King Dream is a Bay Area rock ‘n’ roll band helmed by Oakland native Jeremy Lyon, a lifelong songwriter and multi-instrumentalist who crafts dive bar anthems with heart, brains and soul. Hard-rocking yet poignant, his music combines a love for American rock masters like Springsteen and Petty with ‘60s West Coast psychedelia and more contemporary torch-bearers like My Morning Jacket and The War on Drugs — all brought to life by a band of Northern California’s most in-demand players.
Lyon has played Outside Lands and Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, toured nationally and internationally, and also knows what it’s like to busk on the street. King Dream songs deftly balance hope and world-weariness. They seem wise beyond their years, and they also have a way of sneaking up on you. Their shout-along choruses and searing guitar solos are at home in a darkened saloon, to be sure, but also — you know the giddy, ragged vulnerability that arrives when you’ve been awake for way too long on a road trip? Between the good times and the clinks of beer bottles these songs inspire a wistfulness, deep in your bones, for a place you’ve never been.
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