m oder nA RTS
MODERN ARTISTS:
The Dreamb In conversation with Chris Hummel, lead singer and guitarist for the internationally renowned The Dreamboats 1. You're playing a hometown show at the Living Arts Centre on April 29th and after such a tumultuous time with the pandemic, what are your feelings and emotions leading up to it? Tons of mixed emotions leading up to this gig! Surreal being one of many. The pandemic has pushed so many of our shows back multiple times to the point where we were asking ourselves would they even happen? The fact that this is happening in a couple months is still hard to wrap our heads around. Anxious would be another feeling related to this show. It’s definitely one, if not thee biggest ticketed event we’ve promoted thus far. It’s been a very long time since we’ve performed a public show in Mississauga. Performing in front of our hometown crowd is not only the biggest honour, but a way to set the bar high for ourselves on delivering the best show experience we can give. We are proud of ourselves to hit this milestone, and appreciate all the love and support we’ve received along the way in our city. We owe this to our fans.
2. How has the band stayed motivated through the 2+year pandemic? The motivation has been the idea of sink or swim. A lot of our peers were going through the troubles of this pandemic alongside us. Some survived, and some didn’t. The thought of losing what we worked so hard for leading up to this point just wasn’t in the cards for us. When you love some thing as much as we love this band, you fight for it till there’s nothing left. The pandemic almost had us tap out at times, but we stayed motivated through writing and recording, talking about the future no matter how difficult it seemed, working in the stage show, and convincing ourselves that everything was going to be OK if we kept working through it, and I’m glad we did.
3. What was it like playing in Palm Springs earlier this year after such a long absence of performing? Our first show in Palm Springs since the pandemic was back in November 2021. It was such an amazing feeling getting to perform to bigger crowds during the pandemic because of the outdoor regulations allowing us to do so. It definitely spawned the idea to make the move as our regulations back home were questioned constantly. Playing Palm Springs gave us a feeling of momentum once again, something we haven’t felt for a couple years now.
4. What’s the band’s outlook for the balance of 2022? Our goal right now is to connect with as many bookers and event planners as possible to keep the calendar full while we plant our roots here in California. We have a few obligations back in Ontario that we are flying back and forth to until mid June 2022. After that point, we are making the effort to stay down here indefinitely.
18 MODERN MISSISSAUGA | SPRING 2022