CHEROKEE DREAMS | INTERVIEW + TRACK REVIEW

Cherokee Dreams is Joshua Lynchard's most authentic emotional dumping ground. Working primarily solo, pulling together an inherited grunge palette with lo-fi textures, MIDI drums, cassette dubs and hardly discernible narratives. It sits inside a wider constellation of collaborative bands where Joshua usually plays drums a little too fast with wobbly tempos (the Invisible Teardrops, the Dismals, Nightmare Boyzzz), and Cherokee Dreams is the version of him that fully leans into that sweaty imperfection. In his own words, always bonded by salt and poor timing.

The new album is called "Breathes Corporate Thunder", which reads less like a title and more like a warning siren bleeding through a broken amplifier. Beneath the noise-first aesthetic sits a real philosophy: that emotional honesty lives at slightly sharp G's and fluctuating tempos, that physical media is both rebellion and a lifeline for touring artists, and that a good hard day of manual labour in the elements pulls creativity to the surface in a way that unlimited free time never can. Joshua also runs fambly bands, a DIY tape label that started as a place to give his own network's projects a physical home. Alongside the album he's returning to the stage for a rare Cherokee Dreams live outing on 10 October 2026 at Lava Room, his first in around eight years. In the interview below Joshua talks about breathing the corporate thunder, why creativity works best inside constraint rather than in surplus, the moment a cassette left with a stranger in Pensacola came full circle at a show in Mobile, and how a childhood week of sleep deprivation in Cherokee shaped the sound of an entire catalogue.

TRACK REVIEW - Desire Palth

Desire Palth is the whackiest thing I've heard in a while and I'm here for it. Within a matter of seconds you're transported straight into Joshua's world, and it's a strange, layered, wonderful place to be. There's so much to catch. Every listen throws up another texture, another decision, another sound you didn't hear the first time around.

Underneath all of it, the bass and drums lock in with a rhythm that just tickles the ear, carrying the whole song through with a kind of unhurried confidence. The falsetto that sits ever so slightly in the background is the detail that really got me. Small choice, big pay-off. Really cool sounds recorded here, and honestly, I'm keen to hear more.

"Breathes Corporate Thunder" feels less like a title and more like a warning siren bleeding through a broken amplifier. At what point did Cherokee Dreams stop becoming "songs" and start becoming a place to dump the emotional overflow of modern life?

I'm thinking long before an ability to document any personal musings, in February 1987. Cherokee Dreams has pretty much always been a place to take an emotional dump, even in its infancy under the name of Janys Joplyn circa 2009. A year or so after that I released the first collection of songs under Cherokee Dreams, so truthfully around then? There is an early demo of OO Spool on my long abandoned Soundcloud from 2011, that was one of the first things I'd really sunk in to as far as intentional writing and recording at home. Even early on though I would say it's never been a songs project, definitely all feels. Also, we're all breathing the corporate thunder and maybe should be a little concerned.

Your music carries this beautiful tension between collapse and catharsis, like everything is constantly on the verge of either falling apart or transforming into something meaningful. Do you think creativity works best for you when life feels unstable?

Thanks, that first part felt like a pretty high compliment. Funnily enough I feel that creativity works best for me when I'm halfway in a pretty rigid structure, like a 60/40 split between work and leisure. I've had the privilege of kind of working for myself, mostly landscaping/hardscaping/construction, over the past handful of years and within that there can be all of the free time or none at all. I've noticed during lull times, with untethered access to musical tools I'm usually doing the least and generally feeling pretty uninspired. There is something about a good hard toil in the elements that brings all of the desperation bubbling to the surface. At least for me…does creativity work best for me when life feels unstable?

There's something deeply human about hand-dubbing cassettes in real time in an era obsessed with instant digital consumption. Do you see physical media now as rebellion, preservation, or intimacy?

All of the above, truly, and perhaps also as a necessity. I feel that physical media sales are a direct lifeline for artists touring or traveling in any capacity and also still a viable means of sharing new music with folks. If you'll indulge a short personal experience…I was touring with the Invisible Teardrops in February and I brought along some fambly bands cassettes to distribute on the road, amongst those were the unreleased Dismals album. I was talking with a guy in Pensacola Florida and along the way thought he'd be in to that project, maybe. Needless to say I left a cassette with him and hoped he'd at least check it out. Fast forward to the end of May, Dismals have a show in Mobile Alabama and amongst the crowd is the stranger I left a cassette with. It may have been just one person (thanks again Jamie), but to quote my dear comrade Jeremy Strange "the old ways do work!"

Rebellion, up the fuckin' punks; preservation, uh-huh; intimacy, absolutely.

A lot of DIY music scenes romanticise struggle, but your writing feels like it's actually surviving inside the exhaustion rather than aestheticising it. How do you stop emotional burnout from becoming performative?

Aren't we all just surviving inside the exhaustion? I have figured out one way to be less performative, Cherokee Dreams usually performs live once every 8 years with the next instance being 10/10/2026 at a local venue in town called Lava Room. But I am planning on getting around regionally and presenting some tunes with the release of breathes corporate thunder. There's plenty of time to back pedal there though. I'm still working through the emotional burnout part.

The phrase "almost always overwhelmed" honestly feels like the emotional thesis of the entire project. Do you think Cherokee Dreams exists more as escape from the world, or evidence of how deeply the world is affecting you?

I feel that Cherokee Dreams exists most as a way for me to process information. That can definitely also be an escape sometimes sure, and I feel that any existing thing is evidence of this deeply affected world. The project name came (via a friend) from a bout of sleep deprivation I experienced over the course of a week in my childhood town of Cherokee, and I do feel that sonically a lot of my "catalogue" ties back in to the humble suffering during that week of total overwhelming sensory overload. "Almost always overwhelmed" is likely the emotional thesis of it all, psychological thesis "almost overwhelmed always".

Your projects feel interconnected almost like different emotional personalities existing under separate names. What does Cherokee Dreams allow you to express that the Invisible Teardrops, the Dismals or Nightmare Boyzzz can't?

Cherokee Dreams is a pretty insular and personal project, I'm the only one actively giving any direct input. While the other projects are/were collaborative, I'm mostly filling a rhythm role there. I think across those projects I am emoting and presenting myself as the sweaty guy playing the drums a little too fast with wobbly tempos; Cherokee Dreams allows me to really lean in to my most authentic sweaty guy playing the MIDI drums a little too fast with wobbly tempos AND with a hardly discernible narrative. A slightly different pusher across the board, but always bonded by salt and poor timing.

There's a graininess to your world, cassettes, home recordings, noisy textures, imperfect sounds, that feels emotionally important, not just stylistic. What do imperfections preserve that polished recordings often erase?

I don't feel that a well polished recording has covered or erased something necessarily, but it seems to be further from the real sound(s) of living. To my ears. I do have pretty bad tinnitus. Maybe somewhere in the world a person is crying in perfect 7/8 timing or something. I grew up recording the radio with cassettes, and dubbing my brother's collection when unseen. Maybe my preferred palette for listening and creating is tethered to blown out dubs of Superunknown and Nevermind? But I think you're right Wizard, it is emotionally important. And at the end of the day I really don't think anyone gives a shit if your G was a little sharp or if your tempo fluctuates or if your producer splashed a little goats blood on the ferrite. Just make a joyful noise unto the lord, Satan.

A lot of artists talk about "community," but starting a tape label to physically help artists around you distribute music feels genuinely rooted in care rather than branding. Has the local scene become part of your survival creatively?

My original concept for fambly bands was actually a super group of sorts with members from each of the projects I'm a part of, or maybe like a revolving casts of local friends and musicians. At some point over the past couple of years nearly every project I was involved in was either in the middle of or finishing up recording albums/ep's etc. And nearly every one of those bands also has multiple solo endeavors and/or bands stemming from them. I'd quickly found my own hard drive was holding a large chunk recorded music with only streaming platforms to go to (save the Dismals Stability in Motion on Arkam Records), which was kind of a bummer. Transitioning that concept into a DIY tape label of sorts just ended up making way more sense than trying to put together another band/project. But there's still time for that too, I think. The fambly bands band. Being connected to other artists is a critical lifeline for my own creativity though. Without a community, even to share nonmusical concepts and life with, it all dries up.

"Desire Palth" feels emotionally disoriented in the best possible way, like trying to process too much information, emotion and dread at once. When you're writing, do you consciously chase clarity, or are you more interested in documenting emotional confusion honestly?

I mostly chase words in a stupor of confused honesty. I wish I had some really cool artistic way I went about writing that I could share with you Wizard but it really happens in spurts and often at poor times to document. Such as when driving or building some primitive looking steps for a job or mishearing a Fleetwood Mac song on the radio.

I guess I'm most interested in documenting the honest chase of emotional consciousness, while trying to wrangle in the confusion but it's usually pretty prevalent.

If someone discovers Cherokee Dreams alone late at night through headphones, surrounded by the same political exhaustion and emotional numbness that inspired Breathes Corporate Thunder, what do you hope the music gives them for a few minutes that the real world currently can't?

At the very least I hope that, for even a few moments, after the confusion of having an extremely lo-fi noisey weird unmastered song come along to their algorithm or whatever, I hope that a potential listener finds something almost familiar. Or almost interesting. Or almost different. Or almost nostalgic even.

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