This past May the Seattle and Richmond based band The Head and the Heart released "Aperature," their sixth studio record and their first for new label Verve Forecast. It's a record that found the band returning to the writing style of their early days.
After the pandemic forced the band to work remotely from each other, "Aperature" found them all in the same room again, a writing style that they say brought more collaboration and inspiration to the project. The result is one of their best records yet, and one that has won them critical acclaim from Rolling Stone and the AV Club.
The Head and the Heart is on tour for "Aperture" now and will be at Raleigh's Red Hat Amphitheater Wednesday evening. One dollar from each ticket sold on this tour will go to the band's Rivers and Roads Foundation. Co-founder Jon Russell recently caught up with WUNC music reporter Brian Burns to talk about the new album and the band's charitable work.
I've read that "Aperture" is more of a collaborative album than your previous records. Tell me a bit about what that process looked like.
Our last album "Every Shade of Blue" came out during the pandemic, and we wrote and recorded a lot of that one remotely because we were forced to. Once we took those songs on the road, we kind of noticed we weren't replying to each other in the same way we would have if we'd made the album in the same room together. It felt sort of detached. So, heading into this record, we really wanted to make sure we went through the whole process together and were all on the same page. We did that with our first two records, and we wanted to do it again this time. To make sure we were all reacting to each other in that way.
What inspired the title of this one?
For us, the title of the record always comes at the tail end. You kind of step back and notice some central themes that come across multiple songs. It felt like with this record we were allowing ourselves to be more honest and vulnerable with ourselves, so the idea of shedding more light on the good and the bad made sense. When you open the aperture on a camera, you see more of the image you're capturing, so that seemed like a central theme of these songs.
One of my favorite songs on the record is "Cop Car." Was that inspired by a true story?
That's my favorite song on the record too, and ironically, it's my mom's favorite song on the record. It's a song about when you realize as an adult that you can no longer get away with some of the more destructive habits you had when you were younger.
The song "Arrow" was originally released to support the MusiCares Fire Relief Fund which benefits victims of the Los Angeles wildfires. How does it feel to be able to use your art to raise awareness and money for notable missions like that?
You start out making art for yourself. It's therapeutic and it's something I've always used as a coping mechanism to make sense of life. To have that graduated to a point where it not only helps yourself, but also your fans, it's a phenomenal feeling.
Speaking of that, for this tour, you're donating $1 from every ticket sale to the Rivers and Roads Foundation. Tell us about the foundation and who it benefits.
We started that as a nonprofit a few years back, and every year with Rivers and Roads we pick a nonprofit that's speaking to us. It started off focusing on the Seattle area, but has evolved a bit.
I think everybody in the band went through public schools growing up, and were all fortunate enough to have the funding for strong music programs in our schools. That's not the case for everybody. It seems like the arts are always the first thing to get cut from a budget, and for me, there's no way I would have made it through high school without the arts.
I know you're from Richmond, Virginia which is right up the road from us here in the Triangle. What are some of your favorite spots in the city that you recommend to first timers?
The first thing that comes to mind is a restaurant called Dinamo. It's a little hole-in-the-wall Italian restaurant. Kuba Kuba is another favorite restaurant. It's run by members of the band Bio Ritmo. The James River is beautiful and I love to just ride my bike down there. The National, The Broadberry, and The Camel are all great music venues. I'm also a big fan of the architecture here.
