Melbourne alternative rock outfit DAY DREAMERS are heading into a defining new chapter with their self-titled EP, a seven-track release that captures a band becoming heavier, more confident and increasingly comfortable pushing beyond the habits that brought them this far.
Ahead of its arrival on July 1, I caught up with Ben Erbacher to talk about the experimentation behind the record, capturing the band’s wild live energy at Sing Sing Studios and the sense of community that remains at the heart of DAY DREAMERS.
The band returned earlier this year with Bag of Sand before unleashing Wreckage on June 17, offering two increasingly clear glimpses of what this new era represents. The foundations of punk, grunge, indie and alternative rock remain, but everything feels more deliberate. The edges are sharper, the weight has increased and the chemistry holding it all together feels stronger than ever.
Breaking Away From Familiar Habits
One of the most exciting parts of creating the self-titled release was the willingness to begin songs somewhere unfamiliar.
Instead of relying on the same instruments, techniques or arrangements each time, the members brought different equipment into the room and allowed those sounds to guide them. An OP-1, a Nord rack, drum machines or whatever else happened to spark an idea could become the starting point for an entire track.
That approach forced everyone to challenge their instincts. When an idea sounded too recognisably like something one member would normally create, the others encouraged them to push against it.
It was not about erasing each person’s musical identity. It was about preventing the band from falling into comfortable patterns.
That creative honesty requires trust. It is one thing to bring an idea into a rehearsal room, but another to allow the people around you to pull it apart, redirect it and occasionally tell you that the obvious choice is not the strongest one.
Ben described the process as a genuine learning experience, made possible by having people around him who understood how he worked creatively. That understanding appears to be one of the most important forces behind this version of DAY DREAMERS.
The self-titled EP is not four musicians playing safely within assigned roles. It is the sound of everyone bashing ideas around until they uncover something none of them would have reached alone.
Capturing the Fire at Sing Sing
DAY DREAMERS have developed a reputation for energetic and interactive live performances, so one of the greatest challenges was ensuring the final recordings did not lose the urgency already present in the demos.
Much of the drumming was captured at Melbourne’s Sing Sing Studios, with the full band present and encouraging each performance to go further.
Simply playing the correct part was not enough. The question became how hard they could push it without losing the song.
That attention extended right down to the sound of the snare. DAY DREAMERS wanted something capable of cutting through the mix like a firecracker and landing with real physical force. Every choice needed to serve the energy rather than soften it.
Working with Cal Edwards at Sing Sing helped the band find that balance. There was an awareness that aggression alone would not make the recordings stronger. Push every sound too far and the result can become an exhausting wall with no space for the songs to breathe.
Creative restraint became just as important as intensity.
The finished release needed to feel loud, immediate and alive, but it also had to remain something listeners could return to as a complete record. That balance between impact and control is where the EP appears to find much of its strength.
A Record Built to Be Heard in Full
Although streaming has allowed DAY DREAMERS to reach listeners well beyond Melbourne, the band’s connection to complete records and physical media remains important.
Our conversation naturally moved toward the renewed interest in film photography, vinyl, CDs, DVDs and other things people can physically own. There is a sense of reality attached to holding something in your hands that an endless digital library cannot fully replace.
That attitude suits DAY DREAMERS.
The band’s influences stretch through the 1990s and early 2000s, when buying a record often meant taking it home, putting on headphones and disappearing into it from beginning to end. Their single y2k brought that affection for the period directly to the surface, but the influence reaches much further than an aesthetic or a nostalgic reference.
It lives in the band’s attitude, skate culture energy, love of video games and belief that music should have enough personality to occasionally piss somebody off.
Even younger listeners who did not personally experience that era recognise its visual language and sense of fun. DAY DREAMERS are not trying to reproduce the past, but they are carrying some of its spirit into music that still feels connected to the present.
Ben agreed that the new release deserves to be heard as a complete journey. Officially it may be an EP, but with seven tracks, I am siding with the idea that it is close enough to an album for listeners to crank from beginning to end.
A Frontman Who Refuses to Stand Still
The intensity captured in the studio also needs to survive when DAY DREAMERS walk onto a stage.
At the centre of that live experience is vocalist and guitarist Zak Rakitic, whose performances do not leave much room for spectators to remain passive. He jumps into crowds, brings people onto the stage and turns the room into part of the show.
Whether DAY DREAMERS are performing for a packed venue or a much smaller gathering, the commitment remains the same. That matters because the handful of people standing in front of a band early in its career may become the ones telling everyone else what they witnessed.
Zak’s energy also creates space for the different personalities within the band. Ben admitted that he is not naturally the most animated performer, but he does not need to compete with the chaos happening at the front of the stage. His job is to drive the music while Zak pulls the audience closer.
Ben also comes from a photography background and previously photographed the group, giving him a different perspective on what makes DAY DREAMERS visually exciting. He understands how much easier life becomes for a photographer when the person onstage refuses to stop moving.
For audiences encountering the band for the first time, that unpredictability can be a shock. It is also exactly what makes people remember them.
Building Community Beyond Genre Lines
Melbourne is home to an enormous number of alternative, punk, rock and heavy bands. That makes it one of Australia’s most exciting musical cities, but it can also lead to separate pockets forming around particular genres and social circles.
DAY DREAMERS want their shows to break through some of those divisions.
The idea is simple: if a band gets onstage and genuinely loves what it is doing, it should have a place in the room. The number of followers attached to its social media account should not matter more than the passion coming through the speakers.
That outlook connects directly with the wider themes surrounding the new EP. Wreckage arrives against a backdrop of uncertainty, anger and violence, but DAY DREAMERS are not responding by closing themselves off.
They are looking for their people.
That tribe includes the members of the band, the friends who have helped with videos and photography, the musicians sharing stages with them and the listeners willing to step out of the house and support Australian music.
There are countless bands across Melbourne and the rest of the country putting everything they have into their work. The best thing audiences can do is turn up, lose themselves in it and give those artists a reason to continue.
A DAY DREAMERS show does not ask people to stand at the back with folded arms and assess whether everything is cool enough. It asks them to move closer and become involved.
Everything Is Going to Be Okay
Beneath the heavier guitars, frustration and uncertainty, the self-titled EP is not a hopeless record.
When I asked Ben what he wanted people to feel after hearing it, his answer cut directly to the heart of the release:
“Everything’s going to be okay.”
That does not mean ignoring how difficult life can become. The anger is still there. So is the chaos.
The difference is that DAY DREAMERS are trying to find something worth holding onto inside it.
That sense of reassurance gives the EP emotional weight beyond its louder moments. The band is not promising that every problem disappears when the final track ends. It is reminding listeners that difficult periods can be survived and that finding the right people can make them easier to face.
Music has always been capable of providing that kind of connection. At its best, it creates a place where people who feel isolated suddenly realise they are surrounded by others carrying similar fears, frustrations and hopes.
DAY DREAMERS are building that place one song and one wild live show at a time.
Preparing for “Space Race”
Among the tracks still waiting to be heard is Space Race, a song brought into the band by guitarist Daniel Lee.
Ben immediately connected with its toughness and direct, no-bullshit attitude. It has also become one of the songs that demands everything from him during a live performance.
No matter how questionable his endurance might feel by that point in the set, Space Race requires the full hundred percent. By the end, he may be sweating through everything and desperate for water, but that physical commitment is part of what makes the track so much fun to play.
It is another reminder that the heavier direction surrounding DAY DREAMERS is not simply language added to a press release. The band can feel it in the room and in the physical demands of performing these songs.
With Bag of Sand and Wreckage already setting the tone, Space Race sounds ready to reveal another hard-hitting side of the record.
More Than Nostalgia
Our chat eventually moved into Ben’s own musical history, producing a quickfire combination that probably would not be easy to predict from hearing DAY DREAMERS alone.
The first album he remembers owning was Michael Jackson’s HIStory. His first concert was AC/DC on the Black Ice tour in 2010, attended with his dad and brother. His all-time favourite record is Bon Iver’s self-titled album.
That range says plenty about the open approach behind DAY DREAMERS. Heavy music, pop, indie, rock and electronic experimentation can all exist within the same creative world.
There is no need to become pretentious about genre. Great music is great music, and it deserves to be played loudly.
That same openness runs throughout the new DAY DREAMERS release. The band knows where it came from, but it is not allowing the past to dictate where it can go next.
DAY DREAMERS Step Forward
DAY DREAMERS have grown considerably from the backyard gigs and scrappy humour of their earliest material.
The character that powered songs such as Maccas Run has not disappeared. It has simply followed the members into a different period of their lives, where the questions are larger and the world around them feels increasingly unstable.
The self-titled EP captures that growth without stripping away the fun, nostalgia or community that made the band worth paying attention to in the first place.
It is heavier without becoming shapeless, experimental without losing direction and emotionally aware without surrendering to despair.
Most importantly, it sounds like a band that understands what it wants to become while remaining willing to challenge every comfortable instinct along the way.
Wreckage is out now, and the self-titled DAY DREAMERS EP arrives on July 1, 2026.
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