INTERVIEW: TALL HEIGHTS

Photo Credit: Big Hassle Media

Interview by Matt Lutkins

ML (Matt Lutkins): Hey Paul, it’s Matt calling from the radio station, how are you doing today?

PW (Paul Wright): Hey Matt, I’m good man how are you doing?

ML: I’m doing pretty well! I’m just relaxing. I’m on winter break…everything’s great…listening to music…doing nothing…I can’t complain.

PW: Alright, nice. Where’s home for you?

ML: Uh Central PA – right outside of Harrisburg.

PW: Alright, that’s nice.

ML: I like to say I’m an hour away from the Amish, two away from Philly, and three from Pittsburgh so…

PW: There you go…do you guys have any snow out there?

ML: We got a little bit of snow—not too much. You know, I left Boston right as all the snow was starting to hit, so I was like, “Darn it, I missed it!” But yeah, no, I have to say it, there’s only one thing I love more than a small local band, and that’s a small local Boston band. I don’t know, I just love Boston-based bands, and I’ve been listening to you guys for a while now, so it’s awesome to get to talk to you and ask a few questions about your tour, your music, your record, and everything like that.

PW: Yeah man, fire away.

ML: Nice, awesome. So the first question I have for you is…I was looking at an Instagram post where Tim described this record as one of the easiest for you guys to make—it kind of just happened naturally. So what made this process different, and I guess, I suppose, easier than your previous records?

PW: Yeah, well, we were coming off of making a COVID-era record, where we were working in our little home studio and sending tracks back and forth from different places. That was all well and good and sort of necessary for that time in all our lives, but we were really excited to capture something that was much more live and real and raw and in the room, really captures a moment in time. And that was the North Star.

And you know, when Tim said it was the easiest one to make, he was really talking about the execution of it–sitting there in the studio with eight other people and sort of going seamlessly from learning how to play a song together for the first time as an ensemble to getting a recording of it. And that was really a wonderfully smooth process. The leap to making our record that way was, yeah a big jump. It’s a lot safer to sit at home and you know, play the guitar part 100 times until you get it right and then do 100 vocal takes and you feel…in a way like it’s just right. But you can lose a whole lot of realism and whole lot of what people latch onto and what makes them really feel, because I think people want something that speaks to them and that it’s something that is authentic and in a moment.

So we made this big leap to gather a bunch of people, some of whom we had not played with before and some of whom we knew well, but as a group, we’ve never all played music together. We got together in this beautiful Western Mass studio called Spirit House, and we had about 10 days and we said, “You know, if we get 5 songs done, that’s great. We’ll call it a win.” And the way it works, you know, we’d start learning a song together in the morning and by afternoon, we’d be doing takes of it and we’d have a recording by the evening and that really was a beautiful change.

ML: Yeah that’s sick, that’s awesome. I like that. There’s nothing better than just performing with one another, I have to say. It’s just the best feeling.

PW: Yeah, totally and the recording process doesn’t have to be so different from that actual performance and it’s such a different mindset, right, when you don’t have people sitting in front of you ready to clap them and enjoy the moment you’re like committing to an audio recording that is somehow forever, but those two can be the same thing.

ML: Yeah and so one of my…You know another track mine was “Animal” and kind of going on this realm of like being connected to one another and kind of like performing as a group, I really like you know the mysterious sound that you guys open with. I don’t know, it’s kind of ambiguous, and to me, it sounded Bon Iver-esque. You guys have quoted him as, you know, an inspiration. Who are some artists that you’ve been really inspired by recently or kind of inspired this work and, I don’t know, kind of like the collective unit as a band when creating this album?

PW: Yeah certainly. Big Justin Vernon fan. Our buddy Gregory Alan Isakov is another inspiration and you know, he has said to us it’s the songs that you play for yourself when you’re just sitting in your bedroom. Like those are the ones that that people need to hear or that like makes it a song, you know. Yeah, and I’ve tried to…I’ve kept him in the back of my mind as we made this record. We’re inspired by all sorts of folks. We love Madison Cunningham and Andrew Bird, their project “Cunningham Bird” and some band friends, like River Whyless, an Asheville Band. There are some other Boston bands that we’ve sorta grown up with as artists in Boston: Darlingside, The Ballroom Thieves, and Ryan Montbleau.

ML: No that’s awesome, I mean there’s nothing better than a local Boston band I have to say. Philly bands are also great, but Boston bands just do it differently.

PW: Who’s your favorite Philly band?

ML: The War on Drugs. They are one of my favorites and their whole greater project. Other Boston bands are great. I like Juice a lot–they’re really great, and The Ballroom Thieves are great as well. But no, Boston does it differently. But alright, the next question that I had was with the song “In Vein.” I know you talked a little bit about this on Instagram and I love this song. It’s a beautiful song and it really stood out to me during some listen. I had this feeling before and I think especially with the state of our world within these past few years, I think it’s important to recognize this and I’ve written about it myself for different classes and whatnot, and so knowing this and reconciling with like this emotional turmoil, have you seen yourself changing your ways in life and kind of experiencing life differently?

PW: Yeah in terms of like responding to the chaos around us, you mean?

ML: Yeah responding and appreciating kind of the mundane, which is oftentimes taken for granted or you know…really any way that you might interpret it, I guess.

PW: Yeah, well, you say the mundane and I do think about that a lot. I mean, there are so many huge global and national issues that are really upsetting to bear witness to on a day-to-day level, like headlines about climate change, obviously the political climate right now–all sorts of things. And yeah a question that I asked myself recently is…we all, you know, we sort of agree it’s not the right move as a responsible citizen to just bury your head in the sand, right? Like you can’t just tune it out and put your fingers in the ears. We know certain political persuasions–you might do that about certain issues, but generally we think it’s better to at least be informed. But when we spend all of our time sort of like worrying about these massive issues that we’re sort of least able to influence on an individual level today, versus what you’re talking about, you know, the mundane, like how can I be it good dad and be a good neighbor and do something nice for him for someone today…Um, it’s a lot easier to avoid that darkness of helplessness which is really the feeling that you get when you scroll through your news app, right? Yeah and it doesn’t mean those problems aren’t incredibly pressing, but yeah, I’ve just been thinking lately about my place in it all–that just watching it is not necessarily the best use of my energy and thoughts and I think that finding purpose however local, however small, whatever that means to you–and for me that means sharing music with people and sharing emotional connection. That is the real purpose and you know you can think about it as waging against the darkness of helplessness or just doing a small part, but that is my sort of answer to my own question about whether is it all in vain.

ML: Nice, I like that! That’s awesome! Yeah kind of another question I had to go based upon that is you know “Softly Softly” I think it’s a great ending to the record, but I mean, it hits you like a truck, you know, once you kind of hit the middle of it. What was the motivation for ending the album with it? I think it’s special–I was just curious about what you guys think about, you know, ending it with that song.

PW: I think, you know, as you said, it does hit like a truck and it’s the very first thing we recorded in the studio, but I think it kind of needs to be followed by silence rather than the next tune, so that that was the obvious place for it.

It’s based off an old song that my mom used to sing to me when I was a little kid and it’s a song that I sing to my son every night when he goes to sleep obviously rewritten lyrically to be about school shootings. But that was that was sort of the point–to take something that just hits your ear immediately as innocent and beautiful and sort of pastoral and then take it to a very dark place. Because that is the end and that is reality. That’s the reality of these horrible events.

ML: Yeah definitely, cool. So I know that was very solemn, but my next question is a little bit more fun. How does it feel to know that one of your songs is one of my favorite songs of all time?

PW: Haha it feels great! Thanks for asking! Yeah, especially on this tour that we’ve been on these last couple of months, we’re hearing that a lot and it’s different songs and it’s people who have been coming out for many years or for the first time. Yeah, to be the soundtrack of someone and to their year, their decade, their chapter of life, whatever it is for you. Yeah, I mean talk about purpose.

As I was just saying, it’s an honor and it makes me want to keep writing and it makes me feel like I’m doing the good work, because I know how it feels to put on the song that is one of my favorites. It takes me somewhere and I just did that a few minutes before you called and it’s kind of the best compliment you could give. 

ML: I’m so glad, that’s awesome! But yeah, kind of even going off of that, I’m excited to see you guys in a few weeks on, I think, the 26th. My mind is boggled with dates, but you guys have started in Boston or at least in different areas of Massachusetts before and have ended in Boston and Cambridge before, but for this album especially, what does it mean to you to end your tour of a few months in Cambridge?

PW: Yeah I think mostly…it’s just a touch point. You know, I live in Maine now. We’re not in Boston, but it’s a reminder of where it started for us, and the Sinclair and the Bowery folks have been so good to us. And the very first show that was a big standing room show, to our standard, was at the Sinclair many years ago. It’s a reminder of all the hard work and where it started for us and yeah the conviction that has helped us keep going.

So yeah, honestly it’s a really weighty show in my mind to like get to come back and play the Sinclair. It’s a big deal for me and for Tim and you never wanna play the “big” show when you’re playing your very first one on the tour. [Tour is] long and it gets better and you figure things out and to finish up in Boston, which I think is what we did at the end of the last tour–for the Juniors tour–it’s a real cherry on the Sunday. It’s closing the book on the Softly Softly Tour and to have the opportunity at the Sinclair to close up the tour…yeah it’s gonna be emotional and really special. 

ML: Nice that’s awesome! I’m very excited and my next question–my final question–is: so what’s next for you both? I mean it’s been a while…it’s been a long time but you guys are always making music it seems. Do you have a plan of what’s coming next or do you have a vision or any goals, especially with the new year? Talk to me a little bit about that.                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

PW: Yeah we’ve been in “Go! Go! Go!” mode for the record while now and I think we’re both really excited to get back to writing and try out some collaborations with other artists and really just get back into that songwriter-mindset, which is, you know, how this whole thing started for us. It’s our favorite or one of our favorite parts of this job and when you’re putting out a record, you can lose track of that, so that’s the thing we’re heading to immediately.

We’re making some plans to get to the UK later in the year and revisit some friends in Canada that we hit in the fall when we were out with NEEDTOBREATHE so we’ll get some touring dates up there, but at the moment it’s gonna be writing time and I’m excited about that.

ML: Nice, that’s awesome, that sounds great! Alright Paul, thank you so much for getting to chat with me today. I mean this is my first interview with an artist ever and it’s awesome that I get to do it with a band that I love and really admire, but yeah I’m excited to see you guys in just a few weeks and hear everything come together.

PW: Thanks Matt, thanks for spreading the word and letting folks know about the show. We appreciate it.

ML: Absolutely, well all right Paul, have a great day!

PW: Thanks, you too.