The Tod­mor­den band Cal­lis made an impres­sion on us when their first sin­gle called Dra­maskin came to our atten­tion ear­li­er this year. So it’s wel­come news to hear the band reveal their sec­ond sin­gle, called Dream Sequence, today. The track will also fea­ture on the band’s upcom­ing EP, set to be released in Feb­ru­ary 2024. 

Cal­lis is Dean Molyneux (lead vocals, gui­tar), Bryn Davies (back­ing vocals, bass) and Tyler Han­ley (drums), the three mem­bers com­ing togeth­er from a series of alter­na­tive music projects based in and around the Calder Valley. 

The band’s grunge-infused sound attract­ed the atten­tion of leg­endary for­mer Seat­tle-based musi­cian and pro­duc­er Gor­don Raphael. Gor­don, who has famous­ly pro­duced work by The Strokes amongst many oth­er artists, caused quite a stir a few years ago by mov­ing to Tod­mor­den’s neigh­bour­ing town, Heb­den Bridge, adding to the Calder Val­ley’s already notable music scene. He came on board to pro­duce and guide Cal­lis’s new EP, a rela­tion­ship which worked well for both.

“Cal­lis is going to go from Tod­mor­den to the moon”

Gor­don Raphael

Dream Sequence is a tex­tur­al and dra­mat­ic track, some­what dark­er than Dra­maskin, pack­ing a lot into its four mins and 9 sec­onds as it shifts and builds in inten­si­ty, cul­mi­nat­ing in its emo­tion­al cho­rus (indeed the lyrics are about ‘life trau­ma’). The gui­tar open­ing notes set the scene with a stark Joy Divi­sion-esque feel, lead­ing into Dean Molyneux’s dense, moody vocals. All the while, the rum­bling bass pro­pels the track for­ward. Raphael has remarked on Cal­lis’s sound, on lov­ing the grunge ele­ment and that qual­i­ty is writ­ten into this track­’s very DNA. 

I asked Cal­lis a few questions…

1 How did the three mem­bers of Cal­lis get togeth­er?
We’ve all known each oth­er for about half of our lives but have nev­er ‘offi­cial­ly’  played togeth­er in a band. We were all in pur­suit of a new cre­ative out­let so it seemed like the most nat­ur­al thing to do 

2 Did you realise you all had an imme­di­ate music relat­ed chem­istry?
I think it’s fair to say Bryn and Tyler (the Cal­lis spine) already had chem­istry, hav­ing played in Sage Hart­ley’s band togeth­er and cur­rent­ly, Bul­beat­er. 
We’ve all jammed before at par­ties but it’s still at risk, you know? I remem­ber hav­ing this idea (Dra­maskin) and play­ing it at the first rehearsal, won­der­ing how they’d respond. 
It’s not like that as much any­more – we seem to have grown into a tele­path­ic under­stand­ing so there isn’t as much need to ask those kinds of ques­tions because we just know whether it will or won’t work. 

3 You are liv­ing in an area which is sup­port­ive to musi­cians. Do you feel being in Tod­mor­den has helped you and how?
I mean, the Val­ley’s just great isn’t it? The peo­ple, the music scene, the moor­land and the fan­cy ales. There’s some­thing else that I can’t put my fin­ger on – maybe it’s the ley­lines? 
We’re get­ting the odd help­ing hand here and there but we are still lit­tle baby lambs in this over­sat­u­rat­ed indus­try. We don’t expect it but I’m pret­ty con­fi­dent there will be more guid­ance down the road as Tod has this ‘mi casa, su casa’ ethos – which we adore. 

4 How was work­ing with Gor­don Raphael?
Nuts. Would you have expect­ed any oth­er answer? We’re pret­ty sure the guy is a wiz­ard. He’s the most nat­u­ral­ly eccen­tric per­son I’ve ever met. Full to the brim with cre­ativ­i­ty, kind­ness and wisdom.

5 What inspired your new track Dream Sequence?
Bryn got this new cho­rus ped­al and start­ed play­ing the bassline to A For­est by The Cure. It sound­ed great so we tried to keep the same ener­gy. We orig­i­nal­ly want­ed to write this gui­tar dri­ven, dance tune with a sludgy, omi­nous cho­rus (sounds bonkers, I know). So after two months of can­ni­bal­is­ing this poor, poor foun­da­tion of a song, Dream Sequence was born. 

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