News from Darren on 12 May 2004:

At one point in the last news I wrote for Dead Men Dream I mentioned that the new ideas on the CD I received were awful. I have to say that it is a matter of opinion and what I should have said was simply that it was not the style of music I wanted to work with. I apologise for that. They are great guys and I sincerely wish all the best to them for their next project.

News from Darren on 11 March 2004:

Dead Men Dream is on hold for a while...

It needs new blood. It was always difficult to get stuff together with Dead Men Dream. Even though we practiced every week, we found it really hard to agree about our own style or direction.

Most of the stuff that I liked (which was recorded on the two promo CDs) was written by Kevin De Groot (guitars) and was worked on with other members ideas until everyone was happy.

Dino (other guitarist) and Clive (drummer) were starting to find it more difficult to like the ideas that Kevin and myself were coming up with. They like the traditional death metal style and they don't like the use of clean guitars, moody drums and clean vocals

Kevin and myself (along with Abbo, the bass player) were getting together to write stuff. The band would work on it in rehearsal, but it could never get completed because Dino and Clive were just not happy with the sound of this new material.

I love to travel, and that is one of the things I find exciting about being in a touring band - the chance to see other places and meet new people. In the end I just couldn't put off a serious world trip any longer, and so I went. I gave the band a chance to work on some material themselves and send it out to me on CD. Unfortunately, when I heard their ideas I was not into it at all. They must have thought it was good otherwise they would not have sent it to me, but I thought it was awful, and was not what I wanted to do.

Without knowing the future of the band, I stopped posting news on the net about the band. People are wondering why, and I write this so that people understand.

When I heard the disappointing CD of new DMD ideas I got in touch with my friend in Liverpool who I know has great ideas and who I had thought about working on some new music with at some point. He sent me a CD of his ideas and it was TRULY AMAZING. They were just ideas, but they were really impressive. On my return I went to Liverpool and we began work on a new project called SEROTONAL. We had thought of using the name Dead Men Dream, but Kevin and Abbo want to continue what we started with Dead Men Dream at some point.

You can still email Abbo or Kevin at the band's usual email address: dead_men_dream@hotmail.com

So I shall end how I started... Dead Men Dream needs new blood to revive itself, a bit like that old guy on the film, "Texas Chainsaw Massacre".

Serotonal website under construction:
www.serotonal.tk
email Jon or Gary, the musicians in Serotonal: serotonal@hotmail.com

News from Darren on 26 June 2003:

Bit of a travel and thought update...
Now I am back in Bangkok and on Friday I catch the overnight train to the border of Laos, where I go next. It is the most bombed country in the world. The people still die every day from the UXB's scattered all over the country. They also use the empty bomb casings as flowerpots or even to build their homes with. The Americans dropped more ordnance on that country alone than all the bombs dropped in the entire second world war! They funded this secret war by using the CIA's own airline - Air America - to create and subsequently control the opium trade of the so-called Golden Triangle.
Read the book AIR AMERICA, about that airline and some of the CIA's dirty deeds. The author is Christopher Robbins.
Or by the same author, read THE RAVENS. This is actually a really exciting account of the pilots who were recruited into this airline and about their involvement in the secret war in Laos.
Alternatively just type in CIA, LAOS, AIR AMERICA on a search engine and be both mesmerised and disgusted by what you read.
The websites about the CIA are among the best conspiracy stuff I have read. It is food for thought and provides fuel for a good argument.

Anyway, Laos is a beautiful country and so are the people, despite their obvious trauma from recent years. Then I'm off to Vietnam, where of course I'll find out more about the "American War", as it is obviously known there.
Meanwhile, I have been reliably informed by Abbo that the band are currently writing some new music right at the moment.

I have been lyrically inspired by my experiences in India, Nepal and most recently, Sri Lanka. Of all my travels, I am most inspired in the Indian sub-continent. Music is everywhere, and the weight of spirituality is more overwhelming than the oppressive weather and the seething mass of humanity. Even if you are only slightly curious about "the other side of life", you cannot help but look inside. You would have to have those "doors" firmly shut not to. I might not always like what I find inside of myself, but I cannot let that stop me if I want to improve as a person. It often hurts me writing my lyrics but that means that I still have a lot of things disturbing me, that need balancing out.

I only hope I continue to be able to "re-balance" myself.

News from Darren on 6 June 2003:

I'll be needing somewhere to stay in Los Angeles and San Francisco in October 2003, if anyone has a place to crash, please let me know. Bands either from there or from Adelaide, Melbourne or Sydney, Australia email me if they wanna have a jam on something while I'm there - at around the end of August / early September 2003.

News from Darren on 23 Aug 2002:

I have news!
I am off travelling again. This time I will be away for a while. I'll be visiting some far out places. I will never lose my interest in the exotic and the mysterious. One of the reasons why I like to travel is because I want to make my own conclusion about the world rather than always from books or television. I always take photographs for my artwork but this time I'll be taking literally thousands of photographs to give me enough pics to work on for a while and to add to my portfolio.
I leave at the end of October, starting in India.
On the music side of things I'll be writing a hell of a lot, and I won't be short of inspiration. Dead Men Dream won't split up. I will keep in touch by email, and I'll meet up with a few people on the way. Perhaps I'll post my proposed itinerary on the band site and people can email me and arrange to meet up if they are in the area I am in at the time.

The idea is to now get the CD out to people and encourage the word to spread so that during my travels the band doesn't just slip away from the minds of people.

We have booked a studio for 16th and 17th February 2002 to record a couple of our new tracks. We're jamming on a lot of new material and by then we should have moulded our favourite bits into songs.

New song:
ABSOLUTE ZERO
A new track that raises hairs on our necks and brings us into just the right trance. It is a dark song, not totally heavy with guitars but heavy in deep feeling. It's not pleasant subject matter, but it's cathartic to play... and that's why I like doing heavy music.

Another new song:
ASSUMPTION IS... (the mother of all fuck ups)
Thats not because the song is a fuck up (we hope). The title is a statement, and in a way the song is a statement. It is up-tempo and very heavy most of the way through. Its been years since I personally done a song this way. We don't plan to record this one yet. We'll just play it at gigs.

First gig:
COLCHESTER ARTS CENTRE, ENGLAND: 12 JAN 2002

Set list:
Angels Wings
Melancholia
Sacred Ground
Absolute Zero
Assumption

In August 2001 the band entered Zen Studios in a small Essex town in England for their first recordings titled "zen session one".

About the recording sessions Darren comments"The recordings are a bit raw, but the band are still developing a sound. A decent studio would sort out the rough edges, but it was recorded mostly live over a couple o f days in a friend's studio so the rough edges are evident. I am pleased to say that the 2 new songs are better. They'll be recorded in the New Year 2002."
"The name Dead Men Dream is not meant to be mythological, but if it sounds it then that is fine. What words or phrases mean to me or you may be slightly different to someone else's view, and completely different to someone else! With Dead Men Dream there was music before there was a name. There had been a lot of thinking and talking about it until we agreed on Dead Men Dream. We had thought of similar things but it was this phrase that I liked the sound of most. A body may be dead but the soul still dreams perhaps. I may be dead but I still dream. It is the old cliche of mine... through the unknown, unseen or undiscovered, infinite joys can be found." says Darren about the meaning behind the bandname.