In A Daydream with Dream of the Wild

By Joseph Palmersheim - Sun Newspapers

Published: Thursday, August 5, 2010 4:08 PM CDT

Although their name came from a dream, one local band's ambitions to succeed are anything but fleeting.

Dream of the Wild is a Dakota County trio composed of Jay McKinney of Burnsville on guitar/vocals, Evan Corcoran of Eagan on the upright bass, and percussionist Jake Dehnke of Lakeville. Jake and Jay are 17 years old, and Evan is 16. All of them attend the School of Environmental Studies in Apple Valley. Dream of the Wild will perform Aug. 20 at JoJo's Rise and Wine in Burnsville.

Jay and Evan have been playing together since November 2009, and have played with Jake for the past four months. They rehearse at Evan's home in Eagan twice a week. Jay said the band's name was inspired by a trip to the Boundary Waters.

"I came back and started having all of these dreams about the Boundary Waters," he said. "That's how 'Dream of the Wild' came around."

The group's Facebook page (which features five original songs) lists influences like Miles Davis, Sigur Ros, the Doors, and John Lee Hooker, among others. The variety in influences is reflected in the variety of the musical output.

"With one song, we could be a blues band, and with the next song, you could think we were Cities 97 singer-songwriters," Jay said. "I'll generally come with a concept for a song, lyrics and the outline. They'll critique it and add their parts. I think we all do this because we love to make music."

"It's pretty cool because I'm able to talk to people I haven't been able to talk to before," Evan said.

Jay, a former employee at the Garage in Burnsville, credits his experience at the venue with teaching him how to use social media to promote the band. Future plans include recording a full-length album this fall.

"We have all of the material we need for [the full-length album]," Jay said. "Now it's just a matter of figuring out what we want to put on it."

"And what order we want," Jake added.

"We all have pretty good experience learning new songs," Evan said. "We won't have to go back and revisit things to keep them fresh. There's not a lot of 'We have to practice.' It's more like, 'Hey, I've got this new song, do you want to get together?'"

"Before I was in this band, I didn't listen to too much jazz, but now I'm big into jazz, blues, and all these different influences that I never picked up on before," Jake said. "It's infected me."

"I've been in other groups, and there is only so much room for me to play what I wanted," Evan said. "But in this group, I can do what I want, which means that there is more energy and feeling. I have outlines for what I play, but it's a little different every time. It's nice to break outside."

"Nobody our age is really doing what we are doing, as far as I know," Jay said. "We want to take this as far as we can. It will come to a point next summer where if we are getting the attention, [we'll decide] what to do after this. Otherwise, we'll head off to college and call it a day. We'll go as far as we can until then."

Dream of the Wild will perform 7:30 p.m. Friday, Aug. 20, at JoJo's Rise and Wine, 12501 Nicollet Ave., Burnsville. There is no admission charge.

For more information on Dream of the Wild, check out their Facebook page, at http://bit.ly/aZtcZW.

http://www.mnsun.com/articles/2010/08/05/news/cw/cw05band.txt