Exactly one week ago, I posted a story about rock group Helms Alee and the release of their new single “Tit to Toe”, which comes from the upcoming album Stillicide. For me, this release is incredibly exciting because I was a huge fan of the group’s 2014 album Sleepwalking Sailors.
So, color me extremely excited when I got the chance to catch up with drummer/vocalist Hozoji Matheson-Margullis to discuss their upcoming album, a bit of their history, their fascination with all things nautical, and how their influences don’t necessarily match yet still work, on top of other funs bits. You can read all about it in our interview below.
Stillicide comes out September 2nd via Sargent House Records. You can pre-order the album via Bandcamp.
Sleepwalking Sailors garnered near universal acclaim. Was there a feeling of pressure when writing Stillicide?
Absolutely not. We all certainly feel a natural internal pressure to create music that we think is good and is satisfying to play. But there was no sense of a need to compete with Sleepwalking Sailors or any other record ever made for that matter.
Your music is incredibly diverse, making it a thoroughly enjoyable listen. What kinds of risk, if any, do you feel you took with Stillicide?
Thank you! I don’t think any risks were taken beyond just challenging ourselves to write songs that would help us continue to grow as a band and as individuals. We often write stuff that is hard to play at first and then force ourselves to learn to play it. That can be risky in that once it’s written you might find that under the microscope of the studio or inside the chaos of live performance, what you have written and worked so hard on, you are still not able to play. But that is how we continue to grow. Because it forces us to either work even harder to learn to play our own music OR it forces us to be flexible in letting go of parts we may have grown to love in order to make the song as a whole better.
Your first two albums were released on Hydra Head and now you’re on Sargent House. How do you feel the label change affected you and your journey?
Losing Hydra Head was really sad. We had a good relationship with them and would’ve been happy to continue working with them. But the experience of losing them crystallized how truly dedicated we three were to our music. Because we were completely unwilling to let it go unrealized. So we decided to do what needed to be done to make a record for ourselves. We put together a Kickstarter campaign and were incredibly lucky to reach our goal and use that money to record Sleepwalking Sailors.
That recording process lead us and Sargent House to each other and they took us under their very generous and hardworking wings. The very day we signed with Sargent House we began to see their work in action. They have done a TON to help our band get out into the world. To be honest, I never really sought to have any band I played in get label support because I didn’t see why we as a band couldn’t do the same things a label would do for us at a cost.
But when it comes down to it there is a mountain of work that goes into creating, promoting, and distributing records. And most of the musicians I know have interests outside of being in a band that they would like to pursue when they are not creating or performing music. Not to mention that self promotion is rarely a strong point for an artist.
So having a truly supportive and hard working label has made a world of difference for Helms Alee. It has allowed us more freedom to work with the engineers we would like to work with and has opened doors to seeing the world through doing tours we would not otherwise have been able to do because we either wouldn’t have been invited or else wouldn’t have been able to afford to go.
Listening to “Tit to Toe”, I got a little bit of a The Cure vibe, specifically their song “Burn” from ‘The Crow’ soundtrack. What bands have had the biggest impact on your sound?
That is always a tough question to answer because we all three have pretty vast taste and don’t necessarily feel passionately about all the same bands. There obviously is a bunch of common ground and there are undeniable influences that come through at moments without the intention to emulate them. But that’s just the thing. We are never intentionally writing with a certain sound or certain style in mind. What comes out when the three of us create together is the culmination of our individual histories in the love of music as it was seen through the many different perspectives each of us has had at different times in our lives. But yeah, Dana really likes The Cure!
The cover for Sleepwalking Sailors has a very dark style. After all, gigantic sea monsters are no joke! What drew you to that visual style?
We all three have obsessions with the mysteries of the sea. At the time that Sleepwalking Sailors was coming together I happened to be deep in an obsession with bioluminescent sea creatures. I even had jars of bioluminescent algae as pets that I shook up and watched glow every night before I went to bed.
So when we started talking about art work, the idea of a bioluminescent deep sea angler fish came up. We all threw in our ideas for what that would mean and then agreed that our friend Aaron John Gregory from the band Giant Squid was the man for the job. He has a company called Cotton Crustacean and specializes in drawings and paintings of sea creatures. He took our ideas and turned them into the wicked rad painting that is the cover of that album.
Stillicide also has a bit of a nautical theme in terms of the artwork. Obviously your name is comprised of those references but what specifically draws you to the water?
We live next to one of the most nutrient rich bodies of water in the world. A tendril of the Salish Sea called Puget Sound. Fed by the Pacific Ocean and multiple melting mountains, it is an estuary unique in it’s character. It is dark and sparkling and full of life. We smell its air everyday and watch it’s colors change with the Earth’s moods.
Obviously we’re a horror site and, as such, I’d be remiss to not ask if horror plays any role in what you do, be it in the music itself, the lyrics, the artwork, etc…
There is no direct influence of horror on our music, lyrics, or art. But I sure did spend a lot of weekends in my child life eating candy and watching horror movies with my friends. Does that count?
Helms Alee online:
Official Website
Facebook
Twitter
TOUR DATES:
with MELVINS unless noted *
Aug 03 Las Vegas, NV – Backstage Bar & Billiards
Aug 04 Flagstaff, AZ – The Green Room
Aug 06 Boulder, CO – Fox Theatre
Aug 07 Fort Collins, CO – Aggie Theatre
Aug 09 Sioux Falls, SD – The District
Aug 10 Fargo, ND – The Aquarium (Dempsey’s Upstairs)
Aug 12 Chicago, IL @ Beat Kitchen *
Aug 13 Minneapolis, MN @ Triple Rock *
Aug 14 Rock Island – Rock Island Brewing Company
Aug 15 Des Moines, IA – Wooly’s
Aug 16 Lawrence, KS – The Bottleneck
Aug 17 St. Louis, MO – The Firebird
Aug 18 Louisville, KY – Headliners Music Hall
Aug 19 Indianapolis, IN – The Vogue Theatre
Aug 20 Grand Rapids, MI – The Pyramid Scheme
Aug 22 Columbus, OH – A&R Music Bar
Aug 23 Pittsburgh, PA – Rex Theater
Aug 24 Buffalo, NY – Iron Works –
Aug 26 Syracuse, NY – The Westcott Theater
Aug 27 Northampton, MA – Pearl Street
Aug 28 Hamden, CT – The Ballroom at The Outer Space
Aug 29 Providence, RI – Fete Ballroom
Aug 31 Baltimore, MD – Ottobar
Sep 01 Carrboro, NC – Cat’s Cradle
Sep 02 Richmond, VA @ Strange Matter *
Sep 05 Athens, GA – 40 Watt Club
Sep 06 Charlotte, NC – Amos’ Southend
Sep 07 Charleston, SC – Music Farm
Sep 08 Jacksonville, FL – Jack Rabbits
Sep 10 Baton Rouge, LA – Spanish Moon
Sep 11 Jackson, MS – Duling Hall
Sep 12 Memphis, TN – Hi-Tone
Sep 13 Little Rock, AR – Metroplex
Sep 14 Tulsa, OK – Cain’s Ballroom
Sep 15 Oklahoma City, OK – The ACM @ UCO Performance Lab
Sep 16 Norman, OK – Opolis
Sep 17 Austin, TX – The Sidewinder
Sep 18 San Antonio, TX – Paper Tiger
Sep 20 El Paso, TX – Lowbrow Palace
Sep 21 Tucson, AZ – Club Congress
———————————————-
with RUSSIAN CIRCLES
Sep 23-24 Cincinnati, OH @ Midpoint Music Fest
Sep 25 Detroit, MI – El Club
Sep 26 Toronto, ON – Lee’s Palace
Sep 28 Cambridge, MA – The Sinclair
Sep 29 Philadelphia, PA – Union Transfer
Sep 30 Brooklyn, NY – Warsaw
Oct 01 Washington, DC – Rock & Roll Hotel
Oct 02 Durham, NC – Motorco Music Hall
Oct 04 Atlanta, GA – Aisle 5
Oct 05 Birmingham, AL – Saturn
Oct 06 Baton Rouge, LA – Spanish Moon
Oct 07 Houston, TX – Warehouse Live Studio
Oct 08 Austin, TX – Barracuda
Oct 09 Dallas, TX – RBC
