Angels & Airwaves (Tom DeLonge and Ilan Rubin) talk about their new album The Dream Walker and how the story behind their mega project, Poet Anderson: The Dream Walker. Read their interview below.
****Diffuser: "Wow! Poet Anderson is a great project. The last time we talked, we talked about Love and movies and that's pretty big, but now you guys do this. Can you talk a little about The Dream Walker?****
Tom DeLonge: "Yes, when Angels & Airwaves first started, we wanted to make more of a band. It took us quite a while to release the first released movie, but we learned a lot about how to do it. We managed to get a lot of positive reviews, we were able to show that we care about cinema and are serious about it. We are able to do it independently. We are able to understand this medium and know what it takes to create the artwork. In this album, we now have a staff that has the ability to take it to a higher level. The difference in songwriting is, like all the artists involved in this project. Ilan Rubin wrote the song for the first time, so you'll realize the big differences in song writing and the more mature, more complex environments I think fit the overall ambition of the project. This is a multimedia project where we have New York Times best selling author writing novels for us that will be out in June. I believe we have a concept artist who also works for Star Wars on this project, we have a comic book, a graphic novel that will be released internationally. We have been doing it for 2 years with some animators I met in Europe. They are amazing, and if you look again the different things that happen now is we are more organized, we know what we do and we can invite some people to work together and it works. This is fun and this is just the beginning. I've just been hibernating for a long time, but we're back now and making it a reality. "
****Diffuser: "Awesome, Ilan. I know that you've been working with Tom for a long time. Can you talk a little about how you see this project?****
Ilan Rubin: "So I met Tom about 3 years ago and I joined Angels & Airwaves. That's right when Love and the movie are released. We did a little tour, about months of traveling around Europe, UK and some shows in Southern California. Then we write and record our next music. So, Poet Anderson is an idea that Tom has for a long time and he will give you more detail. It was something he talked to me about and something he had done, but only a few months ago I could enjoy what he dreamed of. So I know of course a concept, an idea from Poet Anderson, concept art and things like that. So I think being able to see a short animation is a nice thing let alone write a music for it, but that's just one point of view from a larger release. Her own album, done by Tom and me for the past two years, between her busy schedule and my schedule. First of all we set it up while we were in the same city, we are looking to know how best to do it. Once that is known, we become very productive and the album is now almost complete.
****"Diffuser:" Poet Anderson is the main character of this album and your multimedia project. Tom, can you talk a little about the idea of the character, how the character is formed and how do you view that?****
"Tom DeLonge:" I think when I suspect it will be how this character is. I compare it to Disney, Marvels, and DC Comics, but they're all unrelated to me because I'm not going to make anything with a superhero theme. I want to make it with philosophy. So I have this idea about creating characters around human behavior. First of all. the Love project is about human consciousness and losing everything near you so you realize the importance of every thing around you, which makes you think that your goal is to experience relationships with others. With Poet, it's all about dreams. This is the idea that nightmares will set you up for the real world and within an infinite universe sphere, your dreams could be just the real thing going on in other galaxies. You fall asleep and you wake up and you do it. Who knows the true meaning of dreams? Why do we dream? So the two things we're going to do after Poet is something different. But it will still revolve around the human race.
We are able to immerse that thing (theme) into a complex and consumable story. Poet like that, this is something a bit like science fiction and it all starts with the character I dreamed about in Paris about 10 years ago in a hotel room. A little man with hats and umbrellas, he looks like a new version of Peter Pan I think. I'm obsessed with some science fiction movies, Tron and Star Wars. So to me it's like, how I mix nightmares, Star Wars, and Tron together. That is something I also do with music. Ilan thinks I'm childish, all the things we do are a picture of me who wants to be part of the things I love when I'm a kid. As a child, I was just a spectator, but with this project I was not just a spectator anymore. I'm part of it.
****"Diffuser:" I have to ask this, the sketch for artwork (Dream Walker) is amazing. How do you get this?****
"Tom DeLonge:" I have a hard disk full of artwork, but still the best thing will come in the next few weeks (Poet Anderson). It's hard to tell how good this animation is, unreal. One of our concept artists created a character about "night stalker", which is the enemy of The Dream Walker. It's like Jedi and Sith (in Star Wars). We've spent the time to create this character, but what excites me is the very good story. Poet Anderson is an orphan, he and his brother are orphans, but his brother is in a coma. He believes the only way to contact him is through lucid dreams, the things he and his brother often do as a child. There is a lot of research about who he is, what he has and what he should release. I am very excited about it and it is all supported by an extraordinary and futuristic character that I think will be liked by everyone. Another thing that people do not know is that this character has something called Hello, which is a glowing ball that will shine around them, it is their soul. The idea is that you can take your dreams to a higher level and you can control them as you please, create the dream you want, you have to put your soul, you have to put yourself there. If you are the one who does this, you will realize that this is part of the spiritual story. That's what we can say here, it will be a fun thing. "
****Diffuser: "Of course as these musicians all start with music, but with all those ideas from comics, movies, and books, how far are these media unthinkable when you try to write music?****
" Tom DeLonge: "Yes, it should be thought own. Everything should look good from its own perspective and then be able to connect either directly or indirectly. We can not have a cool artwork, but bad music. We can not have a cool book, but the soundtrack to support it is the worst thing you've ever heard. The main objective is that every artist in this project does its part with the best of its ability. Whether it's a concept artist or an animator, or I and Ilan in the band. Ilan is younger than me, but he can play all the instruments we need better than myself. To be honest I just realized that I can only play one instrument, but he can do it all. I think with the way we work together with people who are experts in their fields, we can say that every thing we do can stand alone, support each other, but still can be good without any other support. So if we do it right, people who go to our show will love the novel as well. The people watching in the cinema are the ones who also love Angels & Airwaves. Maybe we can get people to come to the show to celebrate. All the things we do, all have amazing messages for everyone, especially for people in early adulthood. This is a new world and I just want to do a good thing.
****"Diffuser:" From what I hear about your new music. I think you guys are the perfect couple. I hear how Angels & Airwaves albums are supposed to be like and obviously your music evolves. I also heard what Ilan is doing with New Regime influencing the new sound of your music. "****
Tom DeLonge: "Of course, yes." Ilan Rubin: "This is an interesting process for Tom and myself to find out how we can work outside our normal territory, in musicality. Ever since we were able to locate it, our productivity has increased and much of the exciting music we produce together. And this I have to say, the last few songs sounded more interesting. "Tom DeLonge:" It's like we have to do it now. "Ilan Rubin:" Yeah, I'm curious what we're doing next. It continues to evolve, but the period when you listen to what we can do together, as you say. This is not typical of Tom, this is not typical of me. This is something new, so so far, this is a good progress and will be more interesting. "