Illinois band The Hush Sound is wrapping up a tour. The Daily Texan sat down with Greta Morgan, pianist and vocalist, and Bob Morris, guitartist and vocalist, during South By Southwest to talk about their recent hiatus, upcoming music releases and their plans for the future.
The Daily Texan: Tell me about your SXSW experience so far.
Bob Morris: We’ve gotten to play three showcases so far and they’ve all been really fun. The general rule of thumb that we’ve realized is that every single one of our sets will be cut short, so you’ve kinda gotta hurry up and play a lot of songs.
DT: Why did you decide to go on hiatus and why did you get back together?
Greta Morgan: We were all driving ourselves crazy…and I think there was just more pressure on us than we knew how to appropriately deal with. In 2008 we were on tour for almost 10 months out of the year, and when I could finally come home and cook a meal for myself, I was like, ‘What a thrill, wow.’ So we worked on other projects, went on other adventures and then our schedules sort of aligned last fall, so we went on a tour. We decided that if the tour was fun, we could record new music. Now we’re just taking it one step at a time.
DT: How have you grown the past few years and how has it affected your music?
Morgan: I think overall we are just better communicators- personally, emotionally, musically- and so things that we maybe would misunderstand each other about before are much easier to understand now.
Morris: I think because we were so young when we started off, we didn’t know what it was like to be people, we only knew what it was like to be people in a band…The other projects weren’t every minute of your life, [so] I think it allowed us to grow into people, learn about responsibilities, not have someone coddling us and taking care of everything for us.
DT: How would you describe the sound of your new music and how is it different from your past records?
Morris: Our band has so many different sounds that we like because we all like such different music and everybody brings something different to the table…When I brought ‘Not A Stranger’ [a new song]…I built it all in logic. There weren’t any real instruments. I brought it to the band and we tried it a bunch of different ways and settled on how it came out in the recording.
DT: You guys always bring something different to the table with your music, and that is something I believe people appreciate.
Morris: I love The Strokes, but they kind of have a thing. Some bands just find this thing and they stick with this one thing. We’ve never really even understood what we are.
Morgan: Thankfully other people somehow do, because we certainly don’t know what we’re doing. Whichever idea we’re most excited about is the one we’ll work on. It always happens that way and I think that’s why it winds up being eclectic because our tastes are changing all the time.
DT: Will there be a new EP or album out in 2013?
Morris: The first two songs are coming out in about a week…the other two are coming out on an album that we will record with no timetable right now, but when it’s done it will be done.
‘Like’ The Hush Sound’s Facebook page to stay updated on their upcoming song release.
Printed on Tuesday, March 19, 2013 as: The Hush Sound returns from hiatus
