It’s official: we now know what DREAMS are made of. No One Defeats Us is the first taste of music from one of Australia’s most anticipated new bands, DREAMS – a collaboration between Daniel Johns (aka Dr Dreams) and Luke Steele (aka Miracle). Check out their explosive, Talking Heads-indebted debut single below.
“We wanted to go with something first that said ‘we are here to rip your head off,” says Daniel Johns.
“The song is the whole genesis of the band,” Luke Steele adds. “This is where it all started for us. Listen to the first verse – ‘… no one defeats us because we are a spirit, one as a body, the new controversy’.”
Written and produced by DREAMS, it was recorded at Steele’s studio in Los Angeles and Henson Studios, Hollywood. It’s the first song the famous musical duo wrote together after a long, long period of talking, thinking and wondering.
As Johns explains, “No One Defeats Us says lyrically what our goal is, it’s a journey into our vision of the future. It’s a very simple song, it has no chorus, it feels like a mantra. When Luke and I are making music, everything disappears and we become like teenage explorers, we go into our world, we are so brave when we are together, we try things that we might not try for other people.
“This song is not really what people would expect from Luke and I, we’re not making super-complex music with lots of unusual chords this time. We are trying to paint this really intricate pulse. We find what resonates and try to make that pulse stronger.”
“Me and Dan excel and struggle on similar levels,” says Luke. “We have so much passion and we are so ambitious. That song came from a time when we were beginning the band and we needed something deep. I wanted to build a gang – like a gang of the future. We want the band to be for the common man, the underdog, the homeless, the person who shows love to his neighbour.”
DREAMS is the realisation of a long-time friendship and musical kinship. The artists first met in 2004 when Steele’s The Sleepy Jackson supported Silverchair on their sold-out Diorama tour, the connection between them was so instant that after the first show of that tour they played piano together backstage, and have basically never stopped. They have sold over 10 million albums worldwide and have 29 ARIA Awards between them. Undefeatable.
DREAMS will make their debut performance at Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival this April. The only band ever to be booked for the festival before releasing any music, the duo is the highest-billed Australian band.
No One Defeats Us is out now. Check it out below.
