Adream Asleep performs at the newly-renovated Fitzgerald's. The band is composed of talented musicians with numerous awards, including a Houston Press Music Award for best hardcore/noise band. Many fans came out to support their latest effort with Skeleton Dick. | Kendra Berglund/The Daily Cougar
Hardcore music is a pretty niche genre. It’s full of sub-genres from screamo to death metal, but has a loyal group of followers who are constantly looking for new entertainers to please their eardrums (and sometimes make them bleed).
Adream Asleep, a group of Houstonians that won the 2010 Houston Press Music Award for Best Hardcore/Noise, played an album release party Friday night at Fitzgerald’s and enjoyed every minute of it.
“We had a freaking great time,” lead vocalist Mike Seals said. “I enjoyed the hell out of the show. The crowd participation was good, too.”
Adream Asleep doesn’t just hope for crowd involvement like most bands, and it doesn’t try to hype the crowd up by clapping onstage. Instead, from the onset of their set, members of the group jump offstage and mosh with their fans, who are always happy to oblige.
Seals’ wife is a regular at the shows and is a huge fan, too. As far as the onlookers are concerned, she works as somewhat of a hype woman for her husband’s band. Getting a pretty girl to the front of the crowd has and will always draw attention to any group onstage, and once the crowd is in place, Adream Asleep shreds, screams and soars on the crowd’s energy, always delivering a strong performance
Skeleton Dick, who won the 2010 HPMA for Best Punk, recently collaborated with Adream Asleep for a split CD, which is a recording of the two bands reinterpreting the same songs for their respective genres; this was the reason for the party.
“We sold a few (albums, but) we didn’t really keep track,” Seals said. “But it looks like the money is good.”
Seals and his crew don’t worry about the money too much and are more interested with the audience having a good time, finding new fans and garnering attention for the band.
“We’re going to get started working on our next EP,” Seals said. “We were originally planning on a split CD with Cavernous, (and we) still might do that.”
But money is the key factor determining how much of Adream Asleep’s plans will come to fruition.
“We actually want to start playing with more bands that are more like us,” said Seals. “We don’t really know of many though, (but we’re) going to start looking.”
But it’s not going to be an easy task. Bands like Adream Asleep are relatively few and far between, but the group is determined.
“I think the lack of bands (like us) here has helped get us fans who are looking for that type of music, but there is a lot of people in this city who don’t listen to anything but what’s on the radio,” said Seals, who is fully aware of the limitations of his genre. “If we played that type of music, I bet we would have a lot more fans, but oh well … there’s enough fans for us to play what we want and be happy.”
The group is constantly asked what it would define its genre as. The members’ answer isn’t simple, but makes sense.
“I don’t really like to define any band’s music aside from the basic genres; otherwise it gets too complicated,” Seals said. “And all people have different opinions on it.
“Plus you don’t know if the person you’re describing it to is even going to know what the hell you’re talking about, (so) I usually just say hardcore, which is broad.”
“But they can listen (for) themselves and find out.”
