eMusic Selects: Hooray for Earth
Featured Album
Hooray for Earth’s Momo EP ends the way Brian Eno’s Taking Tiger Mountain begins: with a charging bass drum, a flare of distorted guitar and stacked, soaring vocals. Like that record, Momo handily navigates the middle ground between rock and electronic music, layering spaced-out synths over highwire guitars, creating songs that conjure both the past and the future at the same time. Largely the brainchild of primary songwriters Noel Heroux and Chris Principe, Hooray for Earth are masters at swaddling irresistible pop hooks in layers of sinewave electronics. eMusic caught up with Hooray’s Noel Heroux to talk a bit about the band’s origins.
What were your first experiences with music like? What are some of your earliest musical memories?
One of my first clear musical memories is I think from around around age 4 — every night for years I would go to sleep listening to a tape of Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf, narrated by Hermione Gingold. It’s burned into my brain. Actually I found it on CD recently.
And so when did you first start playing an instrument?
Around the same time, 4ish, I started playing piano — by ear, I never became proficient. Then my dad bought me a little Yamaha synth — which I still have. I started playing guitar at 10, and I then spent all my time doing that for several years. I was playing baseball before the guitar happened, which was godawful — I can pitch the ball straight, but that’s about it. Lot of embarrassing games.
So let’s flash forward a few years — how did the band come together?
Chris [Principe] and I first met in a high school Chorus class when I was a freshman — his version of that story is “Noel would make these funny scrunched up faces and make me laugh, then he offered to join my crappy garage band and went from there“. Chris helped keep the band afloat when I went through my “dark period” [laughs].
That kind of set up a pattern that stuck with you for the next few years — you have a lot of musical friends. I know your girlfriend is in a band, too. How has that helped you as an artist? What are some upsides to having friends who are so similarly invested in music?
Having musically involved friends is the only thing that makes band-life tolerable for me. My girlfriend being in a great band, Zambri, really keeps me on my toes — and listening to someone write songs in the next room can be pretty therapeutic. It’s safe to say I owe a lot to a few specific friends, as far as creative growth. Also being constantly surrounded by people making records is awesome.
Let’s talk about the “Surrounded” video — how did this come about? Whose concept was it, and how did you meet up with the director?
The video eventually happened because my friend Josh [Ascalon, HFE co-producer] knew director Johnny Woods. Early on, I had seen Johnny’s video for Brooklyn artist Slow Ghost. I was immediately sold on the idea of him doing our next video, but as far as I knew I had absolutely no connection to him, and I sort of wrote it off as a possibility. After a series of coincidences via Josh we were connected and the video just happened.
Who was the first person who said: “I envision…puppets!” How did all of that work out, mechanically? Where was it shot, and how much green screen happened?
Johnny wanted puppets (“friends”), and he quickly found [puppeteer] Leslie Rogers. I think they randomly met at a bar one night, and within an hour they had planned out this whole puppet scenario. The shoot was ridiculously easy — between Johnny, Leslie and the other puppeteers I think the whole thing went down in a couple hours. Afterward, we had drinks at a great bar I totally don’t remember (the shoot was in Philly), then me and Josh drank tall boys on the late bus back to NYC. Overall, the whole experience is a very fond memory.
I want to talk about the scenario in “Surrounded” — clearly, a very particular scene is at work. Can you shed any light on the narrative? And maybe talk a bit about how the song came to be?
I can’t really go into any interesting detail on that one too much — but I will say that on a lot of our new music there’s a theme of “people,” and just being together and doing things together and whatnot. “Surrounded by Your Friends” applies to many life stories of me and my friends.
You guys seem like you’re constantly on the road — any strange tour experiences to relate?
One time we played 13 horrible shows to nobody in two weeks. Then we did it again the next year. And once more the following winter.
You have kind of an unconventional approach to getting synth sounds — can you explain that a bit?
It’s simply out of necessity. I usually only have a Roland HS60 (basically a Juno) to work with — so I do a lot of processing to make new sounds. This time around I had Josh’s MS20 to plink on a bit, and a Crumar Orchesrator which we probably overused. Otherwise it’s just super-processed HS60 or sampled symphonic stuff (I must withhold the origins).
My synth interest comes from my early years of plunking on the dad-keyboard and then later my obsession with electronic music — Eno, Aphex Twin, Autechre — rather than any ’80s throwback sort of action. Although we get down to Tears for Fears or Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark as much as the next person.
