A day in the life of… Sad Night Dynamite

You know what’s easier than following around your fave pop stars, day in, day out, to see what they’re up to right that minute? Asking them. This month, we nab Josh Greacen from Sad Night Dynamite.

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8:30am → I rise, troubled by whispers that have plagued my sleep. I brush my hair and put on my socks and shoes before getting in the shower. Five minutes go by before I realise that my socks are mismatched. I curse at this mistake and brush my teeth. I don’t eat breakfast as punishment. Instead, I shamefully head to the decaf tea box, which teases me each morning – I’ve finally submitted to decaf tea after years of drinking the hard stuff, which has destroyed my mental health. Shards of last night’s dreams fly like daggers into my brain. I don’t recognise who I am in my dreams.

9:30am → Recently, I’ve been working in my living room/dining room, which is where I head next. On the way, I stub my toe and groan in pleasure. The decaf tea spills on the floor. This adds to the spike in my dopamine levels as I realise that today, I’ve beaten the decaf tea. The house is empty; both my sisters are long gone for work. It means I can make more noise than usual. My process involves a fair amount of screaming. Living with my sisters has been an unexpected joy in my life. I open a project in Logic and write something. Like most artists, nine times out of ten, my ideas are brilliant. I’m loving writing at the moment. The pressure of an album is in the past, and this freedom is making ideas flow more easily.

11:30am → I force myself away from my chair to greet the sun. Our neighbour’s house is boarded up and derelict after someone threw some rocks through their window. I think they were aiming for mine. Needless to say, everyone was evicted after I called the police. But I’m pretty sure someone still lives there, as the smell of weed still wafts through the walls and gets me secondhand high. I’d be sad if they left. Our garden is in disarray; occasionally, this will cause one of my sisters to panic and kill all the weeds. But they just grow back. Perhaps there’s a life lesson there.

1:00pm → After working some more, it’s time for my exercise. At the beginning of the year, I committed to running. After being aggressively against all forms of self-improvement, I relented, and it’s become a habit. I love it. More than anything, it gives my brain a second to breathe. I think it’s natural to want to run in the modern world. I update my Strava, tell my followers how much better I feel, and suggest they should do the same. This makes me feel even better.

2:00pm → Pasta.

3:00pm → The next hour is blanked out of my mind.

4:00pm → I’m starting to feel lonely; the day has been uneventful, aside from my musical meanderings. As I fall into a light depression, my mind wanders to past mistakes made, like the time I bought a 9-meter white limousine on Facebook Marketplace in an attempt to make myself famous. It’s collecting dust now, broken and in need of repair while I work out what to do with it. Blowing it up would be cool, but I might need it to pivot into becoming a chauffeur.

5:00pm → My creative process is fairly slow, although I’m getting quicker. My ideas go through many iterations and reinventions, which is how I like to work. I look at my phone, yearning for anyone to call me, even my manager. He only calls when there’s news, which is usually bad.

6:00pm → A pang of hunger hits. I regurgitate the pasta from earlier and chow down – a clever trick I learned growing up with a dog.

7:00pm → I post a video on TikTok, which is where I measure my self-worth. It tanks, and I’m satisfied. We are in sync.

8:00pm → I receive a text from my ex-sugar mama, Mrs. Dior. She was the love of my life. The text isn’t good. I scoff at her brilliant delusion, which was the reason for my falling in love with her but also the weapon for our subsequent downfall. I’m sure you’ve read the headlines. Anyway, when I’m not doing music, I like to have random things on in the background to distract my mind from intrusive thoughts. You know, the ones that come out in my dreams. I love mixed martial arts, which doesn’t fit with me at all – I’m skinny and long-boned with dainty fists and wispy elbows. My mind is weak and lacks cunning – I’m not suited for hand-to-hand combat. But I like watching it, so that’s what I fill my idle hours with.

9:00pm → I call my girlfriend. I know what you’re thinking – does she know about my sugar mama relationship? Yes, she does. In fact, she was suspiciously encouraging of it. I ended up getting quite upset by this.

10:00pm → The book that I promised to start sits in perfect condition next to me as I greedily tuck into TikTok. I gorge for as long as possible until I become dizzy and am lulled to sleep by the sound of screaming foxes making love in the garden. ■

Taken from the October 2024 issue of Dork. Sad Night Dynamite’s debut album ‘Welcome The Night’ is out 27th September.