We delve into career choices, omens, and the mystical question of figuring out GOD, with the hella charismatic band that is Dylan’s Omens
Melbourne’s Dylan’s Omens blend chaos and killer riffs. We explore their collaborative music scene, the story behind their song ‘Weak and Pathetic‘ (inspired by bullies!), and their unexpected sources of happiness (cherries and socks, anyone?).
Get ready for their new single ‘Narcotised Sleep’ and a future overflowing with music – they’ve got 18 tracks waiting to be unleashed!
Happy: What are you up to today?
Logan: Embodying the broke musician lifestyle.
Tom: I’m currently on a gap year from my Bachelor Of Audio Engineering, working as a stagehand/event labourer.
Dylan: I’ve spent 47 consecutive hours trying to figure out if what we call ‘God’ is really a supernatural, omnipresent being judging all of our individual actions and categorising them within standards he holds which are perfectly stated within biblical texts, OR if he’s simply part of a higher dimension we can’t possibly conceive within our 3rd-dimensional cranial-movements which outdoes all of our basic, cavemen-like, human understanding.
I am still no closer to a solid answer.
Nic: Constantly beating myself up over my career choices.
Happy: What are some omens that Dylan has encountered, that perhaps inspired the band name?
Nic: Garlic Bread incident, circa 2020-2023.
Dylan: Seeing Peter Garrett’s moves onstage at age four; quiet an Omen. And also a certain incident that took place at Rod Laver Arena in 2013, involving Bruce Springsteen needing a little vocal help during ‘Waiting On A Sunny Day.’
He’d always get a kid up on stage to help him sing the chorus of that song during that tour, and we just happened to be there, so I suppose you can guess the rest…
Happy: Can you tell us a little about how the band came to be?
Dylan: I started trying to put together a band to play the songs of ‘Tailing Naivsag’ live, but every musician around North-East Victoria already had their own local bands going on.
So, in early 2023, I moved to Melbourne to study at the Australian Institute Of Music. After a lot of trial and error in other bands and lineups, I finally met Nic and Tom through our mutual musician friend Minami Deguchi.
Logan came and saw us finish off ‘The Cherry Tour’ in Canberra in December 2023, and after two months, he moved to Melbourne and joined as our offical bassist. So yeah; trial and error from 2022 to 2024.
Tom: The previous guitar player of Dylan’s Omens and good friend, Minami Deguchi, contacted me about playing bass for the band, which I accepted. Unfortunately, he was unable to continue in the band, so I took his place as guitarist
Logan: I moved to Melbourne and there just so happened to be a spot that opened up with my name on it.
Nic: I got a call with an offer, then decided to drag along Tom and Logan.
Happy: What’s the music scene like in your neck of the woods?
Dylan: Very healthy and exciting where I am in Brunswick. Every band wants to support each other, every band want to go above and beyond, and every band just wants to make it loud.
Nic: The music scene we are a part of has a lot of community aspects. We all try and help one another out, and I think that’s the way it should be; you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.
Logan: It’s very much a sort of ‘You help me, I help you’ kind of scene, which is how it should be, as the beautiful and sexy Nicholas Murray has pointed out.
Tom: Not much live music in the far western suburbs; I often travel to the city and seek out live music there.
Happy: What does a typical day look like when recording a song like ‘Weak And Pathetic’?
Logan: Well, I guess we all just lay in bed and then get a message from Dylan that says he has finished recording everything, then we all cheer and scream.
Nic: Dylan can make up some stuff on how we all contributed, when we all know he did it by himself.
Dylan: A typical day involves a lot of stress and panic regarding vocals. During the recording of ‘Lyélum’s Lake,’ I was yet to master metal screaming, so I lost my voice.
After a few weeks of healing, I recorded the full thing, but the throat scream technique didn’t really fit the song.
So, I spent a few months self-training my false chords and fry screams, went back to Ashbury Studios in Albury, and re-did them with much more grit and distortion.
Happy: What would you say is the message behind the track?
Logan: Errrrrrrmmmmmm… I don’t know; it sounds cool to me though.
Dylan: I wrote the song to vent about some nasty bullies I had to deal with in school. When writing the album, I was dealing with some horrible mental issues, and after a few months, I figured out that all my problems were somewhat traced back to those people.
The track is a breaking point for the character, and the lyrics are everything I want to say to those people.
Nic: Ask Dylan.
Happy: There’s some pretty guttural and grisly vocals on the track. Are these are fun and cathartic to record as it seems?
Dylan: It’s interesting, because the song is fairly periodic. I wrote that song well before we recorded it, and by the time we headed into the studio to do those vocals, I’d addressed my issues in therapy and grown a lot as a person.
So while it was certainly both fun and cathartic, it’s even better now, because I can just enjoy myself on stage singing it.
Happy: Anything else exciting on the horizon that you can tease for us?
Nic: The next single coming out is called ‘Narcotised Sleep.’
Dylan: The new EP obviously, but keen eye-readers nah already know that there are 18 tracks recorded and ready. So after this EP, one word: Sequels.
Logan: Narcotised Sleep.
Tom: Something sticky and found all over the walls in bar bathrooms.
Happy: What makes you happy?
Nic: Transformers.
Tom: Music.
Logan: Sex and/or food.
Dylan: Cherries. And socks.
