Dr. Dream, a Record Label for Locals, Has Visions of Prosperity

They call their record company Dr. Dream, but that hasn’t exempted Dave Hayes and Dave Hansen from the kinds of unpleasant realities that can give music entrepreneurs the nocturnal sweats.

Two years ago, when the Orange-based label released its first full-length album, “Keeping Up With the Joneses” by the Joneses, it was relying on a record distributorship called Greenworld to get the album into record stores. Greenworld promptly went out of business, and the Joneses went nowhere.

Next, Dr. Dream concentrated its hopes on El Grupo Sexo, a wild, witty, punk-funk band that looked like a good bet to win national recognition for itself and its record company. A fine debut album, “Mom’s Home,” confirmed the band’s promise. But in December, with a follow-up album set for release, El Grupo Sexo broke up amid internal tensions.

Hayes, the founder and president of Dr. Dream, says it took him a long time to admit that the band most likely to further his dream was finished (the second Grupo album, “Up Periscope,” has just been released, albeit with no band to help promote it).

“It finally hit me, and my attitude was, ‘Hey, that’s rock ‘n’ roll, and I’m going to have to get used to it,’ ” Hayes said.

That even-keel attitude has enabled Dr. Dream to keep going despite its early setbacks.

“Surviving is a major achievement in a business like this,” Hayes said recently as he and Hansen, the label’s vice president, sat on a couch at Advanced Media Systems, the recording studio in Orange run by Dr. Dream. “If we survive, we will do well. Eventually, it will work.”

So far, Dr. Dream has survived long enough to release six albums and an EP, most of them by performers based in Orange County. If things go as projected, Hayes said, 1988 will be the year the label moves from survivorship to prosperity.

Most important, he and Hansen say, is that they’ve been able to survive with the label’s founding ideals intact: a commitment to supporting adventurous, out-of-the-mainstream rock that major labels largely ignore because the profit potential is in the thousands rather than the millions. Using local talent as its initial base, Dr. Dream hopes to join the ranks of nationally recognized independents.

(Ann De Jarnett and the Swamp Zombies, two of the four acts currently signed to Dr. Dream, will play Friday night at Night Moves, 5902 Warner Ave., Huntington Beach, along with National People’s Gang, an Orange County band being courted by Dr. Dream).

While Hayes has had his share of difficulties in launching Dr. Dream, he does have one great advantage that has been crucial to keeping the company afloat: a father--Anaheim insurance company owner Robert Hayes--who is both affluent and avidly supportive of his son’s ambitions.

“I’d say that in the last four years my dad has put in a quarter of a million dollars,” Hayes said. “He did it for me; I love him for it, and, hopefully, I’ll be able to pay him back.”

Hayes, 27, played piano in a rock band before deciding that he could do more to make a mark in music by scouting, recording and marketing creative acts that otherwise might remain unheard. Hansen, 25, was the concert director at USC and did some music promotion on his own before joining Dr. Dream around the time of the Joneses release. Until recently, dad Hayes held the title of president and took an active role in running the label.

“I always wanted to create something the public would enjoy,” Robert Hayes, 47, said of his interest in bankrolling his son’s record company. With Dr. Dream on what he says is a solid footing, Hayes is pulling back from the day-to-day management. “I think it’s time,” he said. “I will get out of it what I expected to get out of it, and that’s satisfaction.”

Ultimately, something less tangible than venture capital will determine whether Dr. Dream succeeds .

What really matters, Dave Hayes said, is “How good are our ears?”

Together, he and Hansen have shown an ear for diversity. The acts Dr. Dream has signed span the musical spectrum from the Joneses, with their New York Dolls-style grunge rock (and their almost pathological sexism), to De Jarnett, with her winning blend of Patti Smith vocal stylings and elegant violin interludes, to the Swamp Zombies’ Cajun-folk acoustic stomps. Besides the Swamp Zombies and De Jarnett, the label’s current roster also includes the Noize Toys, a heavy metal band, and Long March, which plays techno-rock with a British accent.

The wild card in the Dr. Dream catalogue is “Ronald Reagan Slept Here,” a satiric comedy album by impressionist Rich Little. Hayes said the release, Dr. Dream’s first by a nationally known figure, came about virtually by accident after the record’s producers couldn’t place it with a bigger label. Little and his producer, Earle Doud, are still shopping for a major label to take over the album.

Dr. Dream, meanwhile, has no interest in doing further comedy albums, but “Reagan Slept Here,” which arrived on Dr. Dream’s doorstep through connections of the label’s lawyer, has helped give it a higher profile in the record business.

Dr. Dream can afford to sink $20,000 to $30,000 into each record, Hayes said. That total, which includes recording, manufacturing, marketing and promotional costs, might not cover the catering bill for some major label projects.

If the four new releases planned for the rest of 1988 can sell 10,000 copies each--a puny total by major label standards, but a benchmark of success for small independents--Dr. Dream will make money, Hayes said.

Other goals for the year include getting the label’s bands out on national tours for the first time, and possibly signing over a Dr. Dream act to a larger label that could break a substantial hit. That would give Dr. Dream more national exposure and bring in an infusion of cash that could allow it to look beyond its immediate neighborhood for new talent.

Hayes says his main goal isn’t to turn Dr. Dream into a big business but to continue working closely with promising, unconventional talents in a way that ensures their creative freedom.

“We have to really like (a band) and want to believe in them and want to work with them,” he said. “You’re not getting paid a lot of money, so you have to love doing it.”

When he launched Dr. Dream, Hayes said, “people were always telling me, ‘Dave, this is a shark business, you’re going to get put under.’ And I believe that. But I also believe in the good guys in the white hat. I think by being honest and a nice guy, you will win.

“The money would be really nice if it were there, but it would be awful for me to have successful bands and have them hate you. I’d feel really miserable,” Hayes said. “I want to exploit their music but not the people.”

Not everyone who has dealt with Dr. Dream is convinced of the label’s ideals. Last year there was a falling-out between the record company and Daniel Van Patten, a record producer who owned and operated Advanced Media Systems before Dr. Dream took it over. Before the falling-out--which both sides declined to discuss in detail--Van Patten had been a partner in Dr. Dream.

“I thought their intentions when they first started were pretty good. I don’t feel that way any more,” Van Patten said. “Dave Hayes isn’t doing this out of the goodness of his own heart but as an ego stroke for himself.”

Bob Brown, a veteran record producer who has worked on several Dr. Dream projects, says he remains on good terms with both Van Patten and the record company.

“Overall I’ve been fairly treated (by Dr. Dream) and overall it’s been a good relationship for all involved,” Brown said. “What they’re trying to do is right on, but sometimes there are different expectations about how to do that,” he said of the dispute between Dr. Dream and Van Patten. “I think they’re on the right track, and I think what they want to do is right. And I think ultimately they’ll pull it off.”

Even Van Patten, whose gold record for producing the “Pleasure Victim” album by Berlin still hangs at Advanced Media Systems, not far from a surrealistic painting of Marilyn Monroe by former art student Dave Hayes, wishes Dr. Dream success because of what that would mean for the Orange County music scene.

“I hope the best for them,” Van Patten said. “Orange County needs a record label.”

Ann De Jarnett, the Swamp Zombies and National People’s Gang will play at Night Moves, 5902 Warner Ave., Huntington Beach, tonight starting at 9. Admission: $5. Information: (714) 840-0208.