Dreyer "Dreyer" Tape RKR-048
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There was always music in the house when Tim Crisp was growing up. His father’s record collection never stopped growing, the stereo was always filling the house with melodies. Family drives were soundtracked by his dad’s latest mixtape. While the names of the artists may not have been contextualised for Crisp, he swiftly began distinguishing his own taste, with the helping hand of his father. “I remember the first tape that he helped me make,” Crisp smiles, “It was called ‘9 years in the making,’ and it was just all of my favorite songs.” Lucinda Williams, Tom Petty, and Paul Kelly were some of the names making up the tracklist—one so impactful he found himself returning to it 30 years later on Dreyer’s self-titled debut EP, an expression springing from a lifetime of listening: “A lot of those songs that are on there are key pieces to the songwriting influences that I take from.”
Crisp spent the better part of his twenties as rhythm guitarist with Chicago pop-punk outliers The Please & Thank Yous, with guitarist and songwriter Geoff Schott and drummer Marcus Nuccio (Ratboys, Pet Symmetry), both vital to Crisp’s development of songwriting. “I learned so much about songwriting playing Geoff’s songs,” Crisp explains, stating that “Marcus is the best drummer I’ve ever played with.” And Crisp’s utter infatuation for music found him spreading his ideas elsewhere, starting his podcast Better Yet, interviewing his favorite independent songwriters. In a way, Dreyer kind of started with Better
Yet as Nuccio ended up collaborating with Crisp under the Dreyer moniker on a cover of Wilco’s “Laminated Cat,” for the podcast’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot tribute, all of god’s money.
As Crisp started settling in his foundations when he and his partner bought their first home in Valparaiso, Indiana in 2020, in the midst of the pandemic, unpacking that metaphorical mixtape in his brand new home, a brand new slate, Dreyer’s inception lingering in the back of his mind. “It was kickstarted by moving in,” Crisp feels. The same love for sound, regardless of what it belonged to, kickstarted for him as a young child, shook off its cobwebs and started filling Crisp’s new home. “I really did venture back into my head to the songs that I remember first liking as a kid.”
Reinvigorated, Crisp reached out to Nuccio, saying “‘I want to make an EP called Five Easy Pieces.’” Nuccio didn’t need convincing: “And he's like, ‘cool.’” Simply the announcement of his plans to his friend spurred Crisp on because “when I said that to him, I don't know how serious I was, but I took it as kind of a challenge to myself.” Though the EP wouldn’t end up being called Five Easy Pieces, Crisp reflects, “that phrase just became such a great working template” for writing songs that were easy to learn and fun to play.
Crisp began recording demos at home, and he and Nuccio would get together periodically to practice and record at Nuccio’s home in St. Charles, Illinois. While Crisp was settled in Indiana, St. Charles was also home to old friends Nick and Vince Casali, brothers that Crisp had known since his early 20s when their band Or So It Goes played at his house. The two have years of experience playing together, and Nick had spent the last several years exploring home recording. “Nick built out a recording space in his basement and is really into microphones and recording stuff.” It spurred on easy connections and conversations that led to excitement and eagerness, “they were both really enthusiastic about the material. Nick was able to record every time we practiced and it sounded really good.”
What was supposed to be just easy practice ended up becoming an easy time to record and produce the EP. “[Nick] had some great room microphone setups. So when we got a batch of songs together, I was like, ‘Marcus, what do you think? Should we record this with somebody?’ And [Nuccio] was like, ‘I think we should just record it here, dude. What we're able to track here and the quality of this stuff is great and it'll be easy.” A communal effort started forming, with Nuccio playing drums, Nick Casali on lead guitar, Vince Casali on bass.
The same way the Casalis came into the picture, so did other friends and collaborators. Ratboys’ Julia Steiner delivered key harmonies, Mike ‘Slo-Mo’ Brenner (Magnolia Electric Co., Wild Pink) contributed lap steel and pedal steel, and Logan Roth (Slaughter Beach, Dog, Trace Mountains) added piano and organ. Once tracking was complete, Crisp flew to Philadelphia to mix the record with Evan Bernard (Greg Mendez, Soul Glo) at JamTown Studio in North Philly.
The resulting Dreyer EP, strung together with twangy guitars, pianos, and harmonies, dips each of its metaphorical ten toes in genres with disregard to their organisation. Just an emphasis on what sounds good, like when Crisp was a kid, and that first ever mixtape he made. Spanning those early influences, Crisp pieces together Americana, bits of alt-country, emo, indie, and alternative rock into five songs.
The five tracks detail the simplicity of a new life discovered—a new kind of warmth provided by the security of stability and predictability in a life filled to the brim with chaos, discovering the joys of an easy life. His ears always switched on to pick up tiny lines and pieces: “A Piece” was inspired by his partner offering him a piece of watermelon during the summertime, and “Three Sisters Garden” was inspired by his partner’s garden in the back of their home, which houses the three sisters—corn, beans, and squash. “Five Easy Pieces” dissects one of his favorite films, and the main character’s inability to feel.
But Crisp felt his way through his new home, rediscovering parts of himself he didn’t recognize were still so attached to him—it felt natural. “I think that a big thing that I have taken from this process is that a lot of the time you don't know what it means. You're just figuring it out,” Crisp smiles. So, you could say that, the EP fell together like Five Easy Pieces.
By Isabella Ambrosio