the Regime's genesis
IMPORTANT NOTE
In January 2023, Scott Kim (DPR REM) announced that he'd be stepping down from his role as Business Manager for DPR, and he has not taken part in any DPR activities since then. Until Scott or any other members of DPR say otherwise, The DPR Record is proceeding on the assumption that he has parted ways with the group. Christian Yu (DPR IAN) and Hong Dabin (DPR LIVE) remain as the founding members.
Future press articles may not mention DPR REM, but The DPR Record decided to keep this page "as is" in order to preserve the history of Scott's role in the formation and the first 8+ years of Dream Perfect Regime. We believe that DPR would not be what it is and where it is today without Scott's business acumen, planning & organization, connections, and years of hard work. We wish Scott the best in whatever he chooses to pursue next.
The Book of DPR: The Regime's Genesis
Introduction
The proceeding is the long-form history of how Dream Perfect Regime came to be. It is DPR's "Chapter 1" or their beginning's "beginning." DPR members frequently say, "This is just the beginning," even almost a decade after its foundation. This is a long-running joke between DPR and DREAMers and has been the source of many DREAMer memes. The story told herein begins in 1990 and ends mid-2018, just before DPR LIVE's first world tour.
This page started out as a couple page document and just grew and grew and grew. Like any good written biography or film, editors have to make cuts and some things may get left out. The DPR Record has done its best to include the most important events from this part of DPR's history as well as some interesting details along the way. We do continue to update this page from time to time if DPR members share new stories or details; however, it is impossible to cover every single thing that happened. We would encourage readers to not take this website as their only source of information about DPR, and we hope that readers go and visit all of DPR's official accounts, team member social media, and DREAMer fan accounts. There is always more to learn.
The title of this page ("The Book of DPR: The Regime's Genesis") and the section names are a tongue in cheek reference to DPR's DREAMers sometimes being called a cult-like following as well as DPR IAN joking about starting a cult and DPR LIVE saying that it would be a cult of givers if they did. DPR also occasionally uses biblical imagery in their work, and so the semi-religious theme for the account of their history emerged. Please enjoy.
Jump To Section
Christian Yu was born in Sydney, Australia in 1990. He was also given the Korean name of Yu Ba Rom. (Side note: Koreans write the surname first and then the given names because the family name has had more importance in Korean culture. Traditionally each part is one syllable, although there are some names with more than one. Romanized given names can be written with a space between the syllables, a hyphen between, or put together as one word.) His family moved to Wollongong, a coastal city about an hour and a half south of Sydney when he was in elementary school. He lived there with his mother until after graduating from high school (cir. 2008).
When Christian was about 6 years old, he attended his first Broadway musical, which was a performance of Andrew Lloyd Webber's CATS. (The second national tour of CATS in Australia was from 1990 to 1996.) Young Christian was completely enthralled by the story, costumes, music and performances. It inspired his young mind and stirred his imagination. He felt the desire to do or be part of something that would make other people have the same feelings that he did while watching the show. This idea stuck with him as he grew up and may have been part of his interest in dance as well as desire to leave Australia to pursue something "bigger." (To learn more details about Christian's childhood, go to his Mindset episode "The Making of MITO, Moodswings In This Order." as well as his interview on the Zach Sang Show.)
Scott Kim was born near Rochester, New York, USA in 1992. When he was still an infant, the Kim family moved to Long Island in the New York City metropolitan area. Long Island is the longest and largest island in the contiguous United States and is home to more than half of New York City's residents. He attended elementary, middle and high school while they lived there. Scott's parents had immigrated from South Korea to the United States when they were a young married couple. His father started selling shoes in New York City markets and worked his way up in the shoe business. Eventually, Scott's father started his own company and became a very successful businessman in the shoe industry. (Listen to Scott's Mindset collection episode "The Making of the Businessman" for more details on his childhood.)
Hong Da Bin was born in Seoul, South Korea in 1993. When Dabin was about five years old, the Hong family relocated to the island of Guam, the largest and southernmost of the Mariana Islands and a US Territory. His family ran a Korean restaurant, and Dabin grew up spending a lot of time in the restaurant with them. They moved back to South Korea before Dabin started the 10th grade (cir. 2007). (For more details about Dabin's childhood, check out his Mindset episode "The Making of the Mediator.)
When Christian Yu was in high school in Australia, he started to learn how to breakdance along with some of his friends. He recorded videos of himself b-boying, edited and posted them on YouTube. Christian's videos gathered a decent following online. His supporters called themselves SALTs, an acronym for Super Amazing Loving Team. Christian also was in a hardcore band in high school.
When Hong Dabin was a freshman in high school, a friend asked him if he'd like to try a b-boying with him. Since YouTube was becoming popular at that time, Dabin went home and searched b-boy videos on the platform. In a video interview with Esquire Korea, Dabin said that all of the thumbnails from that search showed people lying on the ground. But then, he found one person standing up and clicked on that video out of curiosity. This person danced for the whole video standing up, not once lying on the ground. It was Christian. Dabin practiced dancing while watching that video. After some time, Dabin sent Christian a direct message (DM) through YouTube, and Christian responded. Dabin also sent Christian videos of him dancing, and Christian would respond that he was doing well. They continued to keep in touch that way over the next few years.
After Christian finished high school (cir. 2008), he took classes for one year at the University of Sydney at the request of his mom. However, university was not for him. He wanted to pursue dance and learn more about his Korean heritage, so Christian decided to go to Seoul.
Christian picked up and moved to South Korea by himself (cir. 2009). Some time after arriving, he happened to watch one of Dabin's videos and sent him a message asking if he was in South Korea and to call him right away. Dabin was startled by the message out of the blue, but he called Christian as requested. They decided to meet up the next day, and after that they began to hang out together almost every day. Dabin showed Christian around Seoul, and they quickly became very close friends. Christian saw some of his younger self in Dabin and admired his passion. They would share music and dancing videos with each other, dreaming of doing something great together in the future. Christian continued making b-boy videos, and Dabin appeared in some of them. (Most of those videos have been long removed from YouTube, but there are a few clips still floating around the internet.)
About a year after moving to Seoul, Christian ran into a talent scout when he made a late night run to a convenience store. The scout gave him a flyer and invited Christian to come to his company the next day. Christian called his mom and told her about it, and she encouraged him to go give it a try. Christian showed up at the company as the scout recommended. When he saw the amount of other people there, he realized that this company was holding an official audition that day. Christian was completely unprepared, and the line to audition was very long. He decided to go ahead and wing the audition since he was there already. He used the music from the previous person (which happened to be a song by Psy) to freestyle dance for the judges and didn't think he did a very good job when he finished. However, the judges were impressed enough with his b-boying skills to pass him to the second round. After that round, Christian was told that he'd made it in the group and that they even wanted him to be the leader.
Everything moved very fast from that point. Christian chose Rome to be his stage name, based off of his Korean name of Yu BaRom. (Christian still refers to himself as Rome sometimes and some of his long time friends do as well.) Christian knew very little Korean, but as the leader he would be expected to speak Korean for the group in interviews and events. As a native English speaker, this presented a great challenge to Christian. He had to learn Korean as quickly as he could. They also asked him to create videos for the group.
The group debuted as Crown Clown or C-Clown with the release of the mini album Not Alone and single "Solo" on July 18, 2012. Their debut performance was on MNet's music television program M Countdown the following day. C-Clown had six members: Rome, Siwoo, Ray, Kang Jun, T.K, and Maru. C-Clown's fans were called CROWNS. The group was active for three years and released a total of four mini-albums and six singles. The members went silent after promotions for "Let's Love" in summer of 2014. The group officially disbanded on October 4, 2015.
Christian produced a series of funny videos for C-Clown called "Crown The Clown." He would sign his productions as dPinkReel. Two seasons of the series were released between May and December of 2014. "CTC" can still be found on C-Clown's YouTube page.
(Listen to Christian's Mindset collection episode "The Making of MITO, Moodswings In This Order" to learn more about Christian's experience in C-CLOWN. He also spoke in detail about his experiences in K-pop during his interview on the Zach Sang Show.)
After Dabin graduated from high school (cir. 2011), he decided to complete his mandatory military service. By law, South Korea requires all male citizens between the ages 18 to 28 to enlist and serve in the military for about two years. (Koreans count the year spent in utero as part of their age, so babies are considered one year old at birth. Everyone gets one year added to their Korean age on New Year's Day.)
Dabin spent his time in the military thinking about his dreams and what he wanted to do as his career. Before enlisting he had considered going to university to study philosophy or psychology and become a lecturer, but he rediscovered his love for music while in the military. During that time he realized that his true dream was to become a rapper and pursue music. He left the military determined to focus entirely on learning how to rap and write music.
Scott graduated from high school in 2010 and then went to college in Boston, MA. After his graduation in 2014, he set off for a three-month summer vacation in South Korea. His parents had already relocated from New York to Seoul for Scott's father to expand his shoe business. He wanted to visit his parents and extended family as well as have the opportunity to learn Korean and more about his cultural roots. During his vacation, Scott met and became friends with fellow American Amber Liu, who also was a member of a Kpop girl group at that time. (Scott and Amber eventually started a YouTube channel together called What The Pineapple. Between July 2015 and January 2016, Amber and Scott released numerous videos together. These videos can still be watched, but they are now part of Amber's personal YouTube account.)
Since Christian was a native English-speaker, he made connections and friends with other English-speaking K-pop idols, including Amber Liu of f(x). During the last month of Scott's vacation, Amber introduced Christian to him, and they hit it off immediately. Scott decided to extend his time in Seoul, which then ended up turning into a full relocation. Christian and Scott quickly became close friends and talked about their dreams for the future. Christian shared his vision of starting a movement, something that was completely outside of the regular music and entertainment industry in Korea. They saw potential in each other, so they decided to join forces to make a plan to bring those dreams to life.
After Christian and Scott became friends, Christian introduced Dabin to Scott. The three of them fell into synch together, and they began dreaming of what they could do. Christian wanted to pursue his interest in directing and editing videos. Dabin was focused on developing his rapping and music writing skills to become an artist. Scott wanted to be a producer. He brought his knowledge of making successful videos for YouTube as well as an understanding for business that he'd learned while watching his dad over the years. They realized that if they put all of their strengths and skill sets together, they would be able to help each other make their dreams a reality.
"Rem credits Ian with being the initial axis around which DPR gradually materialised[sic]. 'Ian was the role player in the beginning because he had the most experience in entertainment. He had most of the building blocks of — hey, I want to do something different. And we took a lot of inspiration from that; me and Live particularly,' Rem explains. 'I kind of started latching on the more he started telling me, because I could see where I could also help him. Me, being from the complete opposite background of him. That's where the yin and yang started.' Building this framework around this dualism was a massive learning curve for both, but bolstered Rem’s leap of faith in making what ended up being a life-altering decision to stay in Seoul in the first place." --direct quote from "The Lucid Dreaming of Rem," Femina, August 10, 2021
The conversations dreaming about the future and what they could do together happened while Christian was still in C-Clown. After C-Clown's activities stopped in summer of 2014, DPR started producing work together and posted some of their first videos. Once C-Clown officially disbanded in October of 2015, Christian was able to fully focus on DPR.
Together Christian, Dabin and Scott formed the foundation of what would become Dream Perfect Regime, a creative collective the likes of which had never been seen before, but they would have to put in a lot of hard work first before they got there.
The acronym DPR already existed from Christian's editor moniker of dPinkReel. The name dPinkReel originated from one of Christian's dreams. (Many of the visuals Christian uses in his videos come from his dreams.) Back before moving to Seoul, Christian dreamed about watching a film on an old film projector. Pink smoke suddenly started coming out of the reel. This dream inspired him to use the name The Pink Reel, which he stylized as dPinkReel. However, the name dPinkReel wasn't getting good traction from people in the music business, so they needed to figure out something different.
Scott liked the letters DPR and wanted to figure out a new meaning for them. They settled on Dream Perfect, but the "R" was more of a challenge. They tried the word "Royal" for a while, but it didn't feel right. Eventually they settled on the word "Regime" to represent the systematic way they would be going about making their dreams come true. (To hear Scott tell more of this story, listen to Mindset collection episode "The Regime.")
Dabin took some time to come up with his artist name. One day Dabin was listening to the song "Moment 4 Life" by Niki Minaj featuring Drake. One of Drake's lines jumped out at him: "'Cause everybody dies, but not everybody lives." He was in a dark moment in his life when he heard those words, and they reminded him that he needed to be grateful for everyday because people only live once. So, Dabin started using L.I.V.E. as his moniker, but it was pronounced as /liv/. Sometime later, the suggestion was made to Dabin to consider changing the pronunciation to /laiv/ (like "alive"). Dabin liked the idea because he thought it would better represent how he wanted to be transparent and honest when he was performing as well as how his tagline was "coming to you live" like a radio announcer. (To hear Dabin talk more about his artist name, listen to DPR's Mindset.)
(At some point along the way LIVE stopped using the dots between the letters. Then, shortly after his Coming To You Live album was released, LIVE added the DPR acronym to the beginning of his name to make him and his music easier to find in search results. He's been DPR LIVE since then.)
For Christian's moniker, he decided to shorten his given name to +IAN. The + replaces the "Christ" part of his first name and represents a cross. Similar to LIVE, IAN added DPR at the beginning of his name after they had been working as DPR for a few years. Christian includes the + on his visual signature on his video work. When he is behind the camera, his signature is "DPR +IAN Visuals," but his name is reversed to "slausiV NAI+ RPD" when he is performing in front of the camera. It represents his perspective on the screen. To further differentiate between his roles, he uses just DPR IAN for his musical artist name.
Last, Scott needed to come up with a name. He wanted it to be one syllable like LIVE and IAN and to relate to dreams somehow. He settled on REM because humans dream only during the REM (rapid eye movement) sleep cycle.
In order to help finance his dreams, Dabin had held up to three jobs at one time, including working at Subway and a small, eclectic cafe. Christian would regularly visit Dabin at Subway and order the same sandwich every time. Dabin would make custom sandwich creations and try to get Christian to eat them, but Christian would always turn it down for his regular ham, lettuce and onions.
Scott and Christian went to work in the Korean music video and commercial production industry. The entertainment industry is all about connections and this was the time that those seeds were sewn. For the next few years, Dabin, Scott and Christian hustled hard to get the experience and respect needed to build a name for DPR in the industry.
DPR released the first music video made entirely by them in December 2014. They released more music videos, dance videos as well as some concept videos: "Under Pressure" featuring Christian, "Ready to Live" and "Lone Wolf" featuring Dabin, "Hollow" featuring Scott, "Decipher," "Regime," "Signals," and more on YouTube and Vimeo. (All of those early MVs and some of the concept videos have been removed over time.)
In January 2015 DPR made a promotional video for OMG LOUNGE.
Scott's good friend Amber released a solo song "Shake That Brass" in February 2015. In the music video for the song, Scott and Christian appeared in the scenes featuring her friends.
Starting June 2015, Scott and Christian worked with a number of artists on their music videos. This included "Relax and Chill" by LX and One Way's Peter, "Get 'Em" by Kyuyong, "GVO" by Candle, "Friends" by MC Gree & Rudals.
LIVE took the stage as a member of DPR for the first time on July 25, 2015. He performed at a newly opened club (SoulTree, now closed) in Itaewon, an area in Seul that is famous for its dining, clubs, nightlife and international clientele. Less than a month later DPR released LIVE's first song "Till I Die" on SoundCloud and posted the music video for it on YouTube on August 22, 2015.
Next DPR worked with Amber on her "Beautiful" music video, which was released on September 17, 2015. The male lead in the video, Ain, was a mutual friend, and he also appeared in DPR's "Signals" concept video. At the end of September LIVE made a brief cameo in a documentary video on The ICON TV about Owen Ovadoz. He also guest performed at one of Owen's showcases.
P-Type's "Time Lag 2" music video featuring DPR's work was released on November 5, 2015. That month DPR also worked on Kyuhyun's (Super Junior) "Comeback Promotion Video."
The next music video featuring DPR's work was Phantom's "Could You Be Mine." The MV had Ellin of Crayon Pop as the female lead and Microdot in a secret cameo. Owol's "Dream on You" music video was released shortly thereafter. The MV featured Christian's friend Anzhelika as the female lead.
In January 2016 LIVE along with ELO featured on track #9 "긍정 (Positive)" on Owen Ovadoz's P.O.E.M. album.
DPR worked with Amber again on her "Borders" music video, which was released on March 24, 2016. Around that same time, IAN also worked as Director of Photography or colorist (color correction) on projects for other artists, such as music videos for "Spotlight" by Punch x Silento, "Right Here" by Kei G, and Brave Girls.
In April 2016 LIVE collaborated with Sik-K, Punchnello, Owen Ovadoz and Flosik on "Eung Freestyle." The eye-catching music video starred the rappers as well as some of DPR's friends, including brothers Terrence and Kevin Kim (owners of clothing brand IISE Seoul). The MV was filmed at a friend's traditional Korean hanok house. In July the song blew up on YouTube after it was featured in a YouTube Music ad. Later that year, the song won Collaboration of the Year at the Korean HipHop Awards, which marked DPR's first music award.
LIVE's "God Bless" featuring Punchnello and "Dream Perfect" were the next songs released by DPR. "God Bless" is the first song containing LIVE's signature catch phrase "coming to you live." LIVE incorporated the phrase in every song, collaboration or DPR release, he recorded from then on.
In June 2016, LIVE and LAYBACK SOUND's Cream collaborated on "Thirst." The instrumental was originally used on LAYBACKSOUND's "Pink Rocket." "Thirst" was the first time LIVE used what would become his second signature phrase: "iite cool."
In September 2016, DPR scored major recognition for their work with iKON's Bobby and WINNER's Mino. IAN was just 25 years old at this time. Most MV directors in Korea are over 35 years old. Age and seniority play a big part in Korean culture, so IAN pulling off such a complex and visually stunning music video for Bobby's "HOLUP!" was a big deal. He earned respect from music industry insiders with that project. (To hear more of this story, listen to DPR's Mindset.)
Early on in building the DPR crew, Christian pulled his friend Jungmoo into the group. Christian met Jungmoo at a gaming cafe in Seoul back in his first few weeks in Seoul. Christian was a customer, and Jungmoo worked behind the desk and serving snacks. One day Christian approached Jungmoo and struck up a conversation with him. They ended up becoming good friends. When DPR was looking for assistants and more team members, Jungmoo was one of the first people Christian wanted to have as part of the team. Jungmoo would be a vital assistant to the nascent group. (To hear more of this story, listen to DPR's Mindset.)
Dabin's cousin Cline was another early member of the crew. He assisted the guys with whatever they needed and was also a source of levity among the group.
When DPR was wanting to add a manager and driver, they reached out to IAN's old manager from C-Clown, Jaean. (Jaean was with the crew until sometime after the CTYL World Tour.)
DPR's movements were being followed closely by friends, KHH fans, CROWNS, SALTs and new followers of the nascent crew. DPR needed a name to call their fans. A few different fandom names were floating around, but the one that started being used the most was DREAMer. Cline was one of the first in the crew to acknowledge their fans as DREAMers in 2015.
(In 2017 some of Dabin's supporters wanted to organize under an individual fandom name for him. Taking inspiration from LIVE's stage name, they started calling themselves aLIVEs.)
Christian actually had met Cream back when he was in C-Clown. Later on when they were re-introduced to each other again, Christian recognized Cream and realized that they'd met before. Cream was part a group of musicians and producers called LAYBACKSOUND. Cream created most of the beats for LIVE's debut album Coming To You Live. At some point after CTYL, Cream decided to become a full-time member of DPR.
Everything that DPR had been working towards came together for LIVE's first album. DPR dropped "Know Me" (ft. Dean) on March 1, 2017. The music video shows LIVE in silhouette or from behind. Lightning illuminates the stormy skies, but LIVE's face was not visible because he was "not known" yet. At the end the music video when the storm passes, LIVE is finally "known." This song and its MV were a declaration by DPR of their presence and that people would know who they are.
The second single "Please" (ft. Kim Hyo Eun, G2, Dumbfoundead) came a week later on March 7. Well-known rappers Kim Hyo Eun, G2 and Dumbfoundead composed their own verses on this track while working alongside DPR LIVE. The music video featured all the rappers plus a cameo by DPR Cline at the beginning.
The Coming To You Live EP was released on March 15, 2017. The album had seven tracks, four of which featured other artist. In addition to the artists mentioned above for "Know Me" and "Please," Crush joined LIVE on "Laputa" and Loco and Jay Park featured on "Right Here Right Now." Collaborations are very important in rap and hip hop. The fact that LIVE's first album featured so many big names from the KHH and rap scene was testimony that they recognized and supported his talent.
A total of five music videos were released for CTYL. DPR released "Right Here Right Now" and "Laputa" on March 14, 2017. The MV for "Cheese & Wine" was the last to be released on April 1, 2017 (even though it actually was the first one they filmed for the EP). This MV featured color explosions over black & white scenes. IAN played with the color spectrum, which would become a recurring signature visual in DPR MVs.
On March 30, 2017 Somdef released "Ring Ring Ring" featuring Verbal Jint, Paloalto, DPR LIVE & Car, and the journey. his collaboration was actually recorded in 2015 shortly after "Till I Die." DPR LIVE's part included his "coming to you live" catchphrase.
On April 7, 2017 a documentary detailing the DPR team's creative process was uploaded by THECUT on YouTube.
DPR and Loco teamed up again for Loco's "Movie Shoot," which was released on April 7, 2017. The song featured LIVE and IAN directed and edited the music video. Many of the visuals in the MV were inspired by Baz Luhrmann's 2003 film The Great Gatsby.
May 3, 2017 marked DPR LIVE's first major performance at the outdoor event Seoul Sessions Live. LIVE brought all of his fans along with him by broadcasting behind the scenes as well as through the entire performance live on his Instagram page.
Next DPR teamed up with Nike to produce a commercial. DPR traveled to Hong Kong to shoot the footage with LIVE in a starring role and Cream playing the keyboard. The music was composed by Cream and the lyrics by DPR LIVE. The song would eventually be released on DPR ARCHIVES. The video DPR x NIKE "Just Dream It" was released on June 16, 2017. (This was not the first time that DPR had worked with a footwear company. Back in May 2015, DPR created a video for COLCHESTER, but that video is no longer online.)
In August DPR teamed up with Taeyang of second generation Kpop group Big Bang to produce a music video for his song "Wake Me Up." The MV was released on August 16, 2017.
In October 2017 DPR was ready to start rolling out their next big project: LIVE's second EP. They released "Jasmine" as a single and its MV on October 8th. LIVE had his first show outside of Korea on October 17, 2017 at Mangle E8 in London, England. It had originally been scheduled to happen at a smaller venue, but the location was moved due to high demand for tickets. About 455 people attended the show.
LIVE's five-song Her EP was released on December 7, 2017 along with the MV for "Martini Blue." LIVE, IAN and a small crew had traveled to Greece to film the "Martini Blue" music video. The last MV was for "Text Me" on December 12th, which was filmed while the DPR crew in London, England for LIVE's show. All the songs on the album were produced by DPR Cream except for "Jasmine," which was produced by Code Kunst.
In January, DPR teamed up with JYP's Suzy on her song "Holiday." DPR LIVE penned some of the lyrics and had a short feature on the song.
DPR LIVE received a nomination for Rookie of the Year for the Korean Hip Hop Awards 2018. DPR LIVE was announced as the winner and accepted the award at the ceremony held on February 7, 2018. He also performed at at a party after the ceremony.
In March 2018 LIVE had his second international performance in Tokyo, Japan. The single "Action!" featuring GRAY was released on March 13th. A collaboration between LIVE and GRAY was intended to be on the Her album, but the song wasn't ready. LIVE decided to hold on to it for later. After the album release, LIVE and GRAY came back to the song, reworked it and released it as a single.
At the end of March, DPR traveled to Texas for the South By Southwest (aka SXSW) Music festival. It was LIVE's first show in the United States. He performed on at The Belmont for the KOCCA 6th annual Korea Spotlight stage on March 16, 2018. Other performers at the showcase that year were Lee Hi, Crush, Kard, Junoflo, CIFIKA, and Say Sue Me.
Three months later, DPR released "Playlist" as a single on June 12, 2018. The visuals for the "Playlist" MV were influenced by IAN's trip to Peru the year before. It featured model Maté in her second DPR music video appearance (the first was for "Right Here Right Now") and had cameos by Cream and DPR Cline.
DPR started dropping hints about a world tour at the beginning of July 2018. On July 23rd, DPR officially announced the Coming To You Live World Tour. They posted a list of 10 stops in North America, four stops in Europe and five stops in the Asia-Pacific region as well as a note that more cities were to come. Show dates, venue locations, and ticket sales would start with North America on August 1st, then August 15th for Europe, and then August 29th for Asia-Pacific.
On July 26, 2018 IAN shared a video he made with the footage he shot on his trip to Mongolia just a few weeks prior. The video titled "our last dream - take 1 (Mongolia)" featured an instrumental soundtrack by Cream and had stunning visuals of the Mongolian countryside. IAN shared on his Instagram page that the video was inspired by his love of travel and experiencing new things, and he wanted to share those things with other people. This was the first official DPR video that was made and released purely for enjoyment.
On August 1st, tickets for the North American leg went on sale. The tickets went fast, but by most reports the experience was smooth. The prices were set at $40 for general admission, $60 for early entry, and $140 for VIP meet and greet (which were in groups of 6). When it was Europe's turn on August 15th, the tickets sold out immediately. DPR had already made an international name for themselves and DREAMers were ready to see them live.
On August 2, 2018 the DPR team used the @dpr_official account on Instagram to go live with LIVE, IAN, REM, Cream and Cline. The same day, the account hit a milestone of 100,000 followers. (The account stands at 520,00 followers as of July 20, 2022.)
In an interview with Billboard that was published on August 2, 2018, LIVE shared his thoughts in anticipation of the tour: “The thought about the tour in itself seems so surreal and exciting at the same time. Not only for myself, but for the whole team. This is what we’ve been dreaming and working on so hard for. To finally get a chance to travel the globe and meet our fans who’ve supported us and continues to support us for doing what we love. There’s nothing more rewarding than that and we are hyped AF for this tour.”
DPR was set to take their dreams out into the world. They were ready to fly.
And thus ends Chapter 1 of The Book of DPR. Chapter 2 would start at the first stop of the CTYL World Tour 2018 and go through just before DPR IAN announced his return to music with "So Beautiful" at the end of 2020. Chapter 3 would begin with with DPR IAN's first album Moodswings In This Order (aka MITO) and through the end of 2022 Regime Tour World Tour. Chapter 4 begins with the Regime Tour Finale in Seoul in February 2023 and is currently being written. In the future, those chapters may be added to this page, but for now we'll end the story here.
DPR is writing history each day. The DPR Record will be here here to support the team and DREAMers alike.
A special thanks to CClown_Poland for the source of much of the history contained on this page. The "All you need to know (and more) about DPR" article posted on August 22, 2018 (the third anniversary of the release of "Till I Die") was a treasure trove of information. Thank you for preserving DPR history. This website received prior permission from CClown_Poland to use and cite this post on this page.