Dreamers Fixate on the Future with “Palm Reader”

“Palm Reader” is about an L.A. woman, one “adorned with all the crystals, sage, tarot cards, and sacred intuition,” says Dreamers’ singer and guitarist Nick Wold. “I was almost poking fun at her when she said she could tell my fortune,” adds Wold, “but then I realized while writing the chorus that maybe she can tell my future, since she decides it.”  

The latest single from the Los Angeles-based trio—Wold, along with bassist Marc Nelson and drummer Jacob Wick—“Palm Reader,” released along with a five-song EP of the same name, is Dreamers’ electro-pop-punk fusion with guests Big Boi and Upsahl on the title track, and other featured artists, which was a first for the band.

A fan of Outkast since the early 2000s, Wold says it was surreal having Big Boi collaborate on “Palm Reader.”

“I’ve been a massive fan of Outkast since high school, and of Big Boi’s lyrics, and he really came through with a verse that brought the song to a whole different level philosophically,” shares Wold. “Upsahl, who I’ve been writing with for a bit now, is such an incredible lyricist and force of nature musically. It all comes down to lyrics in the end for me, and I think we just try mixing it up and playing with concepts until something good like this happens.”  

Elaborating more on “Palm Reader,” Wold says it’s a story he’s had ruminating for quite some time. “I am a fan of science and philosophy—a secular rationalist—but have found myself in the land of crystal mysticism,” he says of the track, which he initially called “Sage,” before switching to “Palm Reader,” when he revisited it a year later. “It’s about a girl adorned with her crystals, herbs, and mystic premonitions, but also very much in love, infatuated with the beauty of it, kind of how I feel about L.A. as a city, too.”

A follow up to the the band’s Launch Fly Land, released in 2019, and their dual EP release of Launch and Fly in 2018, Palm Reader features several of the band’s hits, including “Still Not Dead,” with American Teeth and Wes Period, “Die Happy,” “Heat Seeker” (ft. grandson), and “True Crime” (ft. DeathByRomy).

“It’s an EP about life, death, and kind of a philosophical search for meaning,” says Wold. “I’ve been writing a lot about these things, trying to put to words the meaning of life, or at least dance around in the sweet confusion as we try to figure it out. ‘Palm Reader’ is a love song and a fun summer jam, but it’s also about spirituality and the modern iteration of it in this culture.”

On the road for the past five years since their 2016 debut This Album Does Not Exist, Wold says being off tour this past year, he was finally able to set up his home studio, practice, and write more. “It’s been a forced time of reflection and perspective taking,” he says, “and I’m appreciating every day of it.”

In assessing how the band is making music now, Wold says their mission has never changed: making great, expressive, and deep music that’s popular.

“In any generation there’s always some good music, and then a bunch of nonsense that gets really huge, and people are embarrassed about it later,” says Wold. “We want to contribute something meaningful to that conversation, and to make it rock, because that’s what we love.” 

Wold adds, “In other ways, every song is a reflection of the time it’s written and the person you are at that moment. I’ve changed so much in the last few years, as has the world, and in those ways I don’t even recognize the songwriter I was a few years ago.”

Now, Dreamers have more stories to tell—and stranger ones at that.

“This definitely still feels like the beginning of a journey for us, and we’re gonna keep on following the muse as long as it lets us,” says Wold. “I expect, and hope, that the music gets heavier and weirder as we grow. Madness awaits us as we continue to search, see, and dream.”