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Despite living in Toronto for more than a decade Peter Dreimanis is still hung up on his hometown.

“I think a lot of Edmontonians would laugh at how much I romanticize the experience of bringing music back home,” chuckles the July Talk co-singer, who’s taking a brief break from the mothership alt-rock outfit to step out with a few pals as Peter Dreams. The brand-new four-piece is headed this way for Edmonton’s Winterruption festival, headlining the Rocky Mountain Ice House Jan. 26.

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It’s a gig he’s been looking forward to for some time. Not only does July Talk consider Edmonton to be a second home, but it’s also the actual first home for Dreimanis.

“When I make music I always think about how it would exist in the venues that I grew up going to in Edmonton,” he notes. “I think it’s just a part of who I am.”

Peter Dreams came about during a July Talk down period after the release of the 2023 album Remember Never Before. The singer and multi-instrumentalist had been working on music he describes as fitting into a kind of “Lanois and Dylan” vibe and hanging out with his friend Gavin Gardiner, who has a studio mere minutes from Dreimanis’s door. Together they constructed fragments of things, putting down ideas without any notion of where they would lead.

At the same time, Gardiner was also recording and playing with a new band called MOONRIIVR. The ad hoc band features another ex-Edmontonian, Lyle Molzan, whose extensive drumming resume includes stints with David Wilcox, Tom Cochrane, Ron Sexsmith, Alice Cooper, Dean Brody and more.

“Sometimes in life, you just know the universe is telling you that this is the right time to do something,” says Dreimanis. “The band had just finished the album and sent it to me. I was completely floored. I think they were describing it the other day as ‘Elvis meets Bauhaus’ and that seems pretty accurate.”

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Dreimanis and MOONRIIVR clicked, and a record was born. A few shows followed, and since the new project came with less weight than July Talk they were able to follow up with more. As Dreimanis says, it’s in his nature to want to play something live as soon as possible. The gears of the music industry don’t often allow this at a certain level, but with Peter Dreams anything goes.

“So I’m kind of cruising towards releasing the album in the spring,” he says. “In the meantime, we’re out for a series of shows in Alberta because it just doesn’t feel like a project without bringing it out west.”

Unfortunately, Peter Dreams won’t be bringing out Molzan, who remains a very in-demand drummer on the scene in Toronto. Local percussionist Joel Payne will be taking his place on this Alberta run, along with bassist Jenni Roberts. Dreimanis remains a fan, however.

“Playing with Lyle was wild, “he says. “He’s so dynamic, bringing things down to the most incredible silence, playing with it like a cat playing with a mouse. Then crack goes the snare and all of a sudden he explodes.”

Stepping briefly outside of July Talk as an artistic investigation is important, but there’s another, more personal reason why Dreimanis sees the Peter Dreams project as being integral in his development as an artist.

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“I’m saying this cautiously because I don’t want it to be the headline, the focus,” he says. “I just became a parent, and as you can imagine it’s been a really profound experience. What it’s done to my sense of optimism for the world and sense of concern for the world is incredible. I wanted to capture these songs partly because I knew that my perspective on the world was about to change so heavily, and I knew I needed to honour them before that.”

Switching gears as a musical artist isn’t unheard of, though it can be a gutsy move when you’ve got an audience dedicated to a particular sound. Neil Young and Nick Cave have been notable as singer-songwriters who take chances, and Dreimanis throws Tom Waits in as someone who won’t let a song disappear even if it doesn’t make the cut as an album track.

“There’s that record he has called Orphans where he put out dozens of songs that had been just hanging around,” Dremanis points out. “It’s a beautiful feeling for an artist, right? Because you’re kind of lessening your load. It’s a healthy thing to do.”

As for July Talk fans, who are much more used to him pairing his gruff vocals with Leah Fay Goldstein, Dreimanis believes they’ll enjoy the record. After all, these are songs that could have made it on a July Talk record if they’d been wrestled into a shape that made sense in the six-piece. As it is, Peter Dreams is less a solo project and more a personal project.

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“Even the faster, more rock-and-roll stuff on the record is from a place that’s so deep down that it just wouldn’t have made sense to split between two vocalists,” says Dreimanis. “Plus, having the opportunity to work with new folks has only inspired me to go back to July Talk with a bunch of new ideas. We’ve been finding energy elsewhere as a band and now the group chat is on fire again. We’re talking about where we want to go next, musically and otherwise. So I think it’s a healthy thing after a decade as a band to really try something else and then come back with a new fire.”

PREVIEW

Winterruption

When Wednesday to Sunday

Where Various venues

Tickets Festival wristbands are $88.92 including taxes, available in advance from winterruptionyeg.com.Tickets for single shows are also available.

Festival offers variety

As always, Edmonton’s premiere winter music festival, Winterruption, will feature a dizzyingly eclectic variety of acts.

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Dozens of bands, from Toronto psych-rockers Hot Garbage to Calgary metal titans Wake, with a surfeit of can’t-miss acts like Sunny War, Vundabar, Battles and DJ Nu-Mark from Jurassic 5, will be playing various downtown venues. Mark Davis and Sean Picard, a.k.a. Miss Mannered will be reuniting as local electro-folk duo Concealer and one-man band B.A. Johnston will be in town to sing us a few of his deathless classics, like How Many T-bone Steaks Can I Fit in My Pants? and I Don’t Buy No Government Weed. Other artists to check out include local up-and-comer Pearly Moon, comic Kathleen McGee, Bry Webb of Constantines, and Ottawa indie-rockers Pony Girl.

The all-ages Sunday punk brunch at Rocky Mountain Icehouse sounds like a perfect mix between food and bone-rattling blare. Check Winterruptionyeg.com for a complete schedule and tickets.

Hoping for a little more than just music for the festivities? Winterruption has that covered, first featuring some Love Wrestling at The Rec Room Friday night. Then RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 12 winner Jaida Essence Hall will be bringing some of the best in drag to Evolution Wonderlounge the following night.

The festival will be taking place in a tight nexus of downtown venues with Rocky Mountain Icehouse, The Starlite Room, River City Revival House, Downtown Edmonton Community League, 99Ten, Soho, McDougall United Church and Double Dragon all participating. Bundle up and happy walking!

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