When I jump on Zoom to chat with half of Australian rock stalwarts Bad//Dreems, I’m not too sure what to expect. For over 10 years, they’ve been tearing up stages, while releasing searing rebukes of Australia’s traditional ideas on masculinity. Surely they’ve been living the rockstar lifestyle since their last album, 2023’s Hoo Ha!, right? Don’t let first impressions fool you.
When I ask what’s been on the band’s mind recently, lead singer Ben Marwe wryly replies, “I've been talking mainly about the kids' show Bluey with my children, and tax with my partner.” Rock on.
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The band’s in the throes of finalising new music, set to be the follow-up to Hoo Ha!. While coy about when we can expect to hear it, Ben says, “we’re hoping to have some music out by the end of the year”—they’re much more open about where they are in the new music cycle. According to the band, it’s the bit that involves a lot of logistical details, and not too much actual playing.
“It's akin to being in your second last year of school. You really want to finish school now, but you've got another year,” explains drummer Miles Wilson. “The fun, exciting bit that scratches your creative itch is done and dusted, and you're really excited about it, but then there's another year, it seems, of getting all your ducks in a row and making sure you have the best crack at releasing it, and everybody hearing it.”
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The new music comes against the backdrop of the celebration of 2015’s Dogs At Bay, their beloved debut album. The tour, which will take them to Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth, is a chance for both the band and fans to reflect on the impact of their debut album. Ben says, “We've never played an album in full live on a tour. So I'm anticipating a bit of emotion will rear its head, looking back… I'm anticipating a lot of nostalgia and storytelling on the tour and thinking about what we've achieved over the best part of a decade.”
Most known for their high-octane performances, the band revelled in a rare chance to pull back a few musical layers as part of Melbourne streetwear brand HoMie’s new Store Sessions. Acting as Australia’s answer to NPR’s iconic Tiny Desk Series, the series also features performances from Tash Sultana and Big Words.
Miles has pulled double duty to bring the Studio Sessions to life: in addition to performing with Bad//Dreems, he built the series’ visual branding through his design studio, BAM. Speaking about the band’s performance, he explains, “We don't really get the opportunity much to do stripped back versions of our songs, and it really puts certain parts of the chord progressions, or the song construction under the magnifying glass, in a nice way."
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“It’s stuff that might be lost in translation with a really intense live show and high energy and everybody's swilling their beer around and singing along. The touching moments that are really special are really elevated in that setting.” Melbourne musician Nitida Atkinson joined the band on keys, and Ben says, “Adding different textural and tonal elements within the keys, as well as playing it in a stripped back fashion, really elevated it into something I hadn't quite heard myself before, which was nice.”
It’s not a space they’re always welcomed into, despite Ben explaining that “a lot of our songs do have an underlying sweet side to them that lend themselves to a stripped back version.” Often painted with a broad brush as a pub rock band, Ben and Miles are acutely aware of how they’re often perceived. However, it’s something they use to their advantage. “We present as burly lads that play footy and go to the pub, which is accurate,” Miles says. “But obviously there's a lot more intellectualised parts to the music that's hopefully deep and meaningful.
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“And I think the upside of that is you get access to a certain ilk of Australian male that wouldn't, perhaps otherwise be listening and then, so then when you do decide to be vulnerable and deep, lyrically or with the songwriting in different ways, there's opportunity there to find a weird rapport with perhaps a group of people that you otherwise wouldn't access with your music, or that you wouldn't be hanging around.
“And then, perhaps, you’re making them feel like it's okay to be vulnerable or emotional, and they can relate suddenly to the songs of loss and heartbreak and anxiety and depression, and perhaps in their world there’s no real outlet for that. So I like the idea that there's a crossing of a bridge there between the music, and a group of people that might not otherwise listen to us if we didn't present a certain way.”
Looking forward to the rest of the year, and it's all ahead of Bad//Dreems. Along with the Dogs At Bay anniversary shows, they'll also play some support slots, opening for Aussie rock icons Grinspoon. With new music on the horizon, September will be a month for looking back—but from there, it's all systems go.
Though, borrowing from the wisdom of countless footy coaches, there's no doubt they'll be taking it one week at a time.