVRX. Thanks for having us. Thanks for wanting to do this. Like, so kind. Great questions. Yeah. Thank you. Thanks for staying up. I'm not used to 1 AM right now, so got to get back to that realm. Um, other shout-outs. I'd love to shout out Manor Records in Kansas City, Missouri. Listen to all of the bands that play on that label, that play their shows. They're doing a really cool thing about propping up the independent artists of Kansas City. And, uh, it's a really cool thing that they're doing. So, um, shout out Planned Parenthood of Texas and then also of the Great Plains, which is like our Missouri region. Shout out to teachers. Shout out to people who understand astrology better than me. If you have any tips, let me know because I'm really open, and yeah, uh, who else to shout out? This was a great show. So happy to be a part of it. Shout out to the people enjoying SXSW and not enjoying SXSW. I could see if I lived here I'd be like, this is hard work. And we got yelled at this evening and I did a really good job. I did not react, I just walked along. But I guess everyone's trying to go where they're trying to go. So shout out to all the drivers, shout out to all the pedestrians and yeah, shout out to Texas. Everybody stay safe and just, you know, keep your neighbor in mind. I could go on forever and it would be silly. I'm sorry. Thank you. This was, like, the most fun interview I've ever done.
End of Interview.
Thank you Dreamgirl for your time, energy, and pizzazz. Hope all your travels have gone super safe and awesome and you continue to be that fun sparkle in the dreamy music you make <3