EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW BWD: First of all Welcome to BWD Magazine; please introduce yourselves
year, through our shows. We are basically influenced by 50% of western music
to our audience…
and 50% of oriental music, because me and Ash (the drummer) we are big fans of the mighty American big rock from the 80’s and 90’s. Kira and Yu are really
ASH: Hey there! We’re DNR (stands for Dreams Not Reality) an Italian visual
in the ‘Visual Kei’ scene taking big influences from the Japanese rock scene!
rock-J-rock oriented band born around 2006. We’re five guyz: Kira (bass player),
Our style is something that’s born natural every time we play together. It’s a
Axia (singer), Sieg (guitar player), Seba (keys and vocals) and Ash (drummer).
music marriage!
Our goal is to offer an original musical product which mixes our two main influences, western rock and eastern j-rock/visual kei... with a solid groove,
The other bands are really often focused on one style only. We believe it’s cool
strong melodies and a special attention to the look/visual side. We toured many
to be different and open minded.
countries playing several cool gigs and we’re finally about to release our first official full-length album!
BWD: Do you feel Japanese bands embrace the visual side of musical performance more so than other countries?
BWD: You recently released a video for the bands hit single Rock Princess, featuring the famous Canadian blogger and respected journalist La
Kira: ‘Visual Kei’ is the perfect combination between music and imagine, a
Carmina; how did this guest appearance come about?
strong Visual impact and cool Music in one shot... what else?! This kind of approach reflects in total our way to do everything: body and soul, all our self
Seba: At the time, La Carmina and I were working on a fashion event in Italy.
in the music! Mixing personal passions with the experiences learned rocking
It was great timing and we thought it would be a fun project to collaborate on.
around, that’s the main feeling in our song writing!
The mix of fashion, visuals and music came together in the video. We are very happy that the fans responded so well to it.
‘Visual Kei’ was born from the traditional Japanese “Kabuki Theatre” a modern interpretation keeping the cultural meaning behind every single make-up and
BWD: Bringing together the romantic appeal of visual, Kei with a European
note. We are truly lovers of this style, it’s not a secret, that’s the reason why
groove and Asiatic melodic lines has given DNR more than ‘a sound’; it
our first video was dedicated to Hide Matsumoto (XJapan) the song was a mix
seems to have created an entire new genre that only becomes more defined
between Hard rock and Jrock, the “yellow hearts guitar” used during the shoot,
with each release..?
and it’s our personal way to pay tribute to his loving memory! This also gave to us the opportunity to be noticed outside of Europe.
Axia: Yes, of course as long as we play together we defined our sound year by 14 • BWD Magazine • www.bwdmagazine.com