Chapter 1: At the beginning was a chord ...

Much has been written about Diary of Dreams. Over the years there have been uncountable assumptions which spread the international fan community and many of them have been taken as the ultimate truth. But are they really what they seem to be? Is Diary of Dreams really the second step of mastermind Adrian Hates into the world of music? Or is this band in truth a solo project and all of its further members pure imagination of its creator? Is he truly a lunatic? A freak? A madman? Well, we will see. More than 15 years after this band has been formed it is time to tell the real story.
Who would have ever thought that Diary of Dreams was at first in the very beginning a guitar-heavy project without the usage of any synthesizer, which became so important since the debut album, and that it was the classical guitar which Adrian Hates studied in the first place? The reason why his music took another turn might have resulted from the fact that Adrian rose with the symphonies of Beethoven (whoms Mondscheinsonate he still prefers as one of his most beloved compositions), Mozart, Vivaldi and other unsurpassed composers in his childhood. Furthermore he hadn’t much contact to contemporary music. The harmonies in his own compositions which became more clarity over the years might have their beginning here, because who else could be a better teacher than the great masters of the old times? Nevertheless, it was the earlier mentioned classical guitar which enchanted Adrian when he was nine and which he studied until he was at the age of 21. So it is not very surprising that guitars are still playing a major part today in the music of Diary of Dreams, even if some people might have difficulties to even hear or recognize them.
But only six years after his first musically attempts - he now was 15 years old and lived in a remote place in the state of New York - Adrian got aware of the key instruments which would become so important to him. “I have lived there for about one and a half years together with a really big family.”, he says as he recalls that time, “The whole estate contained some hectares of land. You had to run twenty minutes to reach the next building. I guess it was this place where I discovered also my enjoyment of loneliness. There was much life in the house, but it was really huge and contained two floors and solitary corners to which you could withdraw. And it also contained a grand and a classical piano. So I just sat there and pushed the keys. You really do not have to be a studied pianist to enjoy the sound of a single chord – and this particular grand piano had a really striking sound. Thenceforward I was continually sitting there and assigned my guitar melodies to the piano. Because, every kid in the house got piano lessons I just joined them and started to learn playing that instrument.”
“The school there supported my self-sustaining development also very much, especially in the meaning of creativity. We had one hour per day in which we had to write what we wanted to. We could write just about anything and everything we liked. For some reason the teacher seemed to have a weakness for me, because I wrote freely about anything that bothered me. Others had more trouble with that and only wrote things they thought the teachers wanted to read. They knew that the teachers would read their writings. I never mind and wrote whatever discommoded me. And that seemed to lead to some respect. So was my life that days. After I went back to Germany I had the urge to put my thoughts and feelings into practice. I wanted to fulfill myself and in the end I bumped right into this bunch of crazy musicians.”
In the year 1989 these six musicians played all kinds of standard instruments but no keyboard. Which is very surprising from this modern point of view and in regard of this specific band. They used guitars, bass, drums and vocals and that least one also was not performed by Adrian at all. The reason for this instance was logical, he was a classical guitarist and also acting as one inside of the band. Although he described the music as totally anarchistic, in this initial phase of the band history it was clearly shown that Adrian had a liability to perfectionism and endeavor for self-creativity on a high level. Should they play covers from other songs? No, it had to be self written compositions, which were presented to the public from the young formation with continually changing band names. One of these titles was a guitar song named Tagebuch der Träume , which Adrian composed for his own. “I composed this song for the classical guitar only, so to say without any vocals or anything else”, says the mastermind, “and I liked the name, it was beautiful. I had this kind of feeling that it means much more than just an ordinary song title. So I wanted to make more out of it, translated it into English and felt that it sounded good and that it provided much space to work within. I then decided to took it as my name under which I worked with. At that time I already had written some songs, although I have to bring out that there was not perfect music, only because of my presence. Off cause I wanted to make something totally new, but in the beginning we sounded like a school band I guess. It was really some kind of music anarchy. But you have to consider this: To get a bunch of kids like that together with members of this particular age, who are also creative, technically acceptable, far away from maturity and with the same taste of music is almost impossible. Our bassist heard mostly Led Zeppelin and this kind of stuff, whilst our drummer concentrated on classic Rock music. As you might can imagine the other band members reacted accordingly after I presented them the first two, three songs I wrote - and which I also know today - and they…ahm…”, Adrian laughs, ”left me and were gone all over sudden. Only one remained and that was…” Alistar Kane, the man at Adrians side in the birth in the year of 1989 which will be unforgotten by most of the fans and who accompanied Adrian as a friend and guitarist at his now following first steps as Diary of Dreams and who would stay for many years to come …