Start Listening To: Peel Dream Magazine

Joseph Stevens invites you into a fantastical, crooked universe of his own creation with his third album as Peel Dream Magazine.

The 34-year-old songwriter, who relocated to Los Angeles, delivers a significant sonic growth on Pad, the follow-up to the ground-breaking record Agitprop Alterna. Drum machines and synthesisers from the 1970s are still present, but he's switched out his buzzing offset guitar for a nylon-string instrument and chosen a delicate baroque pop sound infused with folk, Bossa, and its own strange mysticism. In addition to mid-century musical touchstones like Burt Bacharach, Stevens also draws inspiration from Harry Nilsson's 1970 song tapestry The Point!

Can you tell us who you are, where you’re from and about the music you make?

My name is Joe and I'm from White Plains, New York (close to the city). I make music with organs, vintage drum machines, synthesizers, and sometimes guitars. Early on I was associated with a shoegazey scene but lately I've been channeling more of a baroque pop feel.

What encouraged you to start Peel Dream Magazine and how did the band form in the way it is now?

I started Peel Dream Magazine when I was at a real ebb in morale regarding the New York DIY music scene. I felt like none of the bands there had ever really been receptive to me personally or musically and I just tuned out from all of them completely. It was all "garage" rock, no wave, punk music. I began demoing some of this organ-y, meditative pop music with my friend Shaun Durkan from Weekend and that eventually grew into my first album Modern Meta Physic. That record is just me messing around in my apartment, using fake drum samples and overdubbing all of the other instruments myself. Peel Dream Magazine is a solo moniker so it's not like a band formed/mutated the way some others do. I think my brain mutates, my sound changes, but it essentially formed the way it is now through perseverance and idiocy. I did play with some people for longer than others - one was my good buddy Brian Alvarez on drums. During the Agitprop Alterna album cycle I had my friend Jo-Anne singing on the record to expand the sonic palette a bit and moved into a heavier soundscape. Covid threw everything to the wind and I ended up moving to LA. There I made my new album Pad and took on this more "solo" kind of presentation, but I'm really just doing what I've always done. Writing songs and making records.

What is the background story of your band name?

It's nonsense and sounds corny when I talk about it now, but I wanted the band to sound like it was a subscription that you could keep coming back to. John Peel represents this incredible ethic around substance in pop music and DIY attitude. As if that's a standard, a dream to aspire toward. I also wanted it to feel similar to "Ultra Vivid Scene".

You recently moved to Los Angeles, how has the move influenced you as an artist?

I'm not sure yet. I had written most of Pad before I moved to LA - so the narrative that being surrounded by palm trees suddenly makes them less angry is a misnomer. I'll definitely say this - LA is an entertainment industry town. People here, whether they're musicians, artists, or film industry people, take themselves very seriously and go to more extreme lengths than people in New York, who tend to be a bit more indifferent and distracted by all of the chaos. So I think some of that "LA seriousness" has rubbed off on me a bit. People in LA are also more receptive to music and supportive of each other, so I think that's made me a little more comfortable taking risks.

Can you tell us more about how you produce your music?

I write songs the old fashioned way (in my brain?) and record them myself at home through an Apollo Twin interface. Sometimes I make something really fast and leave it alone so I can preserve a feeling it gives me. Other times I tinker endlessly, recording parts over and over again, switching sections around, etc. I'm a songwriter first and foremost. I worship the process and also try to preserve a bit of mystery in it for myself too.

How are you feeling about releasing your upcoming third album Pad?

Super excited :)

Can you tell us more about the concept behind this album?

The album was mostly written during the first several months of Covid, and it's got this very lonely vibe. I didn't set out to write a concept album from the start - it was just a collection of songs that all had this clean organ-based instrumentation. The idea just popped into my head one day that I could frame the album, generally, around this fantastical premise that I'd been kicked out of PDM. Do insane ideas ever pop into your head? I eventually make up with my band mates and rejoin. There's a lot of stuff in there - the push/pull nature of the institutions in our lives. The fantasy of what would happen if we "lost everything", and whether our life would continue on in some way. I implore people to listen for themselves though, maybe there's more that they could pick up on their own.

Name an album you’re still listening to from when you were younger and why it’s important to you?

Lately I've been having a Wilco renaissance and listening to Yankee Hotel Foxtrot a lot. That album meant so much to me in my late teens. I think it introduced me to the idea that difficult, fucked up/insane art can also be pop art. That is such a winning combination for me. That you can Trojan Horse higher level artistic concepts to audiences through folk and pop art like indie rock.

Do you feel like your parents influenced your personal music style or not at all?

Neither of my parents are particularly hip/musical but they do appreciate music/art/poetry/abstract thought and I think that rubbed off on me. Growing up I would listen to my mom's Beatles records and stuff. That definitely had an impact on me. The real answer to that question might actually be that my parents were so clueless about pop music that it allowed me to develop my own unique taste and association with DIY music. You meet some hip musicians, and find out that their parents were in a touring band in the 70s or something. That must be hard because it feels like a family business at that point. Art can be this wonderful thing where you pave your own way, and I could see that being complicated for people who got a lot of their music sensibility from their parents. I feel like my parent's basically shrug their shoulders when I show them my music - and there's something kind of cool about that dichotomy.

Is there any new music from 2022 you have been enjoying?

As far as new music, I've been enjoying some Brazlian artists - Tim Bernardes and Sessa. As well as Dummy's Mandatory Enjoyment. Healing Potpourri's record with Sean O'Hagen. New Green-House. The new Soccer Mommy record.

What was the best gig you’ve ever played and why?

I think our most recent show at the Lodge Room in LA was my favorite ever. We all ate a huge delicious meal in the green room beforehand and it has this really lovely vibe there. It was also the unveiling of our new lineup/songs/instrumentation, and it went over really well I thought. I've put a lot of work into getting the band to where it is post-covid, and it felt like the culmination of a lot. Some other favorite shows would be like...Turner Hall in Milwaukee this past Spring. That place is huge and beautiful and really knocked the wind out of me. I saw Brian Jonestone Massacre's salad prepped in the fridge back stage, which was fun. Oh also in Asheville North Carolina we took an elevator to the stage at Orange Peel. That was memorable :)

What advice would you give for anyone trying to achieve a similar sound to your music?

I'd say, "back off, fucker!" Just kidding :) Do you mean like, literally? I'd say buy a classical guitar and yamaha YC reface off of Craigslist, and download a bunch of Acetone Rhythm Ace drum machine samples. You will literally be 90% of the way there.

What do you love right now?

The food scene in LA. Go to the San Gabriel valley and get some Chinese food.

What do you hate right now?

The pressure that comes with releasing an album and being in "the music business". It's fun, but there's a good deal of nasty elbow-pushing and ear-whispering. You have to spend a lot of time on social media promoting yourself these days, and it's all very taxing. Not to mention it's just weird to plaster your art and face everywhere. Sometimes it makes me freeze up and I have to remember why I'm doing this in the first place.