After devoting much of his youth to music, becoming adept in guitar, bass, piano and drums, Hoag knew he needed to embark on a new musical endeavor in his college years. So, he did what any 18-year-old soon-to-be college student would do: he posted a query on Facebook.
Lucky for him, Dylan Thomas Micah Figlo (yes, he has four names) answered the call.
"I made some ridiculous post saying that I wanted to start a band and any other musically inclined individuals should get in touch with me," Hoag says. "Dylan was the first to reply, and we just started making demos in the months before even meeting"
Two years later, their band, The Breathe Heavy, has created a loyal UNCW fan following and produced a sound so catchy you'll want to press repeat the second the track ends. These East Coast boys have proved that good music doesn't have to be the result of a big Hollywood recording studio. Sometimes, it comes from sheer musical genius.
This is their story.
JC: When did you first realize you were musical?
AH: I was 9 years old when I got my first guitar. My grammy gave it to me for my birthday and I still have it in my Mom's house in Pennsylvania. I didn't really touch the thing until I got into middle school and realized that since I couldn't play football at a staggering five foot three, I was going to need some other way of woo-ing the ladies. Being a rock star just kind of struck me as an awesome thing, but I definitely didn't expect it to go this far. It's basically consumed my life. I picked up instrument after instrument and just forced myself to learn it. It was rad, to say the least.
DF: Well, I played lots of sports, so athletic inability wasn’t my motivation. All I know is I was always playing “airdrums” as a kid. I have a thing for good, rhythmic sounds. I guess I noticed around 5th or 6th grade while listening to Blink 182 and New Found Glory that it was something I understood and wanted to try.
JC: How did your band name, The Breathe Heavy, come about?
DF: I’m pretty sure it was a just a Facebook chat back and forth while searching for band names. For some reason, this name just stuck out. It has a great chant factor: "TBH! TBH!"
AH: Yeah, we just liked that one best. I think it's a pretty good representation of what we're trying to do as a band - take someone's breath away, set the mood to just want to dance or have fun or whatever. We actually got threatened to be sued by a Britney Spear's fansite called "Breathe Heavy." I told the dude he could have his attorney contact us, but it never went down. I actually kind of like thinking we're somehow connected to Britney. Maybe one day she'll just email us and be like, "Hey, I was googling myself and found this fansite called Breathe Heavy, and then found your MySpace. I want to make you guys famous." Because, you know, celebrities google themselves all the time.
JC: What inspired your new song, Runaway (Somewhere)? Who wrote the lyrics?
DF: Well, Andrew does most of the instrumentation. So lyrically, the song Runaway (Somewhere), came from a change in my life from being anxious about the future to being excited about living Carpe Diem. Andrew sent me the instrumental, I sat on a bed for five minutes and had the first verse, chorus, and bridge written out and fitted to the song. Then we layer and feed off of each other lyrically to fill the gaps.
AH: Inspiration is a funny thing. I was sick of trying to write straight rock songs with my other band Saint vs. Sailor, and sat down and basically started programming the hell out of this song that turned into Runaway (Somewhere). I wrote the instrumentation to the first verse and chorus, and sent it to Dylan. After he wrote some lyrics, we added some more layering, tweaked a couple of parts, and just went from there. It's a pretty fair statement to say that whoever is singing a line in TBH wrote that set of lyrics.
JC: The song features a lot of electronic mixing elements. What inspired this sound? What's your music making process like?
AH: I just love electronic music. Ever since the days of Hellogoodbye and Motion City Soundtrack, I've always loved the synthetic and electronic sounds they layered in their music. Then of course you get these indie powerhouses like Passion Pit or Freelance Whales or Analog Rebellion, and they take it to a whole new place. I guess that's what we're trying to do with the super computerized sound. Everyone's into this techno/dubstep rave scene these days and losing sight of more vocally driven music. I guess if we can combine them in some form, we can bring the best of both worlds to an audience. I mean, you turn on the radio and everything is electronic. I don't like the excessive use, persay. TBH is never going to stop putting guitar parts in songs or using acoustic pianos, whatever. We just want to make a hybrid of these popular genres and really sell it. Make people dance, but also make people think.
DF: I guess what I can add to this is simply to outline my instrumental input as a process: Andrew plays me something, asks me what else it needs. I immediately hear the sound and rhythm in my head, try to relay that out to him vocally, and he always magically makes it appear. I get inspired by Andrew’s sound vision and translate that to a lyrical vision. As far as time goes, it’s always a good 5 hours locked up in a room at a time, just making the song happen.
JC: What instruments were featured in this song? Did you record any of your own instrumental playing?
DF: There’s a lot of keyboard and synth. Then my favorite is our voices. I think that gives us our sound. We realize our voices are instruments and layer them with different effects to compliment the feel of the song.
AH: Yeah, I think there are something like 58 tracks of midi in this song, a lot of raw sound analog sounds that are just crushed by an abundance of effects. That, and we really tried to make vocals just another instrument in the song. You notice a lot of chopping and screwing, and the heavy use of auto-Tune. And yeah, people hate on auto-Tune all the time. But if you have qualms with it and say, "Oh hey, those guys can't even sing!" just check out the stuff we'll be releasing in the next few months. I promise, we use that kind of thing as an effect. Runaway (Somewhere) is such a dance-y pop song that throwing hard auto-tune on the vocals gives it the cohesive, perfected, programmed sound. So to answer your question, nah, there's nothing but keyboard parts and drum programming on the song. I originally wrote the chorus with a pretty wide guitar part, but it just didn't sit right.
JC: When was the song officially released?
DF: The song was released yesterday, February 11th, online.
AH: Yeah, it’ll be on MySpace, Facebook and any other of our awesome online social networking sites!
JC: So what's the next step?
DF: Well immediately, Saturday (tonight) will be a release party/filming pieces of the huge bash for an upcoming video. It will be the first mass release we will get to witness. I’m excited. In the near future, we’re going to be finishing up the EP with a few more songs so that we can start preparing to send stuff out to different record labels.
AH: Basically, release more songs. Play shows. Shoot a music video. Get merchandise. Take over Wilmington… [laughs].
JC: Where do you see yourselves in 2012?
AH: Probably dead, right? I think they said the world ends then. But seriously, hopefully by then we're just a household name around Wilmington, or hell, even all of North Carolina. We're definitely taking TBH seriously this time around.
DF: I’ll be alive and well, and ideally, in a big beach house on Wrightsville Beach, NC, preparing for a tour with Andrew. But in all honesty, I have no clue. I think this music has a lot of potential to launch us, but I also have non-musical dreams. So, I guess the conservative answer would be finishing up my Junior year of college.
JC: Favorite band? Besides TBH, of course.
AH: Impossible question… I have way too many. But I've had American Diary's latest full length Theodore on repeat for days.
DF: I’m going to make that band(s). Circa Survive, or anything that Anthony Green does, and Brand New (Jesse Lacey). They’ve both been a huge inspiration lyrically and vocally for me.
JC: Brand New is one of my favorites, too. Okay, time for a random one. How about your favorite food?
DF: Burritos, bar-none! Specifically, a steak burrito from 10th Ave Burrito in Belmar, NJ. So good!
AH: Fruity Pebbles.
JC: Favorite thing about living in North Carolina?
AH: The beach or southern hospitality.
DF: Bojangles' Chicken and Biscuits. Well, now this is just becoming about food...sorry. But hey, a full belly makes good music! Other than that, I love the blue skies and the weather. It just makes your day so much better.
JC: Who's been the biggest supporter to your music making?
AH: I guess my core group of friends. They put up with me having a riff on loop for 35 minutes without killing me, and I force them to listen to the 2,495 different versions of every song each time we add something. And they are pretty good critics. If they like it, they tell us. If they don't, they tell us. So props to Matt, Hannah, Molly, Alex, Goldstein and Dede.
DF: I’m going to have to steal Drew’s answer and go with our friends. They’re the guinea pigs and current owners of the space in which they so graciously let us record. I love them all.
JC: Anything else?
AH: Thanks for caring enough to listen to all this craziness we had to tell you about, and make sure you follow us for the next few months. We're promising big things!
DF: J.Cole rocks! And listen to The Breathe Heavy!
Download it. Share it. Spread the word. And don't forget to follow them on Twitter, like them on Facebook and check out their Myspace for band news and upcoming releases.
Always,
j.cole (total TBH fanatic)
