Everything we've done is in our discography and our gig history
In summer 2018, Andrew Craig and wife Jane started writing songs at home and on holiday and wondering what it would take to start a band again, some 20 years after their last one.
With an obsessive interest in 80s/90s indie music, the duo were always going to take influences from the past and reshape them into their own sound.
The pair from near Brighton, England soon established their style, combining catchy reverb-drenched female vocals, thoughtful lyrics, strong melodies and bold guitar hooks. They called the band Dreams of Empire – a tongue in cheek reference to a phrase meaning “the aimless quest for glory”.
After a clutch of singles starting with debut “Drive On”, released in December 2018, then “Skinny Dipping“, “Swarm” and “Radiation“, the band released their debut album “Nothing’s Ever Finished” on their own Duck Race Recording Co. label in September 2019.
In March 2020 the band released the single “Broken Keys” as a digital single and later as a limited edition cassette. Andrew and Jane spent the first half of 2020 (mostly in lockdown) writing and recording their second album.
Their second album “Encapsulation”, which includes the single “Hidden Girl”, was recorded by the band in lockdown 2020 and mixed remotely by Steve Whitfield (The Cure, Pale Saints).
In April 2021, the band was renamed Dreamcoaster, just ahead of reemerging from lockdown and expanding to a 4-piece for their first live appearance in more than 12 months. Regular live performances have followed.
Dreamcoaster spent 2021 writing and recording and the first results emerged in January 2022 with the release of the 3-track Dreamcoaster EP, their first release for the Spinout Nuggets label.
Andrew and Jane first hooked up in Luminous, an early 90s five-piece that collaborated with maverick US producer Kramer (Bongwater, Galaxie 500) who produced the band’s debut album ‘Concentrate’, released on his Kokopop label in 1994.