After their self-titled debut album was met with critical acclaim, London rockers Dream Wife quickly emerged as one of the most exciting new additions to the British music scene in 2018. Now with a host of successful tour dates and a forthcoming second album this July to add to their repertoire, the band have been able to utilise their platform to help inspire fans to achieve their goals.
Sharing its name with the upcoming new release, the ‘So When You Gonna…’ podcast allows the band to share intimate and powerful messages with their fanbase as they aim to provide them with creative direction for the next steps of their life.
With each episode solely focusing around a different creative, DREAM WIFE are able to unearth the driving forces behind some of their biggest artistic inspirations. When asked about the podcast, the band’s guitarist Alice Go emphasised its importance in promoting communication:
“Throughout this process we’ve been talking to artists, friends, collaborators and people who generally inspire us. We want to start the conversations on how to join those dots, so for example, how can an aspiring photography student become a professional photographer. There is no straightforward route of A to B, it’s different for everyone, you just have to believe in yourself, so hopefully it’s able to educate people and inspire them to follow a certain path.”
As a founding member of the band alongside lead singer Rakel Mjöll and bassist Bella Poppadec, Go has revelled in the opportunities to assert herself musically. Spending most of her early life in Somerset, the guitarist often struggled with social interaction and thus found verbal expression particularly difficult. Since the three-piece’s formation during her time at the University of Brighton however, she has thrived in utilising their songs to explore new methods of communication.
Reflecting on the band’s significance in her life, Go said: “I was a bit of a loner, most of my friends were people that I had been in bands with. Music has always been what has given me my sense of community. I’ve always felt like a loner and I think with Dream Wife or more recently, I feel much more able to embrace people and I’m much less closed off than usual. I think that it has made me a much warmer person, sharing love with people through music, it’s an honour to be able to do that, on a personal level it’s a great thing.”
Like many successful music acts across the world, Dream Wife have found their momentum halted by the implementation of COVID-19 social distancing measures.
With new music set to be released and a string of cancelled European dates scheduled for the start of May, the band will be raring to go when the return of live music is given the green light. In the meantime, Go has been persistent in her efforts to prevent the lockdown from withholding her creatively.
Touching on her own lockdown experience, she revealed that current events had not discouraged her experimental side: “I’m really lucky because I live in a house with our bassist Bella, our friend Amy and my partner so I’m around people a lot. It’s all about exploring music and ways of communicating that aren’t verbal and just trying to digest what’s going on.”
“We’ve been really enjoying just playing songs around a campfire outside in our garden and finding ways to communicate with each other through art and music, it feels like a very therapeutic thing for us to enjoy together really. I would say stay creative because it’s really healthy and a great way of understanding what’s going on because thinking about it can make you even more confused.”
A prominent collective ethos that runs throughout the band and their discography is an in-depth focus on gender equality and the rights of non-binary and transgendered individuals. The production process involved in their second album has been a perfect encapsulation of this. Working alongside talented Italian producer Marta Salogni in an all-female team, it was a fitting social environment in which the trio could expand their musical horizons. ‘You could tell with some of the conversations we had about the songs in the room, there was a real sense of fun and like a sense of sharing,” Go gleamed.
“It felt like we were all engaged in this conversation and there wasn’t any sort of hierarchy. ‘I think the experience was a dream come true and it was the only way we could have made this record. The best thing was being able to practice what we preach in a world where less than 5% of records are produced by women, for us it was really important and I feel proud of that decision.”
As for what the future holds, Go has her sights focused on another stint of successful tour dates. The large run of shows that followed their debut success surpassed 150, spanning across numerous countries.
Although contributing towards commercial and monetary gain, she feels that their live shows signify much more to the band and their loyal fanbase. “I think it’s good that even though we are in lockdown we can still talk with our fans, we can engage with our community, but I think we all really miss the live shows, how real it is and how it just cuts through the bullshit.
It’s all well and good doing a podcast but there is nothing quite like playing an amazing show where everybody is on board with this feeling and it is going to be absolutely euphoric when we can do that again.”
The superb ‘So When You Gonna…’ Podcast is now available to stream on a number of major platforms including Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Google Play.
Our full interview with Alice can be found on the Soundsphere magazine YouTube channel.
By Owen Thompson
