Last night I had the pleasure of interviewing three members of the indie rock band His Hideous Heart who just finished recording a yet to be titled EP. The following is recorded from an AIM chat with Aaron (Guitar), Ben (Cello), and Brian (Bass).
RJ- So I guess first thing I should ask is what you guys have been up to.
Brian- You know, we did a little recording, we've played a few shows, spent all our money.
Ben- We should tell him about Rhode Island.
RJ- I was going to get to that.
Brian- Ben's doing it wrong, for the record.
RJ- It's cool, you guys got anything to add to what Brian said?
Aaron- We recently played a show without a drummer. We used a computer instead. It was fun.
Aaron- Ben tried to play a guitar solo, but his guitar wasn't plugged in.
Brian- Luckily though, Mike (Guitar/Vocals) saved him and played the exact same thing so no one realized it.
Brian- Then after the show the other bands were making fun of us for having an 'electronic drummer'.
Ben- Haha really?
Brian- Yeah you didnt hear about that? They said something about it on stage. Something along the lines of "We even love the band with the electronic drummer!" after mentioning the other bands by name.
RJ- What do you guys think of the scene in cleveland?
Aaron- It's great!
Brian- Personally I think it is one of the most underrated in the country. It's small but there's so much potential.
Ben- I have not experienced other places, but yeah there are a lot of kickass bands.
Aaron- We have so many good bands. Like Bears, Coffinberry, To Be A High Powered Executive, etc. Also Akron has some great bands too and it's only an hour south.
RJ- Yeah, To Be A High Powered Executive has got a lot of attention lately... How was playing shows with them?
Brian- Fucking amazing. I love those guys to death.
Ben- They are very nice to talk to.
Aaron- I like that song with the pentatonic melody!
Brian- If I could have it my way, we would be Anakin to their Obi-Wan. But we wouldn't get all powerful and destroy them.
Aaron- Well if I had it my way, we would be Luke to their tauntaun, but we wouldn't cut them open and sleep in them.
RJ- Did they offer any words of wisdom or advice?
Brian- I was talking to Mike, their bassist, who is one of the most talented musicians national or local, and I basically asked him what we should do and he told me that it never really gets easier, at least it hasn't for them yet.
Brian- And they've enjoyed some moderate critical success within certain circles. They played South By Southwest, toured with Balmorhea, but they still deal with the same shit we do; people living all over the map, people moving around, not being able to practice or play shows when they want, not having money. So while that was kind of a bummer to hear, it also was reassuring that we can still keep going up even with the shit we have to deal with being all spread out like we are.
RJ- Did you guys feel that It's A Weird Time To Be Alive was a success for your situation?
Ben- It was a success that Mike's dad paid for it, otherwise we totally wouldn't have ever broken even. But from a less pragmatic standpoint I would say it was a mild success because it was recorded in Mike's basement over 3 months or something, while Mike was learning how to record music and stuff. And for that it sounds pretty good.
RJ- I remember seeing it on Sordo Archive one day and getting excited and telling Brian... I guess I should ask what you guys think about downloading.
Brian- Well I just downloaded 6 albums so that should tell you how I feel haha. It's just the way shit is done now. I think we are doing our best to adapt. We're all products of the internet free music movement.
Aaron- I don't really mind downloading at all, as long as people come to shows.
Ben- Yeah, same. I like the idea that people are listening to our stuff in any way.
Brian- And bands like us, and bands that are enjoying moderate success right now like The Dear Hunter, are kind of the forebearers. We want to be heard by as many people as possible, but we don't really care about money outside of what we need.
RJ- Something that was mentioned earlier, how is it having your band be apart most of the year?
Aaron- I think we handle it real well, we do lots over the internet. For this last album for example, 4 tracks were basically completed while we were in 3 states, and 2 were completed this summer.
RJ- Do you all do your own thing and then send what you've come up with to each other and go from there?
Brian- Basically.
Ben- What happens is one person will have a main idea for a song and will record it and send it to everyone else, then everyone else will absorb it and come up with their own parts, and then when we are together see if it works all together.
Brian- Aaron and Mike do most of that stuff. But I wrote one on my lonesome this year at school which I sent to everyone and eventually it turned into a full fledged song. Which felt awesome for me because I'm not much of a songwriter.
RJ- Is that going to be on the EP?
Brian- Yes, it will be on the record.
RJ- Well I guess we can get to Rhode Island now.
Brian- Yeah, we spent a week up in Providence, RI to record with Casey Crescenzo and Andy Wildrick from The Dear Hunter. It was quite the experience.
Ben- It was relaxed yet productive.
Brian- It was so amazing to be able to have all sorts of neat shit at our disposal.
RJ- How different was it than recording the first album?
Brian- It's basically like comparing the experience of building a mudhut with your bare hands in the dark to building a fully functional ecofriendly house with a team of experienced architects.
Ben- With the first album you would have to get the whole song, or a large chunk of the song right all at once because Mike didn't want to/know how to/have the capability to chop up separate takes into one cohesive take. So that was very difficult to do.
Brian- That's the one thing that gives me the slightest bit of hope for our band, is that we had not a single fucking atom of a clue what we were doing on that recording, yet it still came out listenable.
Aaron- Also the quality of our equipment and their equipment is so much better on this album. I was only on 2 tracks of the last album too.
RJ- Anything more you want to say about the new album?
Ben- Lots more singing, no instrumental tracks. Which I have mixed feelings about.
Brian- Oh right right. That's a concern of mine too.
Ben- Yeah I like being an instrumental band, sort of.
RJ- Did you think you were better suited as a post rock-ish band?
Ben- Well we do not have any strong singers, really. Which is sort of a problem. Granted it has not stopped bands from getting big in the past, but that's by far our biggest weakness. In the recordings, maybe it won't be evident, but in live shows it's always really nerve-wracking.
Brian- Yeah, none of us are too good except for Ariel (Vocals/Guitar), and despite how good she and our former girl singer, Bridget, are we haven't really nailed how to effectively utilize them yet. But that will come in time, we're still learning about this music shit.
Ben- Plus as an instrumental band you can bypass a lot of stereotypes more easily, I think. Once singing gets into effect you have to worry about stuff more. Cheesy lyrics, having a frontman, you know.
Aaron- I agree with Ben, but I sort of think instrumental bands can fall into a rut easily. You can only build up, freak out, die down so much, you know?
Brian- We have a post rock record, now we're working on a more indie rock one, and its all good but it's definitely still the sound of a band testing the waters. We've got a lot of different sounds on the new record, just as we did with the last one. But this time they're more indie rock sounding.
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