What’s New + Q&A: Dream Haze – “Wisher”

Today, Dream Haze release their second EP, Wisher.

Dream Haze is the Southern California punk-rock project of twin brothers James and Jake. The group’s new EP, Wisher, features four hard-hitting tracks with deep-rooted emotional lyrics, catchy choruses, and sweet guitar riffs.

 

James took some time to talk to me about the origins of Dream Haze, his musical influences, and the band’s new album, Wisher.

How did Dream Haze start and how do you all know each other?

Back in July 2016, my twin brother Jake (who plays guitar in the band) and I released a 7 song EP. Since we didn’t have a drummer at the time, we had Tyler Soucy of A Great Big Pile of Leaves, who is a session drummer, play drums on the record.

When it came time to play shows, we asked Diego Corrales to play drums for us and he accepted. We had heard of Diego from his other band Bondage and we knew he would be a good fit. We’ve gone through numerous bassists so as of right now, we just have any one of our homies hop on bass for shows. Keeps it interesting.

Very cool! That’s also a great way to meet people and get your music out to a larger group of people as well. How long have you and your brother been playing music?

I totally agree! My brother and I have been playing music together ever since we got our mexican guitars back when we were about 9 years old and we haven’t gotten any better since.

Where are you guys from originally?

We’re all originally from the Imperial Valley, which is right by the Mexican border.

Oh nice, what’s the music scene like down there?

The music scene in the Imperial Valley is pretty rad. It is literally just a bunch of friends playing in different bands together and throwing DIY shows and doing self recordings. It’s about as punk as it gets.

Who would you say are some of your biggest musical influences?

Some of my musical influences personally are The Lawrence Arms, Osker, and Saves the Day. A really good friend of mine, Ty Ram, who played in a band called Forfit back in the early 2000’s probably has the biggest influence on my songwriting. Everything he writes is just insanely catchy and I strive to write like him.

I’d like to talk a little about the new EP now! How is this album different from last year’s Untitled and was there a different approach in writing this one?

For our first EP, it was basically just me and my bro leisurely writing songs together whenever we felt like writing. So it took almost an entire year to write 7 songs. We then demoed the songs with just guitars and vocals and send it off to Tyler Soucy who lives in New York and he came up with the drum parts.

We definitely had a different approach for writing the Wisher EP.

For starters, we booked studio time with Beau Burchell before we had any songs written, so we only had 3 months to write 4 solid songs. It was a challenge since I’m so used to taking my time with my songwriting. It was also a much more collaborative effort this time around. It was great having a drummer we could sit down with and come up with the best drum parts possible.

Everyone put their all into the songwriting process and I’m really happy with how the songs turned out considering what little time we had to write.

 

Listen to Wisher below:

 

And check out the official video for Idle, which features a bunch of “ghosts” partying and playing beer pong:

 

Stay up to date with Dream Haze through the following social links:

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Bandcamp