Hi, everyone! The bazzreviews interview list just keeps getting longer. A few days ago, I got to interview Greenfield, MA-based synth pop duo Home Body! The duo consists of Haley Morgan and Eric Hnatow, and they have been releasing music since they formed in 2012. In fact, just finished up a tour for their most recent release, FORMS. In their career, the two have drawn comparisons to musicians such as The Knife, Bjork, and Sylvan Esso, all of which I enjoy. Home Body has performed over 400 live shows in their career, and they have supported mid-market synth acts such as Dan Deacon and Guerilla Toss along the way. Though the group has been touring for the last few months, they have been working on another release, SPIRITUS, which drops some time later in April. I became connected with them through a publicist in Los Angeles, and I saw that their music background made them a great choice for a bazzreviews interview!
bazzreviews: Which artists or albums had an influence on you to start a music career?
Eric Hnatow: Off the bat, I listened to a lot of heavier music like Nine Inch Nails and Trent Reznor. His process in which he created music inspired me.
Haley Morgan: I remember really being into the B-52s and bands that had a lot of spectacle built into their musical part. I embarrassingly listened to a lot of Phish in high school, but they made me a really great listener and prepared me to be in a band myself.
br: Did you both always want to pursue a music career or did you have other goals?
E.H.: I’ve always wanted to make music ever since I was young.
H.M.: I never really considered being a musician until Eric and I started this project, and then I realized it’s exactly what I’ve always wanted. I used to want do do more acting and directing, but music turned out to be the best and most accessible way to explore and express the ideas that I had.
br: When did you guys end up meeting each other?
H.M: We met back in 2006 at Hampshire College and we fell in love. We were together for about five to six years before we first started playing music together. We always kind of assumed we would have a band because Eric was making music at the time, and I was doing performance-type things. We always fantasized about how great it would be to have our own project and travel around together.
br: I saw you guys have performed over 400 live shows in your career- do you guys thrive more on those types of performances than studio work?
E.H.: I feel like a big part of Home Body has always been our performances. Like Haley just said, it was first an excuse for us to travel around. We went inward on our last record and tried not to focus on having to recreate every sound on live. We tried to honor the recording process a lot more.
H.M.: Live performances have always been my favorite thing, so it’s been kind of a struggle to get into the recording process. SPIRITUS was the first time I felt proud of what we did recording-wise. In live performance, it’s cool because you’re able to appeal to so many different senses. We incorporated our live shows to have lights and dancing so we can connect with people rather than by auditory recordings.
br: I also noticed you guys got to perform with people like Dan Deacon and Guerilla Toss, how has working with them helped your career as a band evolve?
H.M.: Seeing how bands like them take spectacles so seriously has been very inspiring for us.
E.H.: For guys like Dan and Guerilla Toss, a lot of people don’t understand how much the bands perform and the long road it is to becoming a national touring act. You might look back on it and say, “well, we got to tour with all these great bands”, and it’s been great to perform with really hard working musicians. Over time, when you still see them performing, you especially gain respect for their, as you put it, music career. You have to be passionate about having a band or there’s no point in continuing it.
br: Can you describe your typical process for making songs?
H.M.: Most of the time when we are writing music, we typically start with a jam. We’ll get together in our recording space and try out combinations on Eric’s machines. We sometimes do collaborative drawings and make sounds that relate to that drawing. We have a lot of jumping-off points, but everything usually starts with improvisation. We then dig into certain parts that feel good and exciting to us.
E.H.: There are a lot of equations that we have for making songs. One can be improv, or just taking years to get one thing in a song to sound right. If one equation isn’t working, we typically hop between them or mix them together. Sometimes, they work really quickly, but other times, it’s a rather slow and painstaking process. With this album, we’ve constantly been practicing and recording ourselves to hear how our songs sound. We’re now getting comfortable to hear ourselves on a recording, and I think that’s one reason why this album sounds so good.
br: I saw you guys are releasing an album some time later in April, can you tell me a little more about what it has in store?
H.M.: Yeah, it’s called SPIRITUS. We’ve been working on it for over three years. It’s been a culmination of a lot of different life experiences that we’ve gone through. It’s eight songs, and they’ve all been written in the ways we just described to you. It’s a cool mix of stuff that we poured a lot of time and energy into. A lot of the album is sort of a search through dark uncertainty, and trying to maintain focus on the light at the end or the light within. It’s a departure from our earlier records. It’s more poppy and yet goes much deeper than a lot of them have. I’m glad we slowed down and focused more on our inner landscape, we’re really pleased with this album.
E.H.: It’s coming out as a co-release with Feeding Tube Records and Peace and Rhythm Records. We got a lot of different people to help us track and master it.
br: If you could compare your band’s sound to any other group, who would you choose?
H.M.: There’s parts of us that are like earlier Bjork. Someone said recently that we’re like an edgier Sylvan Esso.
E.H.: Some of it is definitely more atmospheric, like Brian Eno. We also take a lot of influence from bands like the Eurythmics and The Knife. With this next record, who knows? We could pick up a harpsichord and make chamber music.
br: What future music goals do you guys have?
H.M.: I think just expanding the scope and scale of what we’re already doing. We already feel so lucky to travel as much as we do, and play these amazing shows for all of our amazing fans. We’d love to keep making music that is reflective of our own spirit. We also would really like to go to Europe and tour there.
E.H.: We’re also hoping to get some supporting spots for national artists, and as Haley mentioned, put out more recordings. Stuff like that.
Thanks so much again to Haley and Eric for giving me their time to chat about their music career. Be on the lookout for their next record! I wish them the best of luck in all their future endeavors, and I recommend that you give these guys a listen. Thanks so much for checking this article out, more great stuff is coming your way soon!
To support Home Body's music, go to https://home-body.bandcamp.com/
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