Fête & The Bowery Presents
Dreamers
with AudioDamn! & The Young Wild
Monday, May 23rd
Fête Lounge
Doors: 7pm
Tickets: ADV $10 • DOS $12
All Ages
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Dreamers
Prepare to embark on a journey with Brooklyn’s DREAMERS and their unique brand of ‘70s punk meets power pop. Comprised of Nick Wold (vocals, guitar) and Nelson (bass, backup vocals), DREAMERS were first introduced to the universe in November 2014 with their self-released, self-titled debut EP. Their colorfully passionate music tugged at heartstrings and had tastemakers dancing around the room all in one fell swoop, with praise pouring in from the likes of Billboard, Spin, Alternative Press, Vice NOISEY, Guitar World, and major buzz from the blogosphere and HypeM heavy hitters like The Wild Honey Pie, Earmilk and Baeble. The band has already shared the stage with such notable artists as The Vaccines, The 1975, Bear Hands, Walk The Moon, Stone Temple Pilots, Oberhofer, and Broncho.
Their new single “Wolves” immediately caught the ears of SiriusXM’s AltNation and was placed in full rotation. The song climbed the Alt18 Countdown (based on fan votes) - peaking at #7. It also received spins on KROQ and reached #2 on alternative specialty radio's FMQB and KKBB singles charts.
The band is headed back into the studio this summer to record a follow-up LP to be released in early 2016 via Fairfax Recordings.
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AudioDamn!
A Germany-based, Austria-bred three-piece poised for their American debut,
AudioDamn! make hook-heavy soul-pop shot through with the spirit of punk rock.
With an undeniable chemistry that intensifies each song’s infectious energy,
singer Oliver “Oli” Wimmer, guitarist Ali Grumeth, and drummer Daniel “Mudi”
Mudrack share a passion for defying expectation and blurring genre. “We might
sit down at the piano and write an R&B ballad,” says Grumeth, “and then go into
the rehearsal room, turn into our own cover band, and just totally crush it into
something much grittier.”
With Wimmer and Grumeth collaborating on songwriting—and Grumeth serving
as producer—AudioDamn!’s upcoming debut features the frenetic and fiery lead
single “Lights Out.” True to the band’s unfettered creativity, the song began as an
acoustic-guitar-driven ballad penned by Wimmer before morphing into a
breakneck-tempoed track built on jagged guitar riffs, urgent harmonies, and lyrics
that perfectly capture the torment of obsessive love. Meanwhile, “Radar” (a song
slated for AudioDamn!’s upcoming full-length debut) started out as an a capella
number from Wimmer, then warped into an ultra-catchy piece of R&B-pop, its
harmony-laced grooves and Grumeth’s throwback-funk production brilliantly
contrasting the heartache in Wimmer’s vocals.
Originally calling the band Amsterdamn!, Wimmer and Grumeth first joined forces
in 2009. Each had made music since childhood, with Grumeth beginning his
studies in classical guitar at age eight and Wimmer pursuing a singing career that
led to his scoring a number-one hit single in Austria when he was just 17-years-
old. “Ali and I had the same manager, and he kept calling each of us and saying
we needed to play music together,” says Wimmer. Despite much resistance from
both Grumeth and Wimmer (who’d planned to stick with his then-current band),
the two finally met up, discovered their powerful musical connection, and soon
began playing live shows and collaborating on songwriting.
In 2011, to build up their musical knowledge, Wimmer and Grumeth enrolled in
the Mannheim, Germany-based Popakademie Baden-Württemberg (aka the
University of Popular Music and Music Business), where they ended up crossing
paths with Mudrack and found themselves blown away by the level of his
musicality and the soulfulness of his drumming. A fellow student and lifelong
music obsessive, Mudrack had started playing drums when he was 11-years-old.
“I’d always wanted to play, and when I was ten I started drumming with pencils
on little boxes,” recalls Mudrack, who names Queen, Michael Jackson, and Guns
N’ Roses among his earliest influences and later mined inspiration from the
music of John Coltrane and other jazz legends.
While at Popakademie, Wimmer and Grumeth moved forward with their musical
partnership, enlisting Mudrack as their drummer. By 2013, the band had more
than an album’s worth of songs. “We were amazed at how well it all came
together and how fast everything got rolling, because we really just started this all
for fun,” says Grumeth. “So many bands get caught up in what their concept’s
going to be, or how they’re going to look—just like we did before we started
AudioDamn!,” adds Wimmer. “But for this band it’s always been about the fun of
making music, and I think that’s something that people can really feel when we
play.”
When it came time to record their songs, the band worked mainly in a basement
studio outfitted with minimal equipment. “Our first photo shoot was probably more
expensive than the whole album,” jokes Wimmer, pointing out that Grumeth’s
ingenuity as a producer went a long way in shaping AudioDamn!’s raw yet
refined sound. After finishing more than a dozen songs, the trio posted a
selection of tracks to SoundCloud, which paved the way for their finding
management in late 2014 and then heading to the U.S. to play a number of
showcases. By spring they’d signed a deal with Epic Records, and quickly began
gearing up for the release of their debut.
Mostly made up of the material created during their time at school, AudioDamn!’s
debut album shows off their sophisticated songcraft and production skills while
also drawing on their razor-sharp instincts for melody and groove. At the same
time, tracks like “Lights Out” and “Radar” reveal a musical appetite that never
discriminates between genres. “To us all that matters is good songs,” Grumeth
notes. “We listen to hip-hop and folk and punk and jazz; the style of music
doesn’t mean anything to us.” Not only a major factor in the vitality of their sound,
that sense of adventurousness feeds right into AudioDamn!’s creative process.
“When we’re making something we usually say to ourselves, ‘What should we
probably be doing here? Okay, let’s do the opposite of that,’” says Grumeth. “We
love the challenge of doing things in a new and different way. There’s a lot of fun
in that challenge.”
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