Words: Tracey Moyle Music Maven
On April 26th, Aussie indie-folk sweethearts The Dreggs will release their highly anticipated debut album ‘Caught In A Reverie’ and kick off their run of intimate shows celebrating their album launch opening show at Miami Marketta on the Gold Coast.
The Sunshine Coast duo, Zane Harris and Paddy Macrae have been lighting up music venues nationwide since 2017, building up a dedicated Dreggs fan base with their joyfully upbeat, heart-warming and incredibly personal brand of coastal folk. They are just as dedicated and grateful for their fans as their fans for them. The release of their full-length debut album sees some changes in the band’s sound in a positive way. Now, with a full band in tow and a broader sound throughout their music, the next phase of The Dreggs music will become something that fans will embrace with open hearts.
Our Music Maven Tracey Moyle had an in depth chat to Zane about the new album, working with their own idols on their latest single Peeps With The Goods and the upcoming tours the band are ready and eager to embark on.
You are just about to release your first full-length album ‘Caught In A Reverie’. The album is a long time coming, and I can say it’s worth the wait. It’s a showcase of songs that usher in a whole new musically mature era for you and Paddy. The sound is still distinctly The Dreggs, especially with your recent singles Places and Take a Little Time maintaining that big danceable sing-a-long feel to them. But you have added so much more depth in your music and seem to be pulling from a broader pool of influences. Would you say that your music has taken an organic direction, or was it a conscious decision for you guys to sort of delve into a deeper part of your heart and soul with your songs?
I think because it’s our first album and it’s been written over two or three years, it hasn’t been something that we’ve just sat down and thought ‘, ok, we need an album’. We’ve always relied so heavily on touring since we started, we haven’t really stopped. We’ve always been midway through a tour and announced another one, whereas we had the first six months of last year off just to finish the rest of the album and stuff.
Because it was our first album, we wanted it to be a bit of an experiment. We wanted it to be like a mixed bag of favourite lollies, you know like you don’t know what you’re getting. It’s going to still be us but we just wanted to grow with our music. You know, we’re halfway through writing our second album already and this first one isn’t even out. With the second album, I think we’ve sort of really found our sound, which is kind of crazy because we’ve been a band for seven years. So I think only now, we’re finding where we want to be within the industry and within our song writing and stuff like that.
You’ve released four singles from the album already, and the latest one is Peeps With The Goods. It’s such a smooth, soulful song, and it almost has a gospel feel to it. You worked with Matt Corby and Alex Hendrickson on this one; how was that experience?
Yeah, we did. We wrote this one with Matt Corby and Alex Hendrickson down in Rainbow Valley Studios (owned by Matt Corby). Matt being one of our biggest influences, especially Paddy’s, as you can tell with his vocals, his vocal range and his style and stuff, to go and write a song and be able to release it as a co-write with Matt and Alex was just mind-blowing to us. We never really expected to be able to work with people you grow up looking up to so it’s kind of cool to go from looking up to someone to them being a friend of yours. It’s just a crazy thing.
So we went down for three days with nothing and walked out of the studio with Peeps With The Goods, which was kind of cool. We just recorded it, barely even mixed it or anything, and we just released it because we just thought if it feels good and it sounds good to us why try to fix something that’s not broken?
We’re stoked with Peeps. It was such an obvious juxtaposition to Give Myself To You, Call Me Home and stuff like that, but it’s so good to see people loving it as well. We played it for the first time over the weekend at a festival, and people loved it. We were really nervous about playing it because it is so different but it’s cool to see our fans being open to us being a bit different, which is cool.
I’ve been listening to the new album and one of your songs For Your Love has got a very country feel to it.
I think there’s a super fine line between folk and country and I think it’s just the accent. (laughs) Neither of us, have ever really listened to heaps of country, but we respect it and we think it’s that we just love that upbeat dancey sing-a-long sort of song and it happens to be that it’s borderline country.
On the new album there’s a song called I’m A Little Older Now. It has such an old-school musical storyteller vibe to it and brings me back to classic storytellers and songwriters like Billy Joel and Harry Chapin. It gives such a beautiful insight into that parent /child relationship as it grows over time. I always say to my kids, who are 20 and 18 now, ‘even when you’re old, you’ll still be my babies’. So, the first time I heard it, I thought, that’s such a beautiful song lyrically, saying, “I still need you even though I’m a little older now”. Was this song written with the intention of reminding us of the importance of family ties?
Paddy wrote that song completely. He brought it as a finished product, which was kind of cool. He was brought up by his mum and they have a fantastic relationship. I think from what I gathered from it, he’s saying that he still needs his Mum and I think we all need our Mums regardless of who you are and how old you are.
We wanted to put it on the album as well because, there are so many different songs, that it still ties back to that original sound, so our original fans aren’t going yell at us for being so different, which was important to us, to record it as just a guitar and kick drum so it’s like old school Dreggs as well. It’s a really cool song. Our management was pushing for that to be a single. They loved that one as well. It’s been really cool to send the album to different people and hear what they think the singles should be. It’s been a mix which is a great problem to have you know, if people think every song’s a single it’s it must be an alright album at least.
You’ve been such a force in the touring music world in Australia; once you found momentum, something kicked off, and it just didn’t stop, and I have seen you guys live more times than I can remember. My daughter always wanted to come along with me, but she wasn’t old enough. I’ve noticed that in your upcoming shows, you have booked a lot of all-ages shows. Is this something that you have consciously done to help bring your music out to the younger audience?
Because we are still completely independent musicians, before the start of last year, we were doing everything ourselves. We’d go to venues and be like, ‘hey, we want to make this all ages’. The music industry in Australia is funny. If you don’t have the right name behind you or the right brand behind you, they will just say you’re not doing it. It’s something that we’ve always wanted to do, service everyone who likes our music, which are also teenagers and young kids. There’s no reason why they shouldn’t be able to come to a show. Now that we’re getting to a point within Australia where we can have the last say, which is really nice to finally be able to be like ‘you know what, we want to make this all ages’ and the venue will be like ‘OK let’s do it’. It’s something that we’ve always wanted to do and we’re happy that we can now finally start doing it. And I think with future shows, if the all-ages ones aren’t what everyone likes, then we can do a little matinee show before for underage and then will go off and then bring in the all the over eighteens and do the shows.
It’s hard with a lot of venues too, because when you do these shows they take the ticket sales but where they make their all of their money is over the bar.
Absolutely. We do need to keep that in mind as well because many venues are closing down around Australia, which is really tragic at the moment. So it’s finding that balance, isn’t it?
Of course, like anything, it’s about balance. It is especially right now; it’s a terrifying time in Australia; you’re seeing all these festivals getting cancelled and people holding off on buying tickets just to buy the massive American artists that come over and stuff like that. I think we’re in a real funny time to be a musician within Australia. It’s kind of scary we’ve just announced the biggest tour we’ve ever done ticket-wise, and across the board, tickets sales are down 40%. So it’s a scary time. We’re lucky though; our album launch tour is completely sold out. It’s just it’s the one after that they were a bit nervous about.
Talking about your live shows, there’s something particularly special about a Dreggs show. When you guys perform, it’s like you can push this energy of absolute joy and happiness across to everybody within the immediate vicinity. No matter how many times somebody sees you live, it might the fifth or sixth time, you still get this sense of excitement and happiness, like being at a big party with a bunch of friends. Do you get that? Do you pick up on that vibe as well, and do you feel it from the up there on the stage?
We definitely do feel it. We have had a lot of people coming to talk to us and say ‘you know, whatever ‘it’ is, you guys have it’. We don’t know what ‘it’ is, you know. We try our best to keep shows interesting. Some friends have been touring at the same time and are still doing the same stuff. We’ve added a band now to change it up, so it’s not just the two of us it’s a band. We’re getting lighting guys in. Every time you come we want it to feel different in a certain way; we still want it to feel like our show. But yeah, we definitely feel a lot of love. We are so lucky, like our crew to come to our shows, we’ve been touring for seven years, there’s only been one fight in the crowd out of every show we’ve done. I don’t know, it does feel like a big party where everyone’s friends. My parents come to our shows sometimes and they’ve made so many friends that they now hang out with through our shows. It’s cool we can bring people together like that. We’re doing what we love, and we still love it after this many years of touring. I don’t know what it is, but yeah, we love it.
You have always built such a great audience experience at live shows. I remember early on, you would be at the merch desk signing stuff and talking to the fans. That personal experience is something people don’t often get from artists at live shows, it’s something that you really do give to your fans. I think that’s so important. It builds such a connection.
Without people coming to our shows, I’d still be concreting, and Paddy would still be tiling. Without everyone who supports us, we’re nothing. It’s getting a bit hard now; for bigger shows like the Fortitude Music Halls and the Metro Cities, it’s a bit much to go out in the crowd. But we just did a regional run where almost every single show was around 300 capacity. We went out every single night. We missed that; we miss going out, talking to everyone, and meeting people. We see it as part of the job, even when people come up and ask for photos and stuff, they feel a bit funny, it’s ok, we love it, we love meeting you guys it’s the whole point.
You have two tours coming up. Your ‘Album Launch Parties’ kick off in a few weeks, then you’re head off around Australia and New Zealand in June. Will fans still hear so old favourites amongst the new songs at the ‘Caught In A Reverie’ tour?
Obviously, from being a music lover as well, you go to a gig and then your favourite artist doesn’t play your favourite song, so the album launch parties are going to be way more intimate. We’re going to be out in the crowd afterwards, talking to everyone selling our merch personally. These first album launch parties will be more of us telling stories about the songs. Playing some old songs, just having fun with it. Whereas the other shows will be a proper show. We’ll have the whole crew there will have the whole band. We’ll have a lot going on, whereas these launch parties are more just like a celebration of the album and us talking about everything, and they’ll just be a bit more personal I think.
Speaking of New Zealand. Will this be your first tour there?
We’ve been twice so far. I don’t know why we haven’t been over more often. It’s so easy to get to and everyone over there is so lovely. We seriously do love NZ. We’re taking the band this time, which will be a completely different show. The duo is cool, and it’s worked for us, but I think what our band brings is just a whole other level. We can really get into depth with our songs and the different parts of the dynamics work. You struggle a little bit to do that as a duo with a one-foot stomp and two guitars. We were really nervous about bringing the band out because we’ve been a duo for so long, but everyone seems to love it. We haven’t had any complaints, which is the coolest thing.
Everyone has a connection to a different song, but I just hope people can connect to the new stuff as well as the old stuff as well.
‘Caught In A Reverie’ will be released on Friday April 26
PRE-SAVE HERE
THE DREGGS
ALBUM LAUNCH PARTIES
FRI 26 APRIL | MIAMI MARKETTA, GOLD COAST | *SOLD OUT*
SAT 27 APRIL | KINGS BEACH TAVERN, SUNSHINE COAST | *SOLD OUT*
SUN 28 APRIL | THE TRIFFID, BRISBANE | *SOLD OUT*
WED 1 MAY | TORQUAY HOTEL, TORQUAY | *SOLD OUT*
THURS 2 MAY | NORTHCOTE SOCIAL CLUB, MELBOURNE | *SOLD OUT*
THE DREGGS
ALBUM TOUR – AU/NZ
FRI 14 JUNE | HINDLEY STREET MUSIC HALL, ADELAIDE | ALL AGES
SAT 15 JUNE | METRO CITY, PERTH | 18+
FRI 21 JUNE | THE FORTITUDE MUSIC HALL, BRISBANE | ALL AGES
FRI 28 JUNE | ENMORE THEATRE, SYDNEY | ALL AGES
SAT 29 JUNE | THE FORUM, MELBOURNE | 18+
FRI 26 JULY | THE CHURCH, CHRISTCHURCH, NZ | 18+
SAT 27 JULY | U BAR, DUNEDIN, NZ | 18+
SUN 28 JULY | YONDER, QUEENSTOWN, NZ | 18+
THU 1 AUGUST | SAN FRAN, WELLINGTON, NZ | 18+
FRI 2 AUGUST | TUNING FORK, AUCKLAND, NZ | 18+
With thanks to On The Map PR
