Fifteen years in, The Head and the Coronary heart are nonetheless evolving – and with ‘Aperture,’ they discover readability by way of connection, creating their most emotionally expansive and sonically adventurous album but. Atwood Journal spoke to the band in regards to the creation and catharsis, the hope and humanity of their sixth studio album – a file that looks like each a homecoming and a brand new starting.
‘Aperture’ – The Head and the Coronary heart
Open your ears, open your eyes, open your coronary heart, and take all of it in: The great, the unhealthy, the enjoyment, the ache, the love – all the things this unimaginable life has to supply.
I’ll have many extra phrases to say about sixth studio album over time, however what I’ll say for now could be this:
Fifteen years into their storied profession, The Head and the Coronary heart’s folk-laced music continues to be as recent and enjoyable as it’s free-spirited and philosophically profound. Launched on Could ninth through Verve Forecast, their sixth studio album Aperture is “an invite to get up within the current second recognizing that it’s all we’ve got, in all its contradictions of magnificence and ache, pleasure and despair, unfathomable vastness and impermanence,” per band member Matty Gervais.
In apply, that interprets to wealthy, heat harmonies, radiant melodies, thought-provoking lyrics, invigorating instrumentals, and immediately memorable singalongs – all delivered with the fervour and seasoned power of pros who, regardless of their years of doing this, proceed to seek out inspiration in themselves and of their on a regular basis.
“It felt like LP1 another time,” Gervais tells Atwood Journal. “We weren’t interested by outcomes or expectations. We simply adopted the second and let the songs present us what they needed to be.”
What’s maybe most placing about Aperture is its vary: Whereas songs like “After the Setting Solar,” “Time With My Sins,” and “Arrow” unpack intimate reflections on id, goal, and life’s larger which means by way of a well-known, sun-kissed sound, The Head and the Coronary heart spend a substantial amount of this file attempting on new garments – each musical and topical.
“I believe our followers didn’t see this file coming – and actually, I didn’t both,” lead singer Jonathan Russell displays. “It shocked me in the easiest way.”
From observe to trace, Aperture radiates with moments of musical, emotional, and lyrical impression.
The pressing and emotionally charged “Cop Automotive” is an apparent standout: Russell’s voice is at its rawest as he sings from the again of a police cruiser, indignant and scared, not sure of his current and fearful for his future: “I’m using in a cop automotive tonight, wanting outdoors because the blinks go by, questioning how we gonna die.” Not solely do The Head and the Coronary heart convey a flicker of humanity and empathy to these whom society so typically turns a blind eye, however they accomplish that with grace, tact, appeal, angst, and an exquisite center finger to the boys in blue.
“I didn’t write that track. It simply… got here out of me,” Russell says of “Cop Automotive,” which was recorded in a single take. “I didn’t even know if I might sing like that once more. It was one thing that needed to come out – like a wrecking ball inside me.”
Take me on a ship trip, babe
Drop me within the middlе of the ocean
Make mе swim dwelling, inform me I’m unsuitable
At the very least I’ll be clear for every week
Using in a cop automotive tonight
Lotta time to assume what’s proper
Oh, my spouse, one other in time
I’m wondering how she’ll stick by way of the trip?
– “Cop Automotive,” The Head and the Coronary heart
And that’s removed from Aperture‘s solely shiny spot: From the plush, hypnotic, and heartrending “Pool Break” and the euphoric, life-affirming “Jubilee” to the feel-good reverie “Hearth Escape” (a very basic THATH tune) and the hopeful “Beg, Steal, Borrow,” The Head and the Coronary heart’s sixth studio album proves to be a significant, memorable, altogether shifting ray of sunshine in 2025’s musical panorama.
In truth, it’s songs like “Pool Break” and “Jubilee” that show to be among the album’s greatest highlights – two particular songs that discover The Head and the Coronary heart increasing the sonic world longtime followers and listeners have come to know and love by way of daring vocal harmonies and emotionally potent matters that hit onerous and depart a long-lasting impression.
“I saved imagining this picture of a bit boy sitting alone in an enormous area, carrying a big ache,” Russell says of “Pool Break.” “Ready for somebody – a father determine – to come back put a hand on his shoulder and say, ‘I’ve bought you.’ However that by no means occurs, and so the world stays large and scary. That feeling has lived in me without end.”
A bit boy’s story, speaking to his father
Telling him the issues that he want he would’ve taught him
Like pleasure and ache, the scent of the rain
Thunder, and the lightning is available in
Maintain me again, don’t maintain me below this ache
I can’t hold from falling
Maintain me again, out on an countless observe
I’ve by no means gotten over
– “Pool Break,” The Head and the Coronary heart
As for “Jubilee,” Gervais laughs as he describes the guitar tuning they stumbled into throughout that session: “D-A-D-A-A-F#. And all of us are “da-das” now – it was a really acceptable tuning for this file!”
The observe “Lastly Free,” written and sung by band member Charity Rose Thielen – and one of many album’s softest, most soul-stirring moments – is a private favourite of each Russell and Gervais. “That track takes the air out of the room,” Russell says. “It simply makes you cease and hear. Charity has such a presence, and when she decides to step out entrance like that, it actually grabs your consideration.”
Thielen feels an identical affection towards it. “It’s undoubtedly a track that felt cathartic to compose – to me, in that second of creation, it felt courageous to even utter the phrase of feeling ‘lastly free,’ which in some ways the act of utterance was personally therapeutic,” she shares. “The meditative mono and minimalist manufacturing and melody was instinctive and sonically extremely distinctive to the remainder of Aperture, and I couldn’t think about the track approached another means.”
Pink rain on the ground
Falling down, flooding these halls
Ink cracks by way of these holes
Crumbling down throughout these partitions
It’s actually simply you and me
Pink paint on this flooring
Lookup excessive, feeling small
Faint coronary heart haunting me
By way of these halls and below these eaves
It’s actually simply you and me
Lastly free
Don’t run away
I couldn’t take the ache
Thundering down on me
– “Lastly Free,” The Head and the Coronary heart
Russell and Gervais additionally make point out of “West Coast,” an achingly weak and fantastically uncooked track written by Gervais along with the band’s keyboardist Kenny Hensley, who additionally sings lead vocals for the primary time. “He has a fantastic voice, nevertheless it’s not normally his function. Simply the truth that he felt snug sufficient to step into that house says loads,” Russell smiles. “I’m so pleased with him. And past all that, it’s simply one in every of my favourite songs, interval.”
The track’s lyrics repeatedly path off, with Hensley singing “la-da-da” on the ends of his sentences – a reminder of all we’ve got left to precise when phrases fail us. It’s profound in its poetic simplicity, and one other reminder of our shared humanity “We’ve all felt that la-da-da a hundred percent,” Gervais says, with Russell calling it “essentially the most profound phrase on the file.”
We’re each residing on the west coast
However you’re dreaming of the east coast
Does it actually even matter?
La da da
I used to be residing in a junkyard
May’ve been a graveyard
If I solely had a courageous coronary heart
La da da
Been occurring the crash course
Searching for the street indicators
Nonetheless ready on the crimson gentle
La da da
It’s getting more durable to confess it
I do know we will’t give up but
Central Park and the boat trip
Ferris wheel within the moonlight
– “West Coast,” The Head and the Coronary heart
Aperture is a deeply human album – not simply in what it says, however in the way it was made: With intention, endurance, presence, and belief.
It’s The Head and the Coronary heart’s intentional – and unintentional – reconnection with their roots, embracing their love for every one other and for songcraft. “We confirmed ourselves that the rationale it labored at first is similar cause it nonetheless works now – if we belief it,” Russell says. “That’s what I hope folks really feel from it. That sense of grounding, and likewise of development.”
There’s a fluidity to Aperture that displays each the band’s private development and their creative evolution: It’s cohesive with out being confined, wide-reaching with out feeling scattered. The album’s sequencing invitations listeners on an emotional arc – not a strict narrative, however a motion by way of grief and pleasure, reckoning and renewal, presence and risk. Songs bleed into one another like moments in actual life, formed much less by style boundaries than by intestine, intuition, and collective belief. In doing so, The Head and the Coronary heart handle to sound each acquainted and revitalized – a band not reinventing themselves, however re-rooting themselves in what issues most.
“For me, Aperture represents the selection all of us should make between resigning ourselves to darkness, or letting the sunshine in and recognizing our personal company to take action,” Gervais shares. “It feels related to the occasions, in that we’re actually selecting between authoritarianism vs. democracy. Ignorance vs. enlightenment on a macro scale, and complacency/cynicism vs. hope, empathy and perseverance on the micro scale. To me, it sums up loads of what every of those songs is grappling with in some kind and what we’ve collectively gone by way of as a band. It’s about selecting hope many times, regardless of what number of occasions it could really feel that you’ve got misplaced it.”
True to their title as soon as once more, The Head and the Coronary heart have used each their heads and their hearts to create one in every of this yr’s finest albums –
– an electrifying, exhilarating people rock journey into our shared humanity that meets the current second with ardour, tenacity, vulnerability, and above all else, hope.
Meet up with the band in our intimate interview beneath, and hearken to Aperture wherever you stream music.
“While you create this manner – while you let issues unfold as a substitute of forcing them – there’s no backside,” Matty Gervais displays. “You may hold exploring and discovering. That lesson took us a very long time to relearn as a band, however now that we’ve got, it’s actually hopeful. This album is the beginning of one thing… it’s a brand new starting.”
And that sentiment has by no means rung more true for The Head and the Coronary heart.
Zoom in on the complete image of Aperture, out now, and catch the band dwell on tour this summer time – dates and extra data at theheadandtheheart.com!
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:: stream/buy Aperture right here ::
:: join with The Head and the Coronary heart right here ::
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A CONVERSATION WITH THE HEAD AND THE HEART
Atwood Journal: It’s been a pair years since Each Shade of Blue, and a minute since we final talked. I’d like to reconnect by going again to the very starting of Aperture. The place had been you, creatively and personally, when this album began to take form?
Jonathan Russell: I believe the most important factor was the response to how we made Each Shade of Blue, and the way that course of rippled out as soon as we began touring it. That album got here collectively in such a fragmented means, and I believe it left us actually wanting the other. We needed to do what we initially got down to do with Aperture, which was get again in a room collectively and write as a band – like we used to within the early days.
So we made these intentional journeys to Seattle and Richmond. One other factor we realized from the previous was to maintain the writing journeys quick, like 5 to seven days. After that you just begin to burn out. We additionally had fewer deadlines and fewer folks concerned. We had been out of our file take care of Warner, and all of a sudden we had the liberty to design this nevertheless we needed. It’s humorous the way you overlook you will have that energy – that there actually aren’t any guidelines. It’s nearly what you give your self permission to do.
We circled again to that consciousness. We began writing in Richmond in small teams, and it will definitely turned full-band classes. That unfolded over a yr and a half. We’d go on tour, take a break, then meet up once more. We didn’t drive something. We gave the music time to marinate. A variety of songs had been written musically first, after which we’d take these demos dwelling, sit with them, and write lyrics slowly. It gave us the house to actually think about the world we needed to create.
Matty Gervais: Yeah, a giant a part of it was studying from our previous errors. While you’re on the hamster wheel of being in a band and attempting to maintain a profession, you don’t all the time have time to self-assess. You find yourself making the identical selections, repeating the identical patterns. This was the primary time we had a breath of recent air.
There was a degree the place we had no label, no administration, no timeline. And surprisingly, that felt like being a brand-new band once more. All of the belongings you’re supposed to search around for while you begin out – we all of a sudden didn’t have them. And that freed up this inventive house. We weren’t caught up within the end result. It was nearly what the six of us had been making collectively in that second.
It’s humorous what ten further minutes and three or 4 further songs can do. Each Shade of Blue felt like a behemoth of a file – it was your longest up to now. Jon, you and I had a extremely intimate dialog about that album a few years in the past. And searching again now, that was your final launch on a significant label. It was a giant file, and a few of these songs actually popped. What’s your relationship with that album like now?
Gervais: Like Jon talked about, the ripple impact of touring that file performed a giant half. I not often return and hearken to our albums after we’ve made them. My expertise is formed by performing these songs and seeing how audiences interact with them.
So while you’ve been on the street enjoying the identical materials for 2 years, you begin to assume, okay, we’ve finished that. There are issues about that manufacturing that had been actually enjoyable, however there have been additionally sure efficiency parts that had been tied to these manufacturing decisions. We had been cognizant of attempting to maneuver again to one thing that appeared like six folks in a room.
The enjoyable half now could be reassessing the older songs and seeing which of them dwell in the identical emotional and artistic house because the Aperture materials. You begin to acknowledge patterns – even ones you didn’t notice had been there. That’s while you begin to perceive the story you’re telling, whether or not you knew it or not. Every tour reshapes our relationship with the music.
Russell: Yeah. I used to be listening again to loads of Each Shade of Blue whereas we had been rehearsing for this tour. Songs like “Love We Make,” which we hadn’t performed a lot earlier than, after which “Starstruck,” “Love Me Nonetheless.” I used to be like, wow, these are literally a few of my favourite songs.
However I additionally really feel like that album may need been extra of a Jon file than a band file. And that’s not all the time the very best factor. If I’m the one who loves it essentially the most, that doesn’t actually serve the entire band.
You are feeling like your fingerprints had been throughout it in a means that possibly you needed to step again from this time?
Russell: Yeah. It doesn’t do anyone any good if the ultimate product solely feels fulfilling to at least one individual. That’s form of the other of what this band is about.
That brings us to Aperture, which from the bounce looks like a collective effort. Matty, you’ve stated this file is about selecting hope many times, even when it feels such as you’ve misplaced it. Can we go deeper into that? What does this assortment of songs imply to you?
Gervais: That line is rooted within the expertise of being on this band. A lot of your life turns into intertwined with these folks. And over time, you hit roadblocks. We’ve needed to overcome loads simply to maintain doing what we do and to maintain sharing music with folks. That has worth. You see it each time you step onstage.
After we had been making this file, we had been every going by way of huge life modifications. The total spectrum – beginning, loss of life, and all the things in between. It felt like we had been all going by way of some form of crucible, each individually and collectively. That poured into the music.
The way in which we created Aperture allowed for that. There weren’t expectations. We gave ourselves room to observe the second. Even a track like “Beg, Steal, Borrow,” which sounds upbeat, got here from a meditative place. It was about being current and tuning into what others had been doing, slightly than pushing one thing. The lyrics weren’t prewritten – they had been revealed by way of the music.
I bear in mind listening to this Neil Younger interview the place he talked about strolling in nature, whistling melodies right into a recorder, after which letting the lyrics come later. That caught with me. I approached my contributions to this file the identical means. I wasn’t pressuring myself to be a songwriter – I simply let it are available in drips and assembled the items. That may sound esoteric, nevertheless it’s what occurred.
It makes excellent sense. And I believe it reveals within the songs. There’s a looseness to them – but additionally one thing deeply felt. I wish to dive into among the particular person tracks subsequent, beginning with what is perhaps my favourite on the album – which I didn’t count on it to be, however I hold coming again to it: “Pool Break.” I simply love this track. It feels each acquainted and new. Who’s doing the falsetto on that? You, Jon?
Russell: That’s me.
It’s attractive. That observe looks like new territory for The Head and the Coronary heart, including recent coloration and texture to the band’s oeuvre – and but it’s unmistakably you. The place did it come from?
Russell: That one got here out of a extremely fascinating second. We had been in Richmond, and we had booked a writing journey – however simply since you’ve proven up doesn’t imply you’re in the best headspace to put in writing. We had been all within the studio, form of beating our heads in opposition to the wall. Nothing real was popping out. So we made the choice to cease forcing it and took a break. Tyler lives proper throughout the gravel street from the studio, and he has a pool. So we actually took a pool break.
We went over, bought some solar, relaxed, laughed a bit. That stress of “we’re right here, we ought to be creating” began to carry. And once we got here again to the studio, I don’t know why, however that track simply got here out. It wasn’t prewritten. I hadn’t been engaged on it. However I had this little guitar riff, after which the melody got here, and all the things adopted from there.
For me, the vocal tone and guitar tone virtually turned one instrument. You may’t fairly inform which one is main. It’s this layered impact – like enjoying organ and guitar on the similar time. That’s what I like about singing in that falsetto; it melts into the feel.
Lyrically, it felt like a mantra. Simply subtly altering phrases, repeating this core feeling. I saved imagining this picture of a bit boy sitting alone in an enormous area, carrying a big ache. Ready for somebody – a father determine – to come back put a hand on his shoulder and say, “I’ve bought you.” However that by no means occurs. And so the world stays large and scary. That feeling has lived in me without end. The daddy-son relationship remains to be, and possibly all the time will probably be, a piece in progress. That kind of ache is usually all the time in my physique.
And as a child, you don’t have the language for that. It’s solely later, after sitting with it for years, that you understand what it was and what you wanted.
Russell: Yeah. I’m 40 and I nonetheless really feel that worry. It’s wild. However I didn’t wish to title the track one thing heavy-handed. We saved it as “Pool Break” on goal. That was the within joke – but additionally, in a means, a reminder to not make the emotion too treasured. Sure, that form of ache is actual, nevertheless it doesn’t make me particular. Everybody feels that form of factor in some unspecified time in the future. Leaving the title as-is helped deflate among the self-importance round it. Like, right here’s the reality, but additionally, we’re simply little blips within the universe.
Gervais: I like that. And it jogs my memory of one thing I’ve been interested by. For some time, writing songs felt like banging my head in opposition to the wall. And what helped me break by way of for this file was letting go. Identical to Jon stated, not being connected to the result. As soon as I ended attempting so onerous, the stuff that wanted to come back up lastly got here by way of. You make house, and the poignant stuff rises to the floor.
Russell: There’s undoubtedly a model of songwriting that looks like, “Okay, I’m on deadline, I would like to put in writing one thing, let’s simply get it finished.” After which there’s one other model the place you cease pushing and one thing important emerges. That was the shift. Earlier than the pool break, we had been all pondering, “We confirmed up, so we ought to be writing one thing.” However that mindset wasn’t producing something actual. As soon as we relaxed into it – even accepted that we’d not write something that day – that’s when one thing lovely occurred.
It’s that distinction between scratching a inventive itch versus doing it since you really feel like it’s important to, and I believe that reveals on this album. “Pool Break” flows straight into “Jubilee,” and whereas it’s not a tonal whiplash, it’s a large emotional swing. There’s this lovely falsetto once more, and this sonic world the 2 songs appear to dwell in. The place did “Jubilee” come from?
Russell: That one got here extra from the group. It began with a special instrumental – I had these opening traces and melody, nevertheless it was over music that didn’t make the ultimate minimize. In a while, Kenny got here in with this piano half that felt actually heroic. Like basic Springsteen.
Gervais: Yeah, and we performed it with this sort of early 2000s emo-pop punk edge. However as a substitute of electrical guitars, I used to be enjoying acoustic on this bizarre tuning. Jon had left one of many guitars within the studio tuned a sure means, and I simply picked it up and was like, what the hell is that this? That tuning ended up on a bunch of songs: “After the Setting Solar,” “Lastly Free,” “Aperture.”
It’s D-A-D-A-A-F#, which is hilarious as a result of Jon had simply grow to be a da-da, I’m a da-da twice over – we joked that everybody within the band was in dad mode. So it’s actually DA-DA-A-F#, essentially the most acceptable tuning ever.
Russell: It gave the track this lovely melancholic vibe, which paired rather well with that upbeat power. It’s like disappointment and pleasure braided collectively.
Gervais: And I simply bear in mind Jon within the studio, late at night time, doing what he does finest – throwing concepts on the wall. Everybody was within the management room, he was within the sales space, simply riffing. It was playful and messy, and the track revealed itself that means. That very same ethos you talked about earlier – not taking it too critically – that’s what formed “Jubilee.” It got here from pleasure.
I can’t not speak about “Cop Automotive.” Speak about a intestine punch. I believe it’d maintain extra uncooked emotion than something you’ve put out earlier than. The place did that come from?
Russell: That one was particular. It form of simply erupted. Our bass participant had recorded this strumming sample at dwelling – I believe he was actually watching Walker, Texas Ranger on the time. It was one thing tremendous easy, nevertheless it was a sample I by no means would have performed. We looped it and simply began constructing off of it. Tyler was on drums, I used to be enjoying a drum machine. Everybody was simply vibing, including elements.
We ended up with this lengthy instrumental demo, simply looping for a couple of minutes. And I went into the vocal sales space and did one single take – that’s what you hear on the file. It simply got here out of me. I wasn’t consciously writing it. I had this one phrase I preferred, “Take me on a ship trip,” and I knew I needed to work it in, so I dropped it into the center of a verse. However all the things else simply flowed.
I normally wrestle with linear storytelling in my lyrics. I get too summary. However by some means this track had a starting, center, and finish. And I used to be form of shocked by that. All I knew was that I liked it. However I used to be scared to confess how a lot I liked it as a result of I believed folks would ask me to repair it or polish it. Re-sing it. That might’ve devastated me, as a result of the emotion in that efficiency – it was utterly uncooked. Unrepeatable.
That comes by way of. It doesn’t really feel carried out. It feels lived.
Russell: Yeah. I didn’t even know if I might sing like that once more. It was like I exorcised one thing. Fortunately, we came upon I can nonetheless sing it – we do it dwell now. However nonetheless, it was lightning in a bottle. That track might by no means have come from “working” on a track. It needed to come from a wrecking ball inside me.
What was it like listening to that, Matty? Being within the room?
Gervais: I really wasn’t there. Charity and I had been dwelling having our second little one. So I first skilled “Cop Automotive” as a demo, identical to you. I had the identical response. It felt alive. Like one thing completely new. Similar with “Pool Break.” They had been thrilling and totally different, they usually made me wish to dive again in. I bear in mind listening to them and pondering, “Okay, that is the vibe. That is the route.” These songs had been a North Star for the remainder of the classes.
One which feels so classically The Head and the Coronary heart to me is “Hearth Escape.” For those who informed me it was off Let’s Be Nonetheless and even the debut, I’d consider you. It’s bought that nostalgic, free-flowing really feel, a bit camaraderie, a bit self-reflection. It virtually looks like a track about being within the band. The place did that come from?
Russell: I agree with all of that. Completely.
Gervais: You nailed it. From the second Kenny began enjoying that piano line – it was a bit dissonant at first, then resolved into one thing tremendous heat and main – all of us simply jumped in. Chris was enjoying a sitar bass. We had been all smiling, enjoying dwell, feeding off one another. It was joyful.
The construction got here collectively rapidly, and so did the lyrics. I keep in mind that line, “I believed I had my head on straight,” simply popped out. After which, “It’s so rattling good to see you / it’s unusual the way in which the time flies” – that one saved coming again, and it grounded all the things. That was the emotional core. I took the instrumental dwelling and began reflecting on what it made me really feel.
It took me proper again to the Paramount Theatre in Seattle. Being on the hearth escape after a present, smoking a cigarette, watching the gang file out. You don’t notice it on the time, however you’re younger and on this particular second. After which ten, fifteen years later, you look again and assume, “Wow, these had been good occasions.”
At any time when I begin feeling nostalgic like that, it snowballs. The track turned this story of reconnecting with somebody in spite of everything that point, and realizing simply how a lot has modified – but additionally how a lot remains to be shared.
Russell: It’s in all probability my favourite track to play dwell proper now. Even when I’m having a tricky night time onstage – which occurs greater than I’d prefer to admit – that track cracks a smile out of me. It’s a time machine. I can bear in mind precisely what sneakers I used to be sporting in 2009. That one hits deep in the easiest way.
Let’s speak about how the album opens and closes. “After the Setting Solar” looks like such a heat invitation – a mild opener, but additionally one which hits on grief and hope from the bounce. It feels nostalgic and forward-looking on the similar time. How did it grow to be the primary observe?
Gervais: Good query. I’m undecided when it was determined precisely, nevertheless it simply felt proper. Tracklisting is all the time a course of, however this one – it simply made sense. That track looks like a welcome. It says: That is the place we are actually.
And proper off the bat, it’s processing grief. It’s about dropping somebody you liked deeply, and all of a sudden they’re simply… gone. You’re left attempting to make sense of that. However on the similar time, you’re giving your self permission to think about they’re not utterly gone. What comes after the setting solar? Perhaps one thing. It’s not nothing. That thought may be comforting.
Russell: And what I like about that track is that, regardless that Matty simply defined precisely what it means to him, it nonetheless leaves room for interpretation. That’s good songwriting. The primary line of the entire file is “While you least count on it,” which I like. It looks like somebody exhibiting up at a celebration ten years later, tapping you on the shoulder, like, “Hey, I’m right here.”
After I hear that track, I don’t take into consideration grief the way in which Matty described it. However I nonetheless really feel one thing. I enter into it from a special angle. And that’s what makes it such an ideal opening observe – it’s mild, but additionally shocking. It units up this complete album as one thing that wasn’t anticipated. I didn’t see this file coming. I don’t assume our followers did both.
The closing observe, “Aperture,” brings all the things full circle. That final line – “Time was made for working out / don’t know why it took so lengthy / Solar was made for popping out / regardless that the night time is lengthy” – it’s such an exquisite closing thought. Why finish with that track, and why title the album after it?
Gervais: That track has this cinematic finality to it. It looks like the top of a film. It’s attempting to make sense of the chaos of life – shifting too quick to see the surroundings, all the time falling from a fantastic top. There’s that line, “I don’t bear in mind asking for any of this.” I take into consideration that loads. We don’t select to be right here. And life is overwhelming. However we’re right here. So what can we do with it?
That track is about confronting that query. It’s saying, “That is what I’ve bought, and that is what I can do with it now.” That’s the place the company is. And pairing that with the solar popping out on the finish – that’s hope. There’s no pretending all the things’s okay. However there’s nonetheless magnificence. And lightweight.
Aperture as a phrase simply captures all of that. It’s about letting gentle in, but additionally about readability. Seeing what’s actually there, even when it’s onerous to have a look at. You may’t management what’s within the body. However you can select to have a look at it.
Russell: That duality is all around the file. That pressure between gentle and darkish, grief and sweetness. The phrase Aperture holds all of it. That’s why it made sense to call the album after it.
I didn’t spend a lot time on the singles, however are there any private favorites or particular moments we haven’t touched on but that you just’d wish to spotlight?
Russell: “Lastly Free,” for certain. That track takes the air out of the room. It simply makes you cease and hear. Charity has such a presence, and when she decides to step out entrance like that, it actually grabs your consideration.
There’s a complete backstory behind the way it got here collectively. She felt assured and cozy sufficient in that second to direct all of us within the room to get what she wanted. And that was large. You could possibly really feel the shift in power. She knew precisely what she needed, and she or he communicated it gently, clearly. It was simply a type of uncommon moments when all the things aligns.
Gervais: The way in which she did it was so swish. Lighthearted, however nonetheless grounded in one thing deep. And that’s what I like about “Lastly Free.” A few of my favourite songs, I do not know what they’re about – however you really feel what they’re about. You get it on an intrinsic degree.
With Charity’s voice particularly, she creates this house that feels sacred. It’s open, loving, nurturing – full of empathy and compassion – nevertheless it additionally carries grief and depth. That’s what she does on “Rivers and Roads” each night time. And “Lastly Free” is sort of a sound tub in that very same spirit. It’s her at her most expressive.
Charity, would you thoughts sharing a bit about that track too and what it means to you?
Charity Rose Thielen: The creation of “Lastly Free” was actually a really releasing and flow-state type of a course of the place I fell right into a producer’s function appearing on impulse in a short time. The melodic cadence got here to thoughts and mouth very quickly too, as if the track was writing itself amongst us in actual time. It’s undoubtedly a track that felt cathartic to compose – to me, in that second of creation, it felt courageous to even utter the phrase of feeling ‘lastly free’, which in some ways the act of utterance was personally therapeutic. The meditative mono and minimalist manufacturing and melody was instinctive and sonically extremely distinctive to the remainder of ‘Aperture’ and I couldn’t think about the track approached another means.
Do another songs stand out that we have not but touched on?
Russell: One other one which means loads to me is “West Coast,” which Matty and Kenny wrote collectively. Kenny sings the verses, and that’s not one thing he’s ever actually finished within the band earlier than. He has a fantastic voice, nevertheless it’s not normally his function.
Simply the truth that he felt snug sufficient to step into that house says loads. He’s been by way of loads the previous couple of years. And to go from not singing in any respect to singing lead on a Head and the Coronary heart observe – that takes guts. I’m so pleased with him. And past all that, it’s simply one in every of my favourite songs, interval.
I grew up in Florida, using round in my dad’s truck, listening to the Hell Freezes Over CD by the Eagles. I do know The Massive Lebowski made folks assume the Eagles weren’t cool, however I don’t care – these are among the finest songwriters and singers on the market. “West Coast” places me proper again in that truck. It’s bought that really feel. There’s an actual Eagles vibe to it, in the easiest way.
I’m so pleased with Kenny for that one, and pleased with all of us for making an surroundings that enables folks to really feel that assured, and be that weak. I believe it says loads about the place we’re at as folks, proper now, which feels good.
Gervais: That one’s actually particular. I bear in mind sitting round a campfire with Kenny. It was nonetheless daylight, fireplace going, and we had been buying and selling traces, shaping the track. For him, lyric writing is new. So it was this second of pure collaboration. Weak, uncooked. And that undoubtedly comes by way of within the track.
That “la-da-da” line says a lot with so little. When phrases fail, we sing these sounds – and there’s a lot emotion in that second.
Russell: Effectively famous and properly heard. He grappled with that line. I really feel like deep down he knew he preferred it, however was pondering, ‘absolutely I can’t get away with saying la-da-da.’ And I used to be identical to, ‘dude, it feels excellent.’ I agree completely with what you simply stated, Mitch.
Matty Gervais: All of the traces that lead as much as it are clearly a relationship that’s grappling with loads of stuff. And so, the la-da-da is like… rattling, we’ve all felt that la-da-da a hundred percent.
Jonathan Russell: Essentially the most profound phrase on the file, “la-da-da.”
So good. And as a longtime fan, it’s been superb to listen to these new sides of all of you. Jon, you stated earlier that even you had been shocked by this album. What do you hope listeners take away from Aperture, and what did it offer you?
Russell: For me, it gave me confidence. We confirmed ourselves that the rationale it labored at first is similar cause it nonetheless works now – if we belief it. That’s what I hope folks really feel from it. That sense of grounding, and likewise of development.
Gervais: Yeah. It looks like a properly we will hold drawing from. While you create this manner – while you let issues unfold as a substitute of forcing them – there’s no backside. You may hold exploring and discovering. That lesson took us a very long time to relearn as a band. However now that we’ve got, it’s actually hopeful. I believe this album is the beginning of one thing, not the top.
The place do you assume Aperture stands within the Head and the Coronary heart discography?
Russell: For me, it’s Wildflowers. Like what that album did for Tom Petty. It made folks notice there was nonetheless extra to say. That there have been new sides of him to find. Not that we’re Tom Petty – however in our little world, it looks like that. A second of revelation.
Gervais: Yeah. We speak about that loads. Mid-career data can go a number of methods. You may taper off, or you possibly can reset. Reconnect. Reinvigorate. That’s what this looks like. Charity even joked about calling it The Head and the Coronary heart 2, prefer it’s the sequel or reboot. As a result of it does really feel like LP1 another time. Like a recent begin.
Within the spirit of paying it ahead, who’re you listening to lately? Any artists you’d advocate to our readers?
Gervais: Futurebirds and Anna Graves, for certain. They’re touring with us proper now and each are superb. Futurebirds have been round so long as we’ve got. Their catalog is so good – this rootsy, basic rock–indie hybrid. Anna’s unimaginable too. Stunning voice, nice songwriter.
Aldous Harding is somebody I like. It’s been a minute since her final file, however she’s phenomenal. And Dean Johnson – he’s a Seattle man, and actually a musical genius. I noticed him carry out solo at a bit bar in Ballard. Simply me and a pair others. It was jaw-dropping. His falsetto is unreal. And he’s the kindest man. He not too long ago coated one in every of my songs and performed it for me backstage. That was one of the particular moments of my profession.
Russell: I’ll throw in Landon Elliott. His new file Aftermath is superb. He’s somebody who’s been by way of a significant private transformation – id, relationships, the entire thing. And he did all of it publicly, with a lot honesty and bravado. The music displays that. It’s a robust hear.
Additionally, this is perhaps random, however I’ve been diving into George Michael these days. Pay attention With out Prejudice Vol. 1. I’d by no means actually lived together with his music earlier than, however now I really feel like I’m shifting in. It’s unimaginable.
That’s superb. Thanks each a lot. Jon, what you simply stated offers me hope for a future ‘80s-inspired The Head and the Coronary heart album. So I’ll be right here for that period. Till then, I’ve bought Aperture on repeat, and wishing you each the very best with the remainder of the tour!
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