Life & Work with Entangled Dreams of Nashville

Today we’d like to introduce you to Entangled Dreams.

Hi Entangled Dreams, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
Annabelle and I have been singing together since we could speak. Songwriting has always come first for us. We only picked up instruments as a way of accompanying the songs we would write. We were born in Albuquerque, New Mexico. We had a couple of guitar lessons and are otherwise self taught. Our first couple times performing live were at smaller places that hosted open mic’s or bars with live music. Our very first paid performance was at a local farmers market called Rail Yards Market in Abq and that’s a great memory. We would play at our Grandparents country club as well. We began tracking our first EP at age 12. It was called “Start with this” Following this release Entangled Dreams came out with their first full studio record “In Color” which proceeded to win two state music awards. Our first record did very well and we ended up playing lots of local festivals, NM State Fair main stage, and more.

Our relocation to Wilmington, North Carolina was interesting. Our mom managed our band from the time we decided to start our YouTube channel at eight years old. It was a career from that point on. She set up a tour for our record “In Color” from Albuquerque New Mexico all the way to the coast of North Carolina. Playing different stages in different cities, some corners of restaurants and bars, lot’s of social media content, lots of hotels. We didn’t have a living situation secured for quite a while even after landing in Wilmington. We stayed in a hotel for a couple of weeks while searching for an apartment that we could afford. Finally we found a place that would take money off of our rent if we played a show at the clubhouse once a month. We finally settled into our apartment in the suburbs of Wilmington NC. I remember how we had no furniture and the walls were all empty except for our plaques from the releases of our records and our awards. It was odd but we were grateful and excited to start our new life here.

We began Recording Afterthought, our second full length record in 2016. This same year our grandmother passed away and times got quite difficult. We were self schooled in order to play music full time and make the move that we did that year. It was a strange feeling being 16 years old and learning what loss felt like in the middle of supporting our own career, our family, and a personal life which most times proved to be quite non existent. It got lonely, there were a lot of emotions to navigate. It could feel strange at times being in a new town even though we were busy and starting to become well known, we really didn’t have any actual friends our age and we didn’t go out unless we were playing a gig or networking for opportunities. As usual we wrote our way through it as ways of navigating this unique and unfamiliar path.

That same year we shifted a bit in our musical direction. I learned to play the bass and Annabelle learned the electric guitar. Our music started to change shape as we shifted into more of a Rock sound. The project started to turn in a new direction, with inspiration from modern rock, punk, grunge, and classic rock influences such as Paramore, Nothing But Thieves, Brand New, Queen and Led Zeppelin to name a few. We took inspiration from modern duo’s like Twenty One Pilots and their story; how difficult the journey was, and the fact that despite all the hardships they made it to where they always wanted to be.

After three years of playing live, releasing music and keeping up with content production Annabelle decided she wanted to harness the last opportunity we had to go into public high school and have a “normal” experience. I was timid about this decision because all I’d ever known was music. You can hear in my early songwriting the way I felt when I attended public school. I was an outcast, I never cared about the same things other people cared about. I didn’t know how to dress, I was weird and back then it really wasn’t cool to be a musician like it is now. We had very different experiences this final year but it was a good decision we made, something we both needed to experience.

We continued playing gigs and festivals and writing songs. Eventually started doing full band shows with a drummer. We had been playing rock music as a duo and it wasn’t working. We tried playing with tracks for a while but concluded there was nothing like the feeling of sharing that experience as a full band on stage. We loved the feeling and the sound of being a rock band and continued to pursue that where we could. I started playing bass around town in other groups and crafting my sound and my passion. I love playing all kinds of genres and I love the feeling of collaborating with other artists. I played for multiple blues bands, rock bands, etc. We were growing as musicians and as people.

After finding our new sound we found a drummer to work with and they decided to join the band. We rebranded our group into a rock trio called Outtake13. We went into a new studio to record the new record. We got exactly halfway through tracking the record and halfway through booking a tour when everything fell apart. A huge life lesson about trust was learned here. Sometimes you love something and believe in something so much and when you allow it to fall into the wrong hands it can be detrimental. We had encountered managers and talent agencies that wanted to change us before, but this was different. We were young and naïve and we allowed our songs to change, our look to change, our mission to alter, until we realized what was happening. This was a very difficult period of time and a lot was learned. We took a break from recording. Basically threw an entire album away, we were down one band mate and decided to change our name back and just go back to our roots.
It took a little while but we found the strength to start over again. And again, it was lonely, but we began going back to our favorite open mics, places we felt embraced and places that felt comfortable. One being Bottega Art Bar in Downtown Wilmington. We finally began to feel that we had people behind us that believed in us and we began to realize that this setback was just that, it was a setback. We felt inspired again.

We started working with other musicians and local drummers that learned our songs and played amazing shows together. About two weeks after we got back on our feet I remember going to my first real house party. A room full of local musicians, I felt for the first time in my life like I fit in. I was inspired again and felt like I was starting to live my life in my own way and do what I love the way it felt right. The next morning, slightly hungover, I got on my phone and read a few odd headlines about some strange health epidemic. I thought it was a joke. A few days later our favorite bars began closing their doors, we started losing gigs and soon enough we were out of work and down again. This was Covid 2020.
After the world started to open up again and get back to “normal” though nothing would ever be the same. We tried our hardest to pick back up where we left off, but that was easier said than done. We built up from the ground once again. We ended up finding someone new to play drums and we managed to begin headlining in Surrounding cities, tracking singles, and planning to continue this uphill momentum.

I will express that after everything that happened with the rebrand and Outtake13 in 2019 I was very careful to be hyper communicative with any new members or people that we worked with. I made sure this time that everybody was on the same page, whether a hired session player or a dedicated member of the band there was transparency and our goals aligned, at this point this was all that mattered. I began working harder than ever and we came very close to bringing our dreams to reality. At the time, the drummer we were working with was a fantastic fit, we were playing bigger shows together. writing together and making some really good progress. Life happens, people change their minds, I have done the same, learned the hard way through experience that what you once thought you wanted may not be what you truly desire in the long run. There is absolutely no anger here, but the musician we worked with at this time decided suddenly to take a break from music and performing live all together and try a different path in life. Always grateful for the time we got to play music together We went separate ways and we still very humbly wish them the best. They were one of the greatest drummers we’d ever had the pleasure of writing and performing with.

Although at the time this was difficult to accept, we saw it plain as day. Trying the same thing over and over again without changing the method and producing the same results is also known to be a definition of insanity. We were not going to start again in the same place. This was the end of a chapter, this string of chapters that in a moment began to blend together in a bad way. We had accomplished a lot, overcame more, and above all else we learned a lot. We were tired and we needed to start fresh.

Annabelle and I now live in Nashville TN and the last two years here have been incredible! Not without struggle, confusion, difficult emotions and relationships. Blossoming with opportunities and lessons and above all else, I have gotten to experience what I came here to do. You may think right off the bat that it was about music, this is music city afterall. I chose Nashville because I’d always wanted to move to a major city and I wanted to be surrounded by artists like myself, yes. Although the main point of this change was for a breath of new air. I had gone through a lot of personal changes in my life and relationships back home towards the end of all of this and I came to a point where I felt I genuinely had close to nothing to lose. Where fear is eliminated there is one thing that remains, very clearly, this is freedom.

This sense of freedom is my reward for the battles I’ve fought thus far, whether it had anything to do with my music career or just came from life itself. I feel I’ve always been fighting my way through life, I didn’t want to force anything anymore. I just wanted to be. To live, to see what happens when you decide to let go of the things that trouble you the most.

– Michaela

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
There are struggles and obstacles around every corner with this career. I would say it’s anything but easy. For me, the biggest moment of “it’s worth it” is how it feels to be on stage, sharing our art and pieces of our being with other humans, the surreal feeling of getting a final mix back of your song, the pure adrenaline of being on stage, the feeling when a fan asks for merch to be signed or telling us they love our band and felt our passion from the crowd. All these small moments make it worth it.
As a musician you have to fight against the current that will be pushing to shape you into a box, into a genre, into a look, and people that will tell you how to be. People that will tell you everything they think you SHOULD be doing, and it’s a fine line between taking constructive criticism, and changing your identity to suit the ideas of others. I’d say one of the biggest fights is pushing back against all of that and being who you are and being proud of it, making the music that comes from within you and being honest and staying true to your art. It is art, and when you think of it that way you wouldn’t take an abstract piece from Picasso and say “you should change this and that about it”, or be concerned about what Picasso was wearing when he painted that piece.
I’d also say it was a struggle beginning this career at such a young age because the amount of pressure I put on myself was immense. And at the time I enjoyed it, it was all I knew but looking back I see I had created this specific vision or path and if I fell short, I wouldn’t know who I was or my worth without it. And I think its taken lots of work as well as life experience to get to understand that I am more than just one thing. This is still what I want more than anything but its so important to zoom out and simply be grateful for everything I’ve been able to do in my life because of music. I am connected to music eternally, it will always love me, and I will still always love it, no matter what the future holds.

– Annabelle

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
We are both first and foremost songwriters, then singers, then instrumentalists. I (Michaela) play the bass, acoustic guitar and piano. Annabelle plays electric and acoustic guitar and has always had a strong passion for performing live. We have always been known for our harmonies. We are so in sync and can interpret each others vocal movements before they’re written out or planned, it just comes naturally when we sing together. I imagine because we are identical twins, and we’ve been singing together our whole lives. But none the less that is something that has always stood out to our listeners and we’ve always gotten feedback on.
I’d say we stand out for going outside the boundaries, refraining from attaching ourselves to labels like specific genre’s or modern branding. Something that sets us apart from others is our refusal to conform, and doing what we love simply because we love it, doing it our way. We are identical twins but don’t choose to put that at the forefront of our image, because for us, it’s all about the music that we make together above all else.

What quality or characteristic do you feel is most important to your success?
“I think that it’s important to realize that at the end of the day success is measured however you decide it is. You could look at our journey and easily see failure, you could also see two kids that grew up with music being their north star and overcoming things not everybody at that age or even in a lifetime may have to overcome. I think my biggest success has nothing to do with my music career if I’m being honest, I think my success is in my kindness and strength, that’s all. This industry has taught me that resilience is necessary and I am grateful for that because in life it’s the same way. Something bad happens, you get up and you keep walking. Taking time to hurt and to feel is also necessary, that’s something I’ve also learned the hard way. Changing your mind is going to happen as well, and that’s okay. Follow your heart and your gut instincts. You will always have tons of people telling you what they think you SHOULD do, but at the end of it all, we are always going to measure success in different ways. To me when I’m on stage in front of a great crowd, in my bedroom by myself writing a new song, or in the studio making a song an everlasting physical thing, I feel joy. That’s why I do this and why I always have, music brings me joy and clarity, and sense of purpose in a world where these things can be few and far between. I will always be grateful for that no matter how difficult and imperceivable things can get.” – Michaela

“I think the characteristic most valuable to our success would be the honest determination and drive we had to always put the music first. It’s been an interesting road. We’ve always given everything, put every bit of ourselves into this, into music and working toward our goals and dreams. As we’ve grown up we realized that giving to ourselves is simultaneously giving to our career as well, you have to live to have something to write about, you have to take care of yourself to provide good work.
Another thing that I feel so lucky to have had in our earlier years of working as well as to the current date is being graced with truly kind people in the crowds at our shows. I know something that has, and always will stick with me are the moments where people come up to us and genuinely tell us they love our music, that it meant something to them to see us up there full of passion and to NEVER lose that, and NEVER give up. And whether I remember every face or name, I mean it when I say that it has stayed with me throughout my career, kept me pushing forward and kept me inspired.
I am also always grateful for support from family and friends through it all. Some people would call us crazy for living the way we have, or tell us that we’ll never make it where we want to, but having people that care, support, and truly believe in us is irreplaceable.
I believe that you receive the energy that you export into the world, in some shape or form at some points through life. When we live by our genuine creativity and passion, and drive and joy, it has, and will continue to attract like-minded people that believe in this art and will support and inspire us. Never stop dreaming.” – Annabelle

Some of our goals currently include getting on the road, traveling and touring with our music. Releasing new, and older songs we want to share with the world, publishing new music videos, writing, continuing to play and network in Nashville and beyond. You can keep up with our journey online and through social media. And keep an eye out for our upcoming shows!

PHOTO CREDIT: Thomas O’brien
IG: https://www.instagram.com/tfobvdrums/
Website: https://www.tfobv.com/
Austin Tyler – Instax Nash
IG: https://www.instagram.com/instax.nash/

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.entangleddreamsmusic.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/entangleddreams/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/entangleddreams/
• Twitter: https://x.com/EntangleDreams
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/user/EntangledDreams?sub_confirmation=1
• Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/entangled-dreams
• Other: https://linktr.ee/EntangledDreams