Music Q&A with Leo Dyke of Reminders
Photo courtesy of Reminders
Isle of Wight indie punks, Reminders, are getting ready to release their debut album, Best of Beach Punk, out this April! In this Q&A, vocalist and guitarist, Leo Dyke, talked about the album, who he would collaborate with if he could, how he keeps it posi, and more! Best of Beach Punk is out everywhere April 1st via Wiretap Records (USA) and Venn Records (UK) and is available for pre-order NOW!
Congratulations on the release of your upcoming debut album, Best of Beach Punk! What does this release mean to you?
Thanks! It's a huge deal, of course. Releasing an album is a really daunting thing for any band or artist, and this one has been a really long time coming. It's got songs from when I was sixteen through to nineteen, and it's a really intimate snapshot of this period of my life. It's definitely juvenile in places, but it's also very true and real. I really like that about it. I can't wait for people to get their teeth into it and apply their own meanings to the songs. Some people will love it, some will hate it, but we are super proud of it.
What is your favorite song off Best of Beach Punk?
This really is like asking a parent to choose its favourite child, and I definitely have a handful which feel like my favourites. I think right now it's a song called "Daisy". It's super bubblegum and poppy, but it's super honest and 100 percent true. I also think writing good pop songs is harder than writing intricate bullshit, and this song is about as poppy as we get. But "Victoria" is about a true story of a woman I grew up with, and how her life fell apart in her 40s. I think that tells a great story about really serious topics. Alcoholism, depression and abuse. I think that's what's so cool about the record in general, it comes at songs from different angles, some more serious and some totally juvenile, but it doesn't feel out of place or out of school. You can really hear us growing as people throughout the album. "Seaside Scampi" is about having a high school crush, "If You Want It" is about falling in love for the first time, and "Victoria" is about someone's life totally falling apart. Was that just a really elaborate way to say every song on the record is my favourite?!
When did you realize you wanted to create music?
I was 14 when I started writing music. I think before then I was always just throwing shit at the wall and seeing what stuck. I was a kid, I didn't know where I was going, I didn't care either, 14 is so young. But then when I became passionate about music, I did know, and I just wanted to write songs, that was it. I fucking love it.
Who has been your favorite artist or band to see live?
I saw Slaughter Beach, Dog at The Joiners in Southampton and it was unreal. It was a slower paced show than I'm used to, but was such a welcomed change. And the amalgamation of a great small, independent venue, and a sick band from Philly playing in Southampton, England was just super sick. It also came right before the pandemic and so was one of the last times I had enjoying myself without the fear of killing anybody, which, in retrospect must have been very liberating.
If you had a chance to collaborate with a musician, dead or alive, who would it be?
I want Billie Joe Armstrong to produce us and I want to write songs with Tim Armstrong. It's no great secret if you listen to our music the influence these two have had on our band. I'd be far too scared they'd hate it and it would ruin my life though, hahaha, hopefully they'd get it and be flattered by the copyright infringement.
We all have our days where it may not be going as well as we’d like. People deal with their worst days in different ways. What helps you get through the bad days? How do you stay positive?
It's definitely something I have to work on a lot. I have found that I have to work very hard on appreciating the good things in my life, whereas dwelling on the negative stuff seems to come very naturally. So I am no expert, and this is gonna sound super lame but writing songs has always helped me. And to be honest, it's probably the only bit of true advice I can give to this question. When I write a song, it feels like free therapy. I always end up working out a little bit more what the issue is, how I'm feeling on a deeper level. It's almost like my unconscious thoughts end up as lyrics on the page. Sometimes I write something that I think is completely meaningless, but I'll go back to it in a few days, weeks, and I'm like - 'oh shit, that's exactly how I felt/am feeling'. So not only do you gain a greater understanding of yourself and your feelings but every now and then, you come up with something really great. Something that you're super proud of. And at that point, well, yeah you experienced a hard time, you felt shit, and it fucking sucked. BUT, now you have this beautiful piece of art that you gained from it. So you take the darkest moments of your life, the hardest days, and you turn them into something really productive. And sometimes they may even get played on the radio, end up on an album, OR you might be talking about them in interviews. I don't want to say it makes the hard times worth it, but it does make them worth something. I know that sounds so wishy washy and fucking pretentious bollocks. I really do feel like that though. It helps me.
Thank you for taking the time for this Q&A. Any last words or final message for the readers?
Please listen to our album! I think you'll dig it. Let us know if you do on social media, @reminderstheband, we'd love to talk to you guys on there. If you do listen to it, thanks, hopefully this interview can give you a little more depth to how it all came to be. LOVE YA!