Montreal, QC-based indie-folk band The Day Dreamers have unveiled their new single, “Only A Kid,” along with a music video to accompany the release.
The band consists of Ali Kouri (vocals/guitar), Tiana Desiree Grandilli (vocals/violin), Stephanie Maier (vocals/keys), Lou Raskin (bass), and Cedric de Saint-Rome (drums). Formed in 2013 in high school, the band’s ambition is to create music with a style all its own, a mix of pop-folk, violin, and classical drums with introspective lyrics about dreams, love, and loss.
The song was written by Ali at a time in her life when she lacked confidence in herself and who she was. “Only A Kid” is a paradox: the verses express insecurity, indecision, lack of strength and independence, and the chorus describes overcoming your pitfalls, trusting yourself, and your growth process.
To visually translate this concept, the video presents the parallel story between Ali and her young self. Throughout the video, she recounts her youth in an effort to regain a sense of identity and remember to trust herself as she grows.
Watch the video for “Only A Kid” below and learn more about The Day Dreamers via our Five Questions With segment.
Care to introduce yourself to our readers?
My name is Ali. I’m the lead singer & guitarist for The Day Dreamers. We are a 5-piece, dream-rock band from Montreal. We formed in high school and have been writing and performing together for the last eight years.
Tell us a bit about your most recent release.
“Only a Kid” is all about growing pains and the realization that it’s okay to make mistakes. The song is built on tension and duality as we grapple with feeling lost and unsure, all the while needing to forgive ourselves to grow and move forward with our past experiences.
In translating this idea visually, the music video presents a parallel story between myself and my younger self. Throughout the video, I recount and remember my youth in an effort to regain a sense of self and remind myself to trust my growth process. We filmed the video last summer at my uncle’s remote cottage up north, and it features my little cousin Mia as my younger self.
Where do you tend to pull inspiration from when writing?
I think there’s a perfect balance whereby half of our inspiration comes from personal and internal thoughts and ideas (anxieties, fears, dreams) while the other half is heavily based on the people around us and the situations we find ourselves in. We often synthesize the two, taking moments and memories and abstracting them slightly by opening them up into our imaginations.
Working collaboratively as a band, our inspirations often stem from five different places. The best part of this is that, sometimes, I’ll share an idea without fully understanding it yet, and my bandmates will be able to understand and explain it and build upon it.
Do you have any upcoming shows or festivals you’d like to tell us about?
Yes! We’ve got a few shows around Montreal throughout the summer, starting on July 6th at Bar de Courcelle in St-Henri. Our big festival of the summer is at Ottawa Bluesfest on July 15th. We’ll also be back in Montreal on July 27th for the lunchtime concert series at Place d’Armes, in front of the Notre-Dame Basilica.
What’s your goal for 2022?
We have two big goals for 2022. The first is to release our first French songs. As we’re from Montreal, French is a big part of our lives. It has been a rewarding challenge to explore French as a lyrical language, and we love that we can connect with our bilingual community in this way.
The second is to finish our next album. It’s a culmination of music written during the pandemic. Over the last two years, we’ve been experimenting with our sound and our songwriting, pushing our own boundaries. We are eager to continue exploring these avenues and see how the project evolves.