From TikTok virality to major festival slots and big UK support tours, this year has been revelatory for London indie-popsters daydreamers. If you watched them break through with their addictive debut single ‘Call Me Up’, it would be easy to assume that their success was instantaneous, but as singer and songwriter Riley explains, you have to put in the leg work in order to be ready for such an unexpected surge in popularity.
“For me, it always felt like there was no other option,” he says, of choosing to pursue music by moving from his hometown of Southampton to study in Brighton and then eventually finding his people in various areas of London. “I was always writing songs and it felt like something I had to do, something that was more important than anything else. Any moment where a little bit of doubt came into my mind because this is such a difficult industry to get into, I just thought, ‘Ok, I’m still gonna be writing a song tonight. So, you can’t give that up; it’s just writing songs’. That’s all that makes sense to me, and it also doesn’t make sense, which is the beautiful thing about it.”
Forming the band in November 2023 and constantly testing the waters of social media before any official release, Riley started to notice that view counts on their previous day’s efforts were exceeding the usual numbers in the low hundreds. While working in a rehearsal studio one day, the whole thing quickly overshadowed his shift.
“It was one of those moments that is difficult to describe, other than just chaos,” he admits. “I called the band, asking them to get online, respond to comments, and do whatever they could to keep this going. We had everything ready to go: the songs were there, the live set-up was ready – we knew we had to put in all the work to make sure we were ready, but you need that spark to propel you. We realised that we needed an audience, and social media became our way of building it. As soon as we got that, we were ready to capitalise on it as much as possible.”
Reflecting on that time now, it’s difficult to pin down exactly what fuelled the fire, with the singer describing the positive result as “an aggregation of marginal gains”. Dialling into a niche, unintentionally capturing off-the-cuff energy, simply the appeal of a good hook? “I have thought about it loads, to the point of overthinking it. It’s nice when something really connects, and you want to replicate it in a lot of ways, but I don’t think you really can. You don’t want to edge towards, ‘That worked before, let’s try it again’. I had great people around me to prove that the new stuff we had was just as great, and that gave me so much confidence in trusting my gut.”
“I called the band, asking them to get online, respond to comments, and do whatever they could to keep this going”
The debut single was an immediate hit upon its streaming release and drove the band’s listener count into the millions, but one track isn’t everything. In the months since, daydreamers have put out four further releases that continue to expand their world and develop the foundations of what they wish to be a long-standing career.
“People need something to believe in, so simply getting more music out helped get us to a point where a TikTok moment has brought us a real project and a genuine band,” Riley shares, adding that each success only fuels the desire to improve and grow. “Our ambition is we want to headline Glastonbury or Coachella, those are the targets. It’s important to be in it to win it; that’s the fun of it and where we get a buzz from. We want to be the biggest band in the world.”
Working their way through the industry isn’t always going to be fun and games, and there has been no lack of stress already, but the team around the group are making sure that they acknowledge the highs before building towards a new one. “Probably a few weeks after ‘Call Me Up’, I got to a point where I felt that I had a foot in the door to have a chance at making a career of this. My manager said to make sure I take 30 minutes to go for a walk and just take in the win, because they don’t happen very often. I really appreciated that advice because otherwise, you go immediately into what comes next. It’s all about momentum.”
The main win so far, and also the biggest surprise, is how deeply listeners have connected to the daydreamers discography. While labels and press are now paying attention, and other musicians such as You Me At Six’s Josh Franceschi have reached out, the front-row conversations hit the hardest. “Meeting people after shows, they tell me that ‘Beach House’ is the song they cry to when they miss their ex or whatever. Knowing that your music helped someone even just for a minute, I could have those conversations all day. We feel the same thing – I also cried when I wrote ‘Beach House’ – so it’s nice to be going through it all together.”
The band name itself is a testament to looking forward but not always being totally present, which is a space Riley says a lot of the songs stem from – “a lot of them are just about girls and stuff, though,” he laughs – but the mix of tearful ruminations and charged choruses drive a style that he has dubbed ‘sad euphoria’.
“I look at my life and see patterns of falling down and getting back up. Constantly feeling like you can take on the world, then getting knocked back and having that low moment. It doesn’t matter which stage you’re at in the cycle, it’s about how quickly that transition happens and accepting that you’re going through it. The sad euphoria is in that space between, where you’re hopeful, dreaming and optimistic, while acknowledging that there’s probably a cliff face around the corner.”
“I saw Green Day last year and Bleachers the other month; those shows did something to me”
It probably helps that a lot of these songs come from Riley being sat in a room writing by himself, recording and producing laptop demos, and only then taking it into the studio for further development. A noticeable fusion of introspective thematics and big-hitting sonics comes from the juxtaposition of those two environments. “We try to produce the stuff in a way that is made for festival headline slots,” Riley adds. “When that’s the end of the process, and the start of it is me in my bedroom with headphones on, it creates an interesting dynamic and journey.”
He is also quick to highlight that although he is the face of the band, daydreamers are no one-man show and his fellow band members Aurora (backing vocals / bass), Marco (guitar) and Jay (drums) are instrumental (pardon the pun) in bringing his ideas to life.
“I’ve got a tendency to track stuff once, and then I won’t remember the guitar lines a few weeks later,” he shares. “I’m all about getting the idea down straight away, and when I’m not like that, I go back and overthink things, and that’s almost worse!” Having good people around him is key to giving those initial musings their best chance at success. “The guys all play their parts way better than I can, with precision and care across the board, and they’re all great at bouncing ideas around the room while we’re recording. I may write a song, but it’s an ongoing process, and everyone is open to ideas – we might change things on the last day.”
This mindset of continuous improvement applies doubly to the band’s live shows, with their stagecraft becoming more dynamic with each gig due to deliberate analysis. “On tour, we’re in the van for hours and we’d watch back the last night’s set to review what we can do better for the next one,” Riley recalls. “We’re critically assessing how we can be better. I saw Green Day last year and Bleachers the other month; those shows did something to me that means, in some way, I will never be the same after seeing them. We want to get to a point where people leave a daydreamers show and their life is changed, our show will be so unforgettable.”
So, how do you curate your project so that its followers will be unable to wipe a smile off their face for months to come? “Connection is what it’s all about for us. I think that’s what the music comes back to, you listen to music to feel a connection to someone or something. To feel understood and be a part of something bigger.” Combining their online and stage presence is enabling this. “Before we play ‘Call Me Up’, we ask our Discord if anyone wants us to call them tonight and shout them out on stage. We get the crowd to say hello and they stay on the line, it’s just really fun. Anything that builds that desire to get involved is great.”
The daydreamers community is growing stronger with each release; their most recent single, ‘Colourblind’, has had fans shouting back the words, ‘all your red flags look like green lights’. With an album in the works already and 2025 looking huge, listeners can enjoy the band’s debut EP in the meantime. As Riley concludes, “We’ve created a narrative that follows the story of a relationship; there’s a clear progression through it, and I think it’s a special piece of work and really just the beginning. Come join the fun, there’s something to believe in here and it’s going to a good time!” ■
Leave a Reply