Nick Wold has gone from being a jazz saxophonist at NYU to creating the alternative rock band, Dreamers with bandmates Marc Nelson and Jacob Lee Wick. Hailing from Seattle, Wold played in a few other bands before moving to New York and meeting Nelson. They teamed up with a drummer that Wold knew from Seattle and the rest is history.

It was when Wold jumped off of the stage and onto the barricade that the band’s vibrant and interactive stage presence became clear. While performing their most popular song “Sweet Disaster,” Dreamers managed to take a very tired audience during an early 1 p.m. set on a Sunday and turn it into the most vivacious crowd in the entire festival. This performance has made it apparent that only great things are set in store for Dreamers’ future endeavors.

WSN: So, you are from Seattle, correct?

NICK: Yeah, I grew up in Seattle.

WSN: And you went to NYU, right?

NICK: Yes, I did.

WSN: So, you studied jazz sax, was it?

NICK: Yeah

WSN: I would love to know how that turned into this?

NICK: I grew up playing the saxophone, and it was really the only instrument that I knew how to play. Yeah, so that was the instrument that I learned on, and it’s still the instrument that I’m best at I think and I still think in saxophone so I think of a note, I think of the saxophone fingering of the note. But yeah, I grew up listening to rock and roll. In Seattle, my older sister showed me about all of the amazing grunge stuff and that’s deep in my psyche and I loved the Beatles growing up so I think just when it came time to decide what I wanted to do with my life, I had to go to back to that.

WSN: So how did you guys meet and form the band?

NICK: The band … well, we all had been in lots of bands before, and we felt like older experienced gentlemen and we’d all done it wrong and we wanted to do it right and we all just kind of met all one at a time. I met Nelson here in New York and I was writing a whole bunch of music living in my practice space, just trying to learn really learn how to write great songs for the first time and still learning but then we signed a record deal and moved to California. That’s where we met Jacob and he was the same as us, he just wanted to really live the life, life the dream for real so, that’s what we did.

WSN: And who would you say has influenced you, besides the stage presence of James Brown, but in terms of sound?

NICK: Yeah, the Beatles are like the deepest thing in my psyche, and Nirvana … Kurt Cobain is like the Jesus of Seattle, the martyr, so yeah those are probably my biggest influence, but I also became obsessed with Bob Marley. I became obsessed with the Strokes in high school, and that was the band that made me like “oh my gosh, they can still make rad rock that’s like ‘70s rock today” and that made me want to be in a band.

WSN: Have you ever performed in London before, because you mentioned the grunge scene?

NICK: We, Dreamers have unfortunately only been doing U.S. and Canada so far, we’re just planning right now super secret plans to start dipping our feet over the pond. I can’t wait because most of my favorite music came from England.

WSN: Yeah, it sure seems like it.

NICK: They say rock and roll was born in America, but it grew up in England for sure. And so we can’t wait until that. Also a lot of bands now from today are from England, who are my favorite bands.

WSN: In terms of jazz, I know you like jazz and rock, but comparing the two, which do you like performing the best?

NICK: Rock is like my passion project. Jazz, I just thought it was an amazing thing to learn, and it’s so much more complex and difficult that anything else. It’s like a Marine Corps training ground of scales and chords. Jazz is about musical freedom, and the ability to improvise and play whatever you want. And punk rock, at least, is like freedom in a different way, where you’re playing the song but you’re free to do whatever you want, play as sloppy as you want, run around the stage, you scream at people, you break a bottle, you just express yourself and you let loose that way. It’s like poetry rather than music freedom.

WSN: So, we have a set of quick fire questions, that we need you to respond to with the first thing that pops into your head.

NICK: Okay, I’ll be as quick as I can.

WSN: Are you ready?

NICK: Born ready.

WSN: Do you like Jay-Z

NICK: Yeah, hell yeah.

WSN: What was it like performing on the same stage as he did?

NICK: I didn’t think about him because I didn’t want to get nervous.

WSN: #1 Rock artist of all time?

NICK: John Lennon

WSN: Favorite color?

NICK: Red

WSN: Food you hate?

NICK: I like all foods, pretty much. I’m a freak of nature.

WSN: If you were stranded on an island, what is one ‘90s toy that you would bring with you?

NICK: Hungry Hungry Hippos

WSN: Disney or Nickelodeon?

NICK: Uh … Disney, for sure

WSN: Favorite thing about the West Coast?

NICK: Everything, the nature, my family and … That’s it.

WSN: Favorite thing about the East Coast?

NICK: New York City

WSN: Favorite borough?

NICK: Brooklyn, for sure.

WSN: Favorite T.V. show?

NICK: Favorite T.V. show … Rick and Morty … Or Game of Thrones

WSN: Favorite arts industry besides music?

NICK: Film

WSN: Favorite movie?

NICK: 2001, A Space Odyssey

WSN: One movie that made you cry?

NICK: 2001, A Space Odyssey, also I just saw this movie Lion and I cried like 25,000 times

WSN: Oh yeah, the entire thing. I can’t even talk about it.

NICK: Don’t even bring it up.

WSN: Cliff jumping or skydiving?

NICK: Cliff jumping … I wanna do both … cliff jumping

WSN: Beach, mountains or city?

NICK: Mountains

WSN: Red Hot Chili Peppers, Jay-Z, or Gorillaz?

NICK: C’mon, one of them’s going to hear me. Um, they’re all extremely great, but when I was in high school there’s one Red Hot Chili Peppers album that changed my life and that’s called “By The Way.”

WSN: Mac or PC?

NICK: Mac.

WSN: If your house were on fire, what would you bring?

NICK: A fire hose.

Email Dyanna Fleites-Cruz at [email protected].