A brief chat with A Shoreline Dream

Yellow Scene: When did the band form, and what was the mission?

Ryan Policky: We formed in 2005. Me and another guy were doing a different band at the time, and we wanted to do something a little bit bigger and get ourselves into the national spotlight. I guess our main goal wasn’t really to do that, we just wanted to do something that was a little bit more experimental than what we were doing before as far as music goes. We were in the direction of shoegaze and ambient, so our vibe was that and we kind of formed in that vein. We got a lot attention from various magazines, and eventually got ourselves in the hands of Ulrich Schnauss. He became a big fan of ours and we were a big fan of his, and we collaborated with him. Those were our first steps.

YS: Describe the sound…

RP: Our big influences at that time were Cocteau Twins, and Massive Attack which is more in line with what our other band was like. The first Dead Can Dance album was a big influence when we were working on the first album. Now, we’re all over the place. There’s a band called Violins that I’m a huge fan of. A lot of bands that we started collaborating with are bands that I’m a fan of. Engineers, Porcupine Tree, Chapter House, and I’m a big fan of Isis. Not the terrorist group, the band Isis. It goes all over the board, but I definitely have a strong influence with the shoegaze movement to this day, and a lot of our music is always compared to that. I guess that would be one of the big things. I still go back to listening to technical death metal and industrial music. Skinny Pup is a band that I’ve always loved. I love their production techniques and the way that they’ve presented themselves visually.

YS: Have you played UMS before?

RP: Yeah, we played last year, the year before that, and the year before that. I think it was 2009 or 2010 when we were invited to play for the Reverb party. We did an acoustic set at that one. I love UMS. I love playing it. I love playing anything that hits a lot of people. It’s been fun. Really good national bands have always come through as well. I remember one year we saw Red Sparrows on the same stage that we were playing. Lots of really good bands.

YS: What do you think of the current state of the Denver scene?

RP: It’s definitely strong and it’s getting bigger. It’s always been getting bigger, even since we started. There’s been a huge transformation. Back when we started, it was easy to get press because there wasn’t a ton of stuff going on. Nowadays, there are so many bands playing and so many bands out there, it’s insane. It’s amazing how big the scene has got here. Really good bands too.

YS: What can we expect from the set?

RP: We released a new album last year, so we’re going to hit up some songs from that and a lot of stuff from our first album too. We’re definitely going to rock it. We like to get out there and get crazy.