Ten Years in a DreamState

It’s been ten years since I started working on DreamState. Since then, it has gone through many different storylines, songs, and titles. The first incarnation in February 2007 was all about sleep paralysis and astral projection, which is still a pretty cool idea. I might have to go back to that someday. Needless to say, DreamState never really developed under that storyline. During the early summer days of 2007, DreamState morphed into a story about ancient astronaut theory. That concept didn’t make it past the drawing boards. Later that same summer, I started writing these short stories under the name DreamState. The goal was to create a series of bizarre and independent Twilight Zoney stories that had a very fine thread holding them together. I set the first of these stories to music that August. I still have many of the demos that I recorded for that abandoned version of DreamState.

In March of 2008, my band “One Eyed Seconds” began work on what was supposed to be a lengthy song about seasons, time, ghosts, and all sorts of nonsense that I don’t recall very well. I remember a part about two travelers in the woods and a part about dust settling on a ghostly figure. Again, this project was ultimately abandoned and very little was put to paper… almost nothing was recorded from this project. The summer of 2008 brought some promise for the DreamState project. The One Eyed Seconds started working on a story about two travelers getting lost in the forest. A lot of the ideas from this version have been ported into the final DreamState album. In fact, one of the songs, Constantine, is almost exactly the same. I think that we were a little bit too ambitious for our musical abilities at the time. There were a lot of ideas, but I didn’t really know how to express them the way I heard them in my head. From 2008 until 2013, the project made very little ground. I had given up on it. I tried to focus on recording and releasing a simpler album. A realistic goal that I could actually accomplish. I did that. Between 2012 and 2016, I’ve released three albums and two EPs, but now the DreamState bug has bitten me again. In 2013, I decided to revisit the concept album. I wrote a new story that incorporated the best ideas from all the previous projects into a single unified concept. This story was revised dozens of times from 2013 until early 2017. I decided to expand the idea a bit, making it a two part affair. Many of the songs from the 2007 sessions have made their way back to the current album in some form. The general story is now a merger of the first two Twilight Zoney DreamState stories from back in 2007, the Forest version from 2008, and some fresh new ideas. DreamState is basically about two friends who go on a surreal and somewhat mystical journey through the forest. On the way, they get lost and each has to find his own way out. As far as the music is concerned, I like to think of DreamState as progressive rock textures with powerpop melodies. I want it to be accessible to anyone, but have a proggy depth. All of the music is written and much of it is already recorded! This is the most ambitious project I’ve ever worked on. It’s a double album. There is a 13 minute long suite of 5 songs that all connect together. There’s another suite on the second half of the album. There are recurring themes and motifs. The story has some twists and turns, emotional depth, and some bizarre imagery. I’m extremely excited to finally finish this album after ten long years. I can’t wait to post more updates on this one!