Chicago indie rock band The Hush Sound played in front of a crowd of thousands of screaming fans at the Congress Theater this past weekend. Playing right after Phantom Planet, the Hush Sound played both older favorites such as “We Intertwined” and “Sweet Tangerine,” as well as songs from their new record, including “Medicine Man” and “The Boys are too Refined”. Before the show, Greta Salpeter, the band’s pianist and lead singer, sat down with North by Northwestern to talk about their new album and why the band almost broke up.
So how has the tour been going?
It’s great. We’ve been sharing the bus with Phantom Planet, so we have eleven people in this bus. We’ve been out for six weeks and we’ve been learning a lot from each other, so it’s been really fun.
Has anything strange or exciting happened yet?
Yesterday, our gear [was] lined up outside, before it’s brought in on the stage. Some guy came up, grabbed one of Bob’s guitars and just started running away down the street with it — everyone started chasing him down and he just dropped the guitar. It ended up being all right but there are strange, sometimes bad, sometimes good and comical things that happen every day.
Your new CD has a different style, it’s darker and more mellow. Why?
It’s kind of funny because we named the record Goodbye Blues because we had kind of like a stormy year, and we really weren’t sure whether we were going to stay a band. And then we ended up working through these issues and calling the record Goodbye Blues. But I realize it’s kind of ironic because a lot of the work on the record was just kind of me getting through a lot of stuff that I had been “blue” about. Making that record and by dealing with a lot of things, I was able to kind of do that.
Why did the band almost break up?
We had been touring together for about six months and we were doing these insane tours: the Fall Out Boy Arena Tour [and] the Panic Summer Tour, which was nearly an arena tour. We were driving ourselves in a van, driving like eight to 10 hours a night — everyone was exhausted, and no one was getting along. We didn’t know that anyone really even cared about our band.
Then we went on our headlining tour two years ago, and we just had this overwhelming response. We were selling out clubs, and it was so genuine. You see kids that go into fad bands and you know it’s just a fad and that it will pass. But all these kids came and said how genuinely appreciative they were and how they started playing instruments because of us, which is probably the best compliment you can ever have. It’s like someone started their own creative passion because they enjoy yours. And to me, it just made everything worthwhile.
Bob and I, we were kind of, at the time, writing for our own projects and doing solo things, we just looked at each other and we were like, we have something so great here and we have the opportunity to reach so many people and create something really beautiful to make them happy. Why would we throw that away because of these teeny little annoyances with each other?
How did you and Bob meet?
We met each other when I was in seventh grade. I think I was twelve years old and he was a sophomore in high school. He had just gotten his driver’s license and he was driving me and a few friends to a movie. The first thing I heard about him was, ‘Wear your seatbelt; he’s a really scary driver.’
Who influences your writing?
So many things. On the last record I listened to a lot of Duke Ellington and Bessie Smith, and a lot of the jazz greats. A lot of the American field recordings, and spirituals, all sorts of American pop music, really just the standards. We are really into Motown and the Beatles and Neil Young.
But beyond that, to me, the world and all the people living in it, all the intermingling of it all, all the relationships are kind of the first and foremost reason for being alive and the music just happens because of it. Life is the cause and music is the effect. Anything could be an influence. Watching a little kid laugh in a restaurant could be an influence.
It seems you guys have become successful so quickly. Do you see it that way?
I’ve been playing piano and writing music since I was two, so this was really natural. It feels like this is the natural progression. It’s not about how many records we’ve sold, it’s kind of about what we’ve achieved in terms of our writing development and I feel like we’re just really at the beginning. With this last record, I’m finally really like, ‘I’m really proud of this record and I’m ready to make another one.’ I kind of feel like we’re really just at the beginning of our career in a way.
We did a lot of touring before we appreciated the gravity of what touring is and what it means, and how well you have to know each other and be respectful of each other.
What is it like being surrounded by boys all the time?
It’s really fun, just in a romantic standpoint. I don’t mean to say that I’m a big flirt or anything but it’s so fun to meet so many people that are interested in the same things as me, who are talented, who are on the road, who get what it’s like. There’s so much opportunity to make close friends with people of the opposite sex, and I feel like I’m really lucky. A lot of women I know don’t get to meet guys who have similar interests and who are really kind and really fun and who really get them.
Have you started working on your next CD?
We have. It’s not to the point where it’s worth really talking about. On this record we’ve got a lot of comments like, ‘Too much Greta and not enough Bob,’ ‘Doesn’t feel like the Hush Sound,” and then some people say ‘Oh, they finally figured out what they sound like. This is great.’ You can’t write to please anybody, but I feel like I want the next record to be as much of a complete Hush Sound effort as possible. Like Bob and me singing more together and sitting down and writing more together. We’ll see what evolves in the next year or two. I just want it to be a fun, Hush Sound collaborative thing.