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E D I T O R S L E T T E R For me this summer has been filled with travel, family, and creative collaboration. While this season comes to an end, there’s nothing better to wrap it up with than a look into the minds of Hot Flash Heat Wave and Glass House Point. As we wave goodbye to summer, we can say hello to this next academic year with the promise of new music and more Heart Eyes Magazine issues. Gabi Yost
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glass house point interview by gabi yost / portraits by lindsey mangrum
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lass House Point, an indie rock band formed in Central Florida, is taking the East Coast by storm! Made up of Dylan Graham (Vocals and Guitar), Ian Campbell (Bass and Keyboard), Jansen Valk (Drums), and Dylan Methot (Lead Guitar). Glass House Point pairs dreamy synth with driving instrumentals to form their own unique sound. We caught up with the quartet after their most recent tour to get an idea of what everyone is speaking so highly of.
Can you tell us the origin of the band? How did the band form, how did you all meet? Dylan Methot: It started in high school. Dylan Graham: We started when we were freshmen and Dylan Methot was a sophomore. We just started jamming and originally Ian didn’t want to play the bass, but we got him to play it eventually. Dylan just started picking up the guitar and we started playing local shows around Lakeland and Winter Haven [Florida].
Methot: I first started off playing the mandolin. That was my “in” with the band. Graham: Yeah, we were like “get a mandolin and you can be in the band” because we used to be a Folk band. We had like a banjo player and a violinist too. When Jansen came on board, everything changed. Jansen Valk: When I joined, that was when we started doing real shows, in real venues. How did the name “Glass House Point” come to be? Valk: Well… a Wikipedia article. Campbell: We had a show, that happened to be our first. Methot: It was for a studio show and we needed a name. We were just hitting the random article button on Wikipedia a bunch of times and eventually landed on Glass House Point - which is an actual place. It’s the name of a ferry terminal in Jamestown, Virginia. We like how it sounded and it stuck from there. Who are some on the bands that inspired you guys to make music? Valk: That’s like so ever-changing so this is going to be hard. There’s just so many.
Methot: For me, Ben Howard is one of the big ones. Both his old stuff and new stuff. Graham: We’ve always said Local Natives and Copeland, whose studio is attached here in Dixieland, are big influences for us. From Indian Lakes is another big one. I’ve been starting to get into Day Wave and I like his stuff a lot. Methot: Bombay Bicycle Club is another big one. Valk: The 1975 always, but my inspirations change. It’s just a lot of random songs from random artists. Graham: When we play shows we usually listen to a lot of local musicians who happen to inspire us too. We get to play with people and we can see their live sets first-hand, like on a peer basis. Vaulk: Sonderblue, Trashpanda, My fever.. Those are some of the ones I like. Graham: Jet Black Alley Cat too! There are a lot of really good local bands.
Piggybacking off of that, but who would you say influences your sound the most? Like if you can think of one. Graham: I can’t think of a singular artist that influences our sound, but some of the bigger names that we mentioned before do. Campbell: I think personally, a lot of it is music we listened to growing up. I know for me, I listened to a lot of The Killers, Phoenix, and Bon Iver. Those are huge ones that kind of triangulate the sound that I think we’re trying to go for Especially with Bombay [Bicycle Club]. We want some drive, some synths, and dancey stuff. If you could describe your sound in 3 words, which would you choose? Methot: Ambient… LOUD. Valk: It’s very driving. That would probably be one. Graham: I think our signature one would be driving because we will start writing a song and at first it’s like we don’t want to write it, but then we just all naturally get into this zone where we will be vibing with something kind of chill and we’re just like “what if it went like this?” So then we just change everything. Definitely driving, ambient, and I like to use the word “feelsie”. We’ve intentionally been stacking and layering our music to make it sound fuller with tracking and synth. Valk: Everything has gotten heavier and fuller and it really makes us sound how we want, like with the Washed Out intro. Campbell: Moody. We’re very moody.
You guys just recently dropped your EP “Midnight Appetite”, is there a new album in the works? If so, can you tell us more about it? What should the fans expect? Graham: There is definitely new music and an album in the works. We are all in different places on this. I feel we’re in a self discovery phase because we’ve just come off of our fourth tour and we’ve really been working on playing these songs from this record live. So now it’s finally summer and we’re all in school too so we are all off and we have a second to catch our breath and think “Ok what do we want to say with our music? What type of music do we want to write?” Not only that but also who are we as a band right now? Valk: In the past year we’ve done so much. Three tours and playing those songs changed who we are and how we see music. Graham: A year ago we were different artists all together and you can’t feel that change while you are in it, but now looking back on it, you can just see the difference. Campbell: We are trying to settle into a sound, but we are writing and changing because when we started off, we were a folk band and it wasn’t even that long ago when we had a violinist. Graham: I don’t think we have fully found our sound yet. Valk: We definitely are working on things and should have more stuff out this year.
As for writing goes, is it a team effort, or do each of you write on your own? Methot: It varies. Campbell: One of us will bring something to the table and then we just keep working with it and changing it and coming back to it… Valk: Until it is perfect and something we can build off of. Methot: And then we work on the parts that are solid, music-wise. Campbell: We can sit down with something that is solid and then come up with a lead or something that changes it entirely and then we work on it and take away. Methot: Yeah we set aside pieces that we already have and then work on some more parts collectively for a while. Campbell: All of the songs we have so far sound nothing like what we had when we started. That’s always cool to look back at the demos and see just how much we have changed and developed. Methot: We put a lot of thought into them and it definitely takes awhile. Campbell: It is a group effort in the end. You recently just ended a tour, how was that? Do you have any planned for the near future? Graham: The best one yet! Valk: Definitely the most stressful one we have ever been on, but it went really well and we got more than what we expected out of it.
Methot: I turned 21 at our Tallahassee show so that was really special. Graham: I think this has been the most impactful tour for us. It is always a struggle being a small band on tour but on this one we were playing close to full houses almost every night. Methot: We even sold out a show in Gainesville, Florida, thanks to Flipturn. Campbell: North Florida is always good to us. Methot: Battling with our car Campbell: We experienced a lot of gear and vehicle troubles. I went through three synths on this past tour. It kind of just broke. Graham: We broke two fenders and a tire on our way to Atlanta. Valk: This was the tour where everything kind of just expired, but we kept on going and it was still great. Methot: It makes for a good time. Valk: We were also playing while taking finals. Methot: It was like three weekends straight where we would take finals and then be off to Atlanta or Nashville and have to be back by Monday. Valk: I wouldn’t have it any other way. What are your favorite songs to play live? Valk: “Polaris” Campbell: I really like “Breckenridge.” Such a fun bass part, I love playing it.
Graham: Such a good question, I don’t know anymore! I enjoy them all equally. But when we play it right, “Hungry Eyes” is my Favorite. Methot: It’s hard for me to pick one song! To me they are all one unit. I love to play them all. Lastly, any new music ya’ll have been listening to that you can’t get enough of? Methot: Like I said earlier, I really like the new Ben Howard stuff and I listen to that a lot. Valk: The new Arctic Monkeys album. It’s Alex Turner in his fullest form. Campbell: This band out of California, They’re called Spooky Mansion and they are really good. They have kind of an Arctic Monkeys meets Black Keys kind of sound, very west coast. Really cool sound! On the other end of the spectrum, I can’t get enough of Earth Gang, MF Doom, JID, as well as some other Hip Hop artists. Graham: I’ve been listening to a lot of Kendrick Lamar for whatever reason, and a lot of R&B. I’m trying to broaden my horizons. Sir is a really good R&B artist. Campbell: The music coming out right now is really good and it’s so hard to keep up with everything, but such a good time for music.
HOT FLASH HEAT WAVE interview and photos by caylee robillard
he psychedelic and garage rock band hailing from Northern California, known as Hot Flash Heat Wave, consists of Nathan Blüm (vocals and guitar), Adam Abildgaard (vocals and guitar), Ted Davis (vocals and bass), and Nick Duffy (drums). On July 18th, the band played an incredibly memorable show in Atlanta, GA opening up for Summer Salt. We had the chance to catch up with them to discuss their inspirations, the story behind their name, and their growth as a band.
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How do you guys meet as a band and come together with your collective vision? Adam: Well, me and Ted we’re playing music in different bands in high school, so that’s how we met. Then we met Nathan at shows through the garage rock scene.
between Adam and Nick Duffy, who is our drummer, and they would play garage shows in Davis, in a very different context. It was a just-for-fun project that we all ended up joining when Nick wrote a lot of songs on guitar when he was going to Berkeley. What inspired ‘Hot Flash Heat Wave’? Nathan: I don’t even know how we came up with it, Nick Duffy just says that he felt super hot one summer and came up with the phrase as a way to pretty much put that feeling of heat and exhaustion into words. So it’s not really like a concrete thing, it’s more just that feeling you get during summer when you’re kind of overwhelmingly hot and maybe lazy or something like that.
You recently released your new single Glo Ride, is there a story behind that song? What was your inspiration? Adam: I was going through my computer Do you guys have a story and I found this old riff behind your name? I’d written a long time Nathan: It was like a ago. loosely based idea like a fuck-around-project
It was originally for this songwriting collective in the Bay Area that we were all a part of. I pretty much just decided to turn it into a song because we did like monthly tracks. I guess lyrically it is kind of about the fact that I was like in an interesting place in my life. I had just moved back to my mom’s house. I was kind of figuring my life out again but, it was about taking time, finding a center, and being grounded - not like freaking out that I’m living at my mom’s house. So, you guys all live together, does that i nfluence your creative song writing process? Nathan: We don’t actually live together anymore, but we did for about 4-6 years, depending on the member of the band. I think it did affect our creative process because we’re all prone to just writing on our computers so, now that we don’t live together I think most majority of our writing process goes down like individually on the computer.
Then, later on we’ll kind of like bring those ideas together, whereas before when we lived together we were kind of just jam a lot in this room with a lot of instruments and drums. I think a lot of song ideas came from us just being in there with our instruments and playing music together. Ted: That’s how we wrote Neopolitan and some of Soaked. Since then we kind of transitioned to bedroom recording. You guys have a very unique sound, do you have any musical inspirations as a group? Nathan: I think that our common interests are Toro y Moi, and The Strokes have had a huge influence on our sound. These days it’s a lot of post-punk, all the way to some kind of like OG surf music, and then we listen to a lot of house music. Adam: I like a lot like 70s soul like so like Sade, Al Green, and Marvin Gaye. Also, I like to mix that with jangly music, making like modern jangly soul music almost.
Ted: I’ve been super inspired by Steve Lacey, Tyler the Creator - new R&B sound, recently too. the computer. So, how do you feel that you’ve grown as a band since the releases of your albums Neapolitan and Soaked? Ted: We are definitely always growing and our influences are changing. I think as a band we don’t try too hard to stay in one place by giving ourselves space to evolve with our music, which is cool because I think all artists need room to grow and change, as their life changes. Right now, you guys are on tour with Summer Salt - what are your favorite songs to play live? Adam: We’re playing new stuff, like a couple of new tracks that we haven’t released. Those are really fun and are kinda in the Glo Ride realm slightly; it’s always fun to play new songs.
a playlist by hot flash heat wave
Computer Luv- Steve Lacy Wednesday Wedding - Omni By My Side - Porches
Are You Leaving - Sassy 009 Lover Surreal - Video Age Comin Through - The Pastels
Behind the Bank -Oneohtrix Point Never Heart: Release - Neon Indian He Needs Me - Anika