Brooklyn/Toronto indie duo The Dream Eaters return with “Dead Friends,” a darkly funny and surprisingly tender meditation on grief, memory, and the absurdity of missing people who no longer exist in your world. Out now, the track transforms loneliness into ritual and loss into a surreal dinner party — complete with ghosts, laughter, and lemon pasta.
Blending dreamy pop textures with eerie undertones, “Dead Friends” captures the uncanny balance between mourning and humor. Frontman Jake Zavracky describes it as the story of coming home to find your past erased — so you make peace by cooking dinner for the ghosts that remain. It’s both haunting and oddly comforting, an anthem for those who grieve through laughter and nostalgia.
What gives the single its emotional resonance is the ordinary act at its center: making food. The song treats cooking as a love language, a way to bridge the living and the dead. Zavracky’s inspiration came from Italian chef Gennaro Cantaldo, whose viral video of preparing lemon pasta for a deceased friend sparked the idea for the song — proof that grief, like art, can be as nourishing as it is heartbreaking.
The track was mixed by John Dragonetti (The Submarines, Jack Drag), whose connection to Zavracky adds another layer of friendship and memory to the release. Sonically, “Dead Friends” floats between indie rock and cinematic pop, carried by lush synths, gentle percussion, and vocals that linger like flickering candlelight.
Since forming in 2015, The Dream Eaters — composed of Zavracky and Elizabeth LeBaron — have built a reputation for pairing ethereal melodies with biting humor and surreal visuals. Once a dream-pop band, they’ve evolved into a full-blown multimedia project, crafting hundreds of visually striking, darkly comic videos through their ongoing series The Dream Eating Freakshow.
With “Dead Friends,” The Dream Eaters continue to turn tragedy into art and melancholy into mischief. It’s morbid, funny, and deeply human — proof that sometimes the best way to remember the dead is to invite them back for dinner.
Check out the “Dead Friends” video below:
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