Alt-Indie Band Tied Heart Uses Quarantine to Start New Ventures and New Hopes

Tied Heart is making timely music for times of uncertainty. Their recently-released EP “Set Fire to All Not Now Burning” battles the onslaught of consumerism, depression, and toxicity (figurative and literal) with bold vocals, driving guitars, and well-calculated electronic touches. Furthermore, all proceeds from the EP are being donated to 350.org, an organization standing up to the fossil fuel industry. In our interview, we talk about hope, progress, and the lack thereof.

Full disclosure — I, the interviewer, am also the drummer of Tied Heart. In the interest of impartiality – and failure to think of a better way to do it – I pretend to be a complete stranger in this interview. Decide for yourself whether I made a noble concession for the sake of good journalism or just made things awkward.

This is an unprecedented time for artists and performers. Most folks I know are having to completely rework their plans for 2020 to stay afloat. How has this affected you?

It absolutely is. In one sense, I would say that I’m lucky in that music is not how I make my living, so this crisis doesn’t necessarily affect me in that sense. However, Tied Heart has largely been a solo project up until just a few months ago when it finally became the band that I had always wanted it to be. So the thing that has been most disappointing for me personally has been not being able to have band practice. I’m mostly a homebody generally speaking, so I’m perfectly content to stay around the house for the most part. However, band practices have been going so well and have been so much fun and such a fulfillment of what I’ve been imagining for years that not being able to have them after just starting to get it going has been really disappointing. We were planning on trying to get some gigs together starting the beginning of summer, but I think it’s safe to say that that probably won’t be happening now. I think the best that we can hope for is that we can practice individually and get ourselves into shape once we’re able to have practices again.

I’m also something of a homebody, and the quarantine has me longing to get out of the house and make music with other people again. Speaking of the band, what led to the creation of Tied Heart? What were you doing before?

I was originally a drummer and played throughout high school and college, which is when I started to pick up the guitar. The guitar has not come nearly as naturally to me as the drums did, so it took me awhile to get to the point of writing better songs and being decent enough to record something worthwhile. Two years ago I finally felt like I had ten songs that were good enough to put out and started recording An Hedon. I played most of the parts on that album, but my cousin Andrew played bass on all of the songs. At the time that the album was finished I needed to come up with a name, at which point Tied Heart the solo project that wished it was a band was born. Since then I’ve been working at getting people together, which is difficult when you’re a homebody and there are plenty of other things going on in life. Then a few months ago I finally I went to see you play with my friend Michael Simms in Bonnie and the Mere Mortals and he introduced us and Tied Heart the real band was born. 

What have you been doing during the quarantine to keep yourself healthy and occupied?

I have been trying to stay pretty active because if I don’t I can become despondent pretty quickly. As I said, I’m pretty content to stay around the house because there are plenty of things that I would like to be doing that aren’t work. I’m finishing up a degree in cybersecurity at CCAC, working on things tangential to that to try to prepare for the job market (great timing, right?), working on improving my guitar skills so that I can write better songs, and some friends and I are even working on starting a podcast. Were it not for school I would like to be doing some reading, but I’m happy to just have time to work on new skills and learn new things. As for staying healthy, I think I’m just doing the same thing that everyone else is by staying home except when I’m called into work, washing my hands a whole lot, and wearing a mask. The stay-at-home makes it tough to be healthy in a non-COVID sense, so I’ve been trying to exercise in the mornings, but I’d be lying if I told you I didn’t bake and eat a whole thing of cookies the other day. I think it’s probably a struggle for everyone.

I see people turning to music like never before to find meaning and connection during these times. What would you like to say to your fans and supporters?

I think that’s true of not just music but any of the outlets that people turn to for meaning, and even with that it’s a difficult time to extract hope from. Not only is the virus a formidable challenge, but while that’s happening some people with power are actively exacerbating some of the challenges that we already faced–for example, the EPA essentially deciding it wouldn’t enforce many of its regulations, making the fight against climate change more difficult.

Yeah, we’ve seen so much backward movement in recent years that I think we’ve become almost desensitized to crisis. What do you hope might change about how we deal with these challenges going forward?

That’s something that I think about a lot and I still don’t know that I have a good answer. There are a lot of possible answers, and it may be true that there are several right ones, but it’s tough to know the best way to move toward a more progressive future. I think what’s been encouraging to see during the crisis are the strikes at various workplaces across the country at places like Amazon and Instacart. My hope is that once the crisis is over workers continue to stand up for themselves and make demands of their employers, because that’s how progress gets made on that front. The labor movement in the last few decades has been historically weak, and I think a segment of our generation is taking a renewed interest in it, which I hope leads to progress. I think we have done a good job of protesting around social and environmental issues — the Sunrise Movement and Black Lives Matter being good examples of that — but moving forward I think we (progressives) will need to build power in the form of legislative seats to create and maintain change. There’s only so much screaming into the void that you can do. 

That’s all a very roundabout way of saying that music may or may not be a strong comfort to anyone during this time, but if it is, and if it’s ours, I am so appreciative of that. It means so much to me whenever someone tells me they’ve listened to Tied Heart, because the songs mean a lot to me and a lot of hard work went into making the two records we have out. So to our fans and supporters I would say a huge thank you. And to anyone who is not already a fan and supporter, we would love to have you listen!

What are some ways people can help support your music?

You can listen pretty much anywhere that you normally listen to music. We are on Spotify, Apple Music, Google Play Music–all of the usual characters. In general, though, I would say the best thing to do for any musician right now is to buy their album on Bandcamp if it’s on there, which most independent artists’ are. To be blunt, Bandcamp’s revenue split is 15%-85%, which is better than any of the other online retailers. They even had a day recently where they dropped their 15% so that artists could take home the full revenue. If you’re someone who buys music, Bandcamp is the way to go. If you’re a streamer, I would say just use whatever streaming app you normally use. Frankly they all pay like shit, so it doesn’t really matter which one you use.

As I said earlier, we don’t really make money from Tied Heart and it’s not really the goal at this time (though of course it’s much appreciated). In fact, we’re donating all purchases of our recent EP Set Fire to All Not Now Burning to the 350 organization to try to combat the influence of the fossil fuel industry. I think the best way to support artists right now is either buy or stream their albums, tell your friends about them, and follow them on Bandcamp or Spotify or whatever streaming platform you use. Following an artist is a big help because the streaming platforms use that to determine who is popular and will then suggest those artists to other people. Other than that, I would say just be ready to go to shows when this is all over, I’m sure we’ll all be ready to get out of the house.

Yeah, I’m hoping the rest of the year might be a massive success for gigging bands. Everyone’s itching to get out and do something. On that note, do you think all of this will have some lasting effects on the music industry?

I am probably not the right person to ask about this, but my guess is that it would have to. I think it will change most industries, only because everyone is being forced to adapt to function in this new environment and I think once things go back to “normal” some of those changes will carry over. In terms of music, I could see the online gig becoming a regular thing. You could even do a digital “tour” of sorts, limiting it to certain people in some way. On a negative note, I think unfortunately musicians will probably come back to a world with fewer venues. On a positive note, I would hope that the sense of community developed among artists during this time remains after the panic has gone away. 

Any upcoming projects that you’re working on?

The immediate goal for Tied Heart is to get the band as a functioning live act off the ground. Like I said earlier, practices have gone really well and I’m really pleased and encouraged at where we’re at so far. I think we can be ready to play shows pretty quickly after we’re able to get back in a room together, but that’s not up to us at this point.

As for new music, we did just put out Set Fire, but I have 90% of a second album written and planned out. It’s going to be somewhat of a concept album and I think it will be called Rented Space. I had this idea awhile back, sparked by health issues suffered by some people close to me, that a person’s body, though we think of it as being theirs, is not something that they can ever fully control. Over time it breaks down and starts to malfunction, and so while a somewhat common metaphor for the body is a home it’s more akin to a rental property. Using that idea, each of the songs is going to have a secondary parenthetical title that relates its theme back to that larger idea of rented space. I’m very excited about it and I’m happy with the songs that I’ve got so far. We even worked on one of them at our last practice and it sounded great. I just want a few more months to write as many good songs as possible, and then hopefully get to work on recording sometime this summer.