Tall Heights

photography by JIMMY FONTAINE @jimmyfontaine1featuring TALL HEIGHTS @tallheightsinterview by EMILY PITCHER @xmilyp

interview by EMILY PITCHER @xmilyp words by TALL HEIGHTS @tallheights

Electro-folk band Tall Heights started their music career by performing on the streets of Boston. Ever since their notoriety skyrocketed, this duo has been hailed by publications such as NPR and Refinery29 for their experimental sound and rich harmonies. We sat down with Tall Heights to talk about their recent tour with Ben Folds and CAKE, how to overcome rejection, and music as a social tool. Read on to learn about their newest album “Pretty Colors For Your Actions” and the creative process:

Your album “Pretty Colors For Your Actions” is coming out in October. In what ways does this differ from your previous music? What story does this new release tell?

Pretty Colors I think is our newest chapter in an ongoing exploration of a sound and a voice. We didn’t always know what we were doing as Tall Heights. As younger artists, I think we created from an undisciplined, but highly inspired place of joy and passion. By that, I mean I think we had our heads only on the task in front of us: street perform now, eat this, write a song, pay this bill, sleep, now learn how to record music, that sort of thing. So we used our voices and our instruments. We did the best we could, and we kept our heads down to get through those early days. Now that we’re more experienced, mature, and a touch more successful, I think we have more field awareness and can make deliberate choices.

So the production and delivery of the music have matured a lot; it’s good old-fashioned studio music making complete with a band of wizards. It’s so much richer and more alive, much less patchwork and less janky than our earliest recordings. We’ve been reflecting more on what we’ve done though and what we want to do, and I think we’ve realized that the thing we were mindlessly doing back then, the thing we have always done, and the thing we should continue to do in Tall Heights is sing together. Album to album for us always sounds so different, but we’ve realized our voices are a real sound, a real fingerprint that makes it all one catalog, so that’s what we’re sticking with. And it’s a fucked up, fractured world right now, so we think that two people singing with one unified voice in unison or in harmony is about the best thing we can offer up right now.

You guys recently concluded your tour with Ben Folds and CAKE. How was that experience? Do you have any pre-show rituals?

Man, that tour was a real trip. I don’t know if you know, but we weren’t just the opening act on that tour—we were also Ben’s band. What an honor, and how terrifying it was to get that call. Ben Folds, the absolute piano wizard songwriting extraordinaire himself reaching out to little old us asking for our help in bringing his songs to life on a tour. We were huddled around my cell phone in a hotel in Florida when he called. I nearly peed my pants on that hotel carpet as I was like, “Oh, cool. Sure man!” But it was honestly so great. We learned a lot, not just from Ben, but from ourselves. You learn your value and your worth when you’re in that kind of situation. All we ever do is dump 100% of our hearts into our music; that’s all our music really is, but to be able to do that on his songs really made me and I think it made all of us realize the value of that input. To be able to light up a crowd with a backing harmony part or a guitar addition to one of his masterpieces was a rare honor. We’re so grateful to Ben for all that.

One thing I love about your music is that it isn’t confined to one genre, but your sound is still distinct. You have described finding your style as “sonic soul-searching” — can you tell us what did that process looked like?

zigzags across the whole damn planet, but when I meet the people after the shows and they tell me about the crazy shit we’re helping them get through with our songs and sound, it’s so, totally validating. That’s why we keep trying to get better, and I guess that’s why we keep pursuing this sound and this voice.

The opening lyric to your latest song “Midnight Oil” is “I got pretty colors for your actions,” which is also your album title. Can you explain that lyric for us?

In the song, it’s a simple gift from a lover. The desperate protagonist of the song is almost bartering his way through a moment of relationship uncertainty: “Here, let me give you this, so you do this.” That sort of this-for-that, the quid pro quo, on all levels made it stick out as an album title. We liked how it was something small, and we liked thinking of our songs as pretty colors, like a twinkling Christmas tree light or whatever, by thinking of the colors as small, it made the “for your actions” seem small too. In that way, the album is meant for something small as your iPhone speaker in a coffee cup as you do your work in a cubicle. But “actions” is no small word, and neither are colors, you know? If you think about actions on a larger scale: protests, political rallies, working against climate change, fighting a war, not fighting a war, it really scales up the colors. The colors for your actions start to look a little more important in that context. So that’s what it is, pretty colors for your actions.

Thanks for saying so. For us, it’s all about that singular voice. And yeah, sonic soul searching sounds like something we’d say. We’re horrible at describing our sound, haha. But I’m glad we said that, because that’s really where our musical motivation comes from. It’s all about freely offering up our experience both in the studio and in venues around the world, so that we might connect with an individual in an inexplicable way. We’re not rolling in dough, and the truth is this lifestyle ain’t that glamorous: a bunch of stinky dudes driving

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What has been the biggest lesson you have learned since starting music?

Man, we’ve learned so much about life and overcoming challenges and shit. Hard to know where to start there. But I guess the best, easiest way to answer this question is to tell you about the three rules we developed on the road with Tall Heights: rule number one is “stay hydrated,” rule number two is “it doesn’t matter,” and rule number three is “don’t be late.” They started as a joke really, but since we’ve come up with them I’ve been hard pressed to find a time and place where they’re not excessively helpful. I think behind all three rules is the fact that you’re in control and you’re making the choices. As soon as you lose your head and stop driving the van, that’s when the crashes happen. And when you break rule number three, don’t forget about rule number 2.

The cover to your newest album is the two of you blindfolded against a close-up of an eye. What was the inspiration behind that?

We wanted it to feel like propaganda, like something countercultural that might be plastered to a wall in Berlin or something. Of course the eye, the blindfolds, the colors -- it’s all about what you see or can’t see or won’t see. Who’s looking, who’s being seen, I guess it’s all just supposed to bring a depth and an attitude to the work.

How do you stay motivated in the face of rejection?

That’s a weird question for me because I don’t want to presume to know how other people feel. I certainly don’t think I know what rejection feels like to anyone other than me. But honestly the way I feel is how do you not feel motivated by failure and rejection? I never have a bigger chip on my shoulder or a deeper hunger for improvement than immediately after getting shot down. I have a fuse that goes off and suddenly I’m not sleeping

because I want to get better and I want it to work next time. In fact, I’d say I’m not a very motivated person under ordinary circumstances, I don’t go out and master new hobbies, I’m more of a dabbler - dabble in this, dabble in that - but for music I can’t stop working and wanting and writing and touring because I think what we’re doing is important and every time we’re not recognized for that I push harder.

In a previous interview, you guys mentioned that you write separately and then come together to collaborate. Has there ever been an instance when you were surprised by what the other person showed you?

Oh totally, I think that’s really what it’s all about. We write in the morning. I think the start of the day is the time you’re closest to your dreams or something. Milton thought of his morning creative time as milking the cow, a weird graphic metaphor for Tall Heights I guess. But I think the best moments in our collaboration happen when we’re both surprised by the other, “I’ve never heard anything like that,” or “I never thought you’d take it there,” that element of surprise is what we want to find and bottle up inside of songs so a new listener experiences that wonderful sense of discovery while listening to our new music.

Why music? Why not other mediums such as film, photography, etc.?

Well, Paul was destined to be a musician since before he was born. His grandfather was a concert pianist, his grandmother a cellist -- as Austrian Jews, they both fled to the states during the Holocaust and his grandmother brought her cello with her. His parents are both unbelievable musicians, and so on, so it was never not gonna be music for him. For me, I’m a musician full time for sure, but that doesn’t mean I don’t love and participate in other art forms. I love painting, whittling, writing poetry and writing and I do them all now and again. I guess music was an intersection of a lot of my artistic impulses. Plus I have the rest of my life to paint and write poetry, you’re only young enough to go on tour all year once.

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The growth of your music has been crazy, from performing on the street to amassing over 130 million streams on Spotify alone. What advice would you give to musicians who haven’t found their audience yet? Or creatives afraid to pursue their dreams?

Rule number one, two, and three baby, haha. It’s a weird balance of showing up and working hard, but also detaching yourself from the goals you have. You gotta be happy and content, not anxious and all knotted up. You gotta take care of yourself emotionally and physically; that’s in rules one and two, and then you gotta show up for yourself, rule number three. I also think that asking others what they think is a wonderful process. Find people who will shoot you straight and ask for feedback. Then when you’ve received feedback, chew on it and think about it. It’s okay to reject it, but I’ve always found the process of truly considering and then rejecting someone else’s opinion as highly sharpening. It’s the people who kinda suck and never ask others what they think that never go anywhere.

You have discussed your intention to address social issues in your songs, essentially meshing art and politics. Why is raising awareness so important?

Has there been a defining moment for either of you two when music became your life passion?

I remember one night street performing years ago when things were getting pretty discouraging. Regardless of the temperature outside or the day of the week, we’d go out to Faneuil Hall Market in Boston and play until we made enough to pay for our recordings, groceries, electricity, and everything else you need money for. As artists we were suffering dearly ‘cause when making money is so imperative, you can easily lose yourself. It turned into nothing but long hours of grueling crowd-pleasing. I confess, we’d even play Wagon Wheel. One evening, however, the sun had just dipped away and the classy-ass exterior illumination around that marketplace had just switched on. It was a beautiful, cool late summer evening and we started playing only our new original tunes. In the twilight, one-by-one the tourists started actually sitting cross-legged on the piazza floor to watch and listen. As we played some new songs in the most understated manner, the crowd grew up past 400 and they loved it. It was no longer busking, it was just a show. That felt like a defining moment to me. It was the night we learned to be artists.

It drives me crazy when people say, “Stick to music.” It has happened a million times on social media, whenever we make any sort of statement that’s not just us playing music. I always see that and I’m like, “What the hell do you think music is?” I think the artist’s role in society is and always has been to observe, document, and comment. I don’t think we’re trailblazers in that regard, I think we’re just working within a millennia-old tradition of not flinching away from the pressing issues of the day.

You’ve mentioned that your music is inspired by artists such as Regina Spektor and Bon Iver. Besides other musicians, what inspires your songwriting?

Right now, we’re still digesting all the lessons we learned from Ben Folds. He’s just such a monster and he taught us a ton about live arrangements and putting together a killer live show.

How do you see the music industry changing? In what direction would you like it to shift?

I don’t really know much about that, it feels like artistic poison to think about the music industry. It either stresses you out or makes you made, or whatever. Not fun. Something in this industry that isn’t going to change is the human heart, and that’s comforting. We’ll keep working on that, connecting with ours and with others, and then we’ll just keep our fingers crossed on the industry bullshit side of things.

What is a quote, mantra, or philosophy that you guys live by?

“Strawberry Fields Forever”

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