Porto Alegre, Brazil. December 17th, 2018. 

So here we are, standing on the edge of another year that goes by.

It's been almost a decade now. Ten years that the name Daydream XI was given to something that was already a small part of our lives. What came to be as a fun adolescent endeavor, slowly became a job and a lifestyle. In the last five years, we decided that we had to turn this band into a business, that we should abandon the dreamy, naive approach to the craft, once and for all. And I'm proud to see it happening. 

In the last five years we released two full-length albums with great reviews and acclaim from fans all over the world. We played two very important festivals for the Prog Metal genre and we got signed to a booking agency and a label, both in North America. Of all the goals (the realistic ones, I mean) I'd set back then, there are only two we still could not fulfill: getting a manager and booking a tour. 

The first one, because it's become very tiresome to do everything by myself. I am fully aware that I am mainly responsible for the state I'm in, for never being able to set me (and the others) free from absolute control over this band. But the business side of things become very time consuming when you also have to write all the music, produce the albums, create the merch designs and all. And also work with other stuff to pay your bills. I really do need a manager. But we'll see what happens in time. The search keeps on going… 

The second one: touring. We get requests, every single day, from many different countries. And believe me, there is nothing else we'd rather do than playing in each and every one of those cities that you reach out from. Our songs are written to be performed live. We are a not a studio project and being on stage is what we live for. There were no shortage of offers and plans to tour these last five years, but as you may suspect, money was always something that stopped us from carrying it forward. So the goal for the next five years is: monetizing this band. 

We are working hard to make some cool merchandise available and offer some exclusive items to dedicated fans, because we want to see your faces in front of the stage. We'll work together to make Daydream XI a sustainable business, so that we can keep making the music that we love, ultimately, for you. And hopefully we will have met somewhere around the globe, when I'm writing again at the edge of 2023. 

Thanks for the love. I'll send some of it back at you asap. 

Tiago. 

_____
 

What I'm listening to in this fragment of time: Djesse by Jacob Collier 
What I'm watching in this fragment of time: Quincy by Rashida Jones and Alan Hicks 
What I'm reading in this fragment of time: Theory of Harmony by Arnold Schoenberg