Best friends' amazing journey from Harrogate pop stars to global entrepreneurs

As teenagers, Josh Stockdale, 26 and Alex Boulton, 28, spent years playing together in successful pop-rock band Purple Mafia, recording in Los Angeles and performing in front of tens of thousands of fans in major arenas around the UK.

The two dynamic young men, who hail from North Stainley and went to Ripon Grammar School, have now transformed from pop stars to global entrepreneurs after founding Dream Beach Media, an innovative and stylish creative production business.

“The music journey was truly unforgettable and it was a dream come true to finish this it playing in arenas with my best friends,” said Josh who was lead guitarist.

"But Alex and I wanted more; we wanted to travel and experience the world.

"We started to fund this by leveraging our love for creating videos for businesses who wanted fresh, engaging visual content.

"It seemed like a good way of paying for it all but we never dreamed it would develop into something like the global business we run today.”

The two friends’ vision has paid off, perhaps, even more than they themselves might have expected.

Dream Beach Media’s list of clients range from National Geographic to Universal Music, the tourism boards for Western Australia, Malta, Jordan and the Philippines and they have also have worked with the likes of Jet2, Standard Chartered Bank, MTV UK, Warner Music, Anjunadeep and the Yacht Week.

After starting their musical career as teenagers in Purple Mafia, alongside Dan Reynard (vocals), Harry Yates (guitar) and Joe Morley (bass), Josh and Alex’s hard work and talent saw them win the Harrogate AMP Music Awards at the Royal Hall in 2012, before going on to taste the glamour of pop success round Britain and abroad.

Dream Beach Media’s ethos of being ‘Based Nowhere, Found Everywhere’ means the far-sighted young entrepreneurs are once again an international success story.

So far this year, the ever-growing Dream Beach Media team have filmed in Indonesia, France, Switzerland, Malta, Sweden, Italy, UAE, Jordan and have projects in Albania, Spain, Argentina, UAE and Croatia in the months ahead.

Alex, who was drummer in Purple Mafia, said: “In the beginning, the two of us handled every aspect of the business.

"Now, as we have taken on bigger clients, we have built an international network of producers, videographers, photographers, drone pilots, social media managers and highly skilled VFX artists, who all share our creative approach and high standards of client service.

"It means that we are able to tackle multiple projects simultaneously internationally and grow what we call, the Dream Beach family.

"We are not like any other agency or production company out there - we are a family of creatives built off our shared love for travel and creativity.”

Producing engaging video content for social, digital and broadcast audiences is starting to bring major awards for the duo.

The company's action-packed film advertising tourism in Malta, broadcast on MTV and Eurosport globally, has been named as a finalist in the prestigious International Tourism Film Festival Africa awards in Cape Town.

For more on Dream Beach Media, visit:

www.dreambeachmedia.com

www.instagram.com/dreambeachmedia

www.vimeo.com/dreambeachmedia