Hi, everyone! I recently did one of my first Zoom interviews with Sami Perez and Spencer Hartling of the California-based project Harry the Nightgown. The duo began work on their debut record in 2018, and currently split time between Los Angeles and San Francisco. Perez has been involved with various bands over the years, including the She's and Cherry Glazerr, while Hartling has taken more of an engineering route. Both work at Tiny Telephone Studios in San Francisco under the tutelage of respected independent engineer, John Vanderslice. The duo is also maintaining their own studio called Grandma's Couch, where musicians I know consistently go to record. The group has some very unique stories to share, and I'm glad they were able to sit down and talk.
bazzreviews: Which albums or artists inspired you to start a music career?
Sami Perez: I think my influences have definitely changed over time. When I was in middle school, I started a band with some of my really good friends. We were super influenced by this all-girl punk band from Palo Alto called the Donnas. My parents were also super influential to my music taste as a whole. I know my dad was a huge Brit Pop fan back in the day. I recently went through a big Kate Bush phase. Because we’re a studio-based project, we’re more into experimenting with gear rather than trying to mimic the music of other artists.
Spencer Hartling: I know it is such a boring answer to say “a little bit of everything,” but for me, it’s really hard to say. I am always listening to new musicians and stylistically rebrand my brain every six months or so. As Sami sort of touched on, I wouldn’t say there is one specific genre or grouping of artists that has necessarily influenced our music for Harry the Nightgown. We’re just trying to progress and develop our own sound.
br: Sami, how does your involvement with various bands like the She’s and Cherry Glazerr differ from Harry the Nightgown?
S.P.: Each band I’ve been in has its perks, and I definitely would not trade any of them for the world. For starters, I’ve been friends with everyone from the She’s since I was five years old, so that’s a very unique situation. On the other hand, Cherry Glazerr is sort of a traditional experience where I just joined the group. I’m only the bass player, and don’t necessarily have as much creative control as other members in the group. That’s another unique situation, though. I’ve played some of the largest shows I’ve ever done with Cherry Glazerr, and it’s been a rewarding experience because of that. With Harry the Nightgown, it feels more modern and to my current taste. We’re constantly learning new things from each other about recording and engineering, which I’ve enjoyed very much. That, again, is a unique situation. Spencer and I started this project when we were dating, and we’ve since broken up.
br: I know you guys both work as engineers over at Tiny Telephone Recording, and is that how you guys first met?
S.P.: We met down here in LA. I was on tour with the She’s, and Spencer’s band was on the same bill as us at this really s----y dive bar out in Ventura. Spencer told me to send some stuff I’d been engineering, and I told him to come see the studio I worked at. One thing led to another, and Spencer moved to San Francisco to come work with me. It’s unfortunate, because the Tiny Telephone studio there is closing. We’re still going to be working at the one in Oakland, though. We have also started our own little studio called Grandma’s Couch. We are running it with John Vanderslice, who’s the executive engineer over at Tiny Telephone. We’re hoping it gives off similar vibes.
br: Because of the pandemic, what changes have you seen differing from working in a studio to working at home?
S.H.: We were actually right in the middle of recording our second record at Tiny Telephone when the shelter-in-place order went into effect in San Francisco. John sent us an email that the studio would no longer be open to us until further notice. It hasn’t been until these last couple of weeks that we opened our doors back up, but we still have to be following the current health procedures in place, too. We have actually been staying super productive during this quarantine phase, because we were both staying up here in San Fran. While the studio was closed, Sami and I would go back and forth on a lot of different musical ideas at home. It’s something we hadn’t ever really done before. I guess it’s actually been really great for a lot of these DIY/bedroom artists who have a home setup, which is a large majority of artists out here. A lot of musician friends of mine have been telling me they’re working on new stuff, so I guess it’s really helped out a lot of people out there.
S.P.: It’s a little weird for both of us being engineers. It really impacts who we record rather than how much we record. Both Spencer and I would be booked, regardless if it was people doing bedroom recordings or not. We both love that kind of music, and it’s a bummer that a lot fewer of these artists are coming through and getting us to work on their stuff. In my eyes, I think there’s always a benefit to going to a studio. Be it you need an expensive synth or microphone you can’t get, I’m disappointed that I now can’t show off this cool gear to different musicians.
br: What’s the significance behind the group’s name, Harry the Nightgown?
S.P.: I grew up here in San Francisco right across from Alamo Square Park, and right outside of my window, there was this gigantic tree covered in ivy. I really liked it, made it my “friend” so to speak, and gave it the name “Harry the Nightgown.” Spencer really liked the story behind that, and thought we should name our project that.
br: Can you describe the process for making a song for HTN?
S.H.: I’d say eight times out of ten, it goes in this order: One of us makes a voice memo recording of a simple melody and a guitar part. We usually try to have a root idea, and we create a library of different voice memos to piece together possible sections of songs. We’re not ones who sit down at instruments and say “oh, we’re gonna structure the song this way, then we’re gonna write and record it.” We’ll reserve some time over at Tiny Telephone and usually go in with very loose ideas. Whether we want to start with a drum machine, figure out what time signature or key we want to use. That will end up serving as the bracing of the song before we add anything else. We’ve been recording on a twenty-four track tape recorder on nearly every track we’ve done. I guess you could say that our style of recording is weirdly influenced by people who record on computers and paste different sections that don’t necessarily flow together. We’re doing the same thing, but on tape machines. We kind of work on the fly, thinking of how various ideas we come up with work in a song. It’s very rapid-fire, and we have recorded and erased more material than we could ever put a number to.
S.P.: Like Spencer was touching on, I have never been in a band where we just record bits and pieces and try to stitch them together into different songs. It kind of reminds me of a leitmotif in classical music, you have to catch where we put these different melodies or drum parts in different songs. It’s definitely been a very special recording experience.
br: What’s more important to you guys- lyricism, or production value and instrumentation?
S.P.: I can tell you we definitely don’t focus on lyrics as much as we should. I’ve always struggled with writing good ones. That’s been a common theme between both the She’s and Harry the Nightgown. It’s easiest to write lyrics about something that is emotionally accessible to you at one given time. Around half of the album that’s coming out in August was written during our breakup. We’re both still really great friends, and it was almost healthy in a way to get out our feelings about each other in song.
S.H.: I have struggled with writing lyrics, too. It’s funny, because you don’t really care about lyrics until you write some and realize they suck. I won’t be shy to say that we were lacking good lyrics multiple times on the upcoming record. With a lot of new music I listen to, I try to zero in on what they’re trying to say. When you listen to artists with good lyrical sensibilities, it forces you to care more about your own work and write more purposefully. I can also attest to what Sami was saying about the songs on this new record. It was a time when music allowed us to voice things that had gone unspoken in our relationship. When we were in that purgatory of dating and breaking up, I would be engineering, and Sami would be in the other room. She was singing these lyrics she had been writing, and I hadn’t looked at them beforehand. I’d say, “those are really good!”, but by the fourth or fifth take of hearing them, I was like, “hang on, are these about me?”
br: I know that the new record is expected to be released in August, but is there anything you can say about the record?
S.P.: We released one single off of it already, “Ping Pong,” and I think the record as a whole showcases how our ability to work together changed over time. We definitely grew a ton with our writing process over the last twelve months or so, and I hope that you can see us evolving as engineers and as songwriters. I’m really excited to share this project with the world, because it’s one of the most dynamic ones I’ve ever worked on.
S.H.: I’m super excited, too! It’s the first completed album that I’ve ever been this proud of, and like Sami, I hope that people are able to enjoy it!
br: What music goals do you guys have for the future?
S.P.: It’s tricky to have any goals right now. When we first started out, we had plans to tour and stuff. We can’t really do that because of our current health landscape. even though the release is a little bit down the road, I want to stay involved in the social justice movement that is taking over our country right now and let other voices in the community can be heard.
S.H.: I want to stay busy with engineering. Whether it’s over at Tiny or at Grandma’s Couch, I’m excited to start writing and recording again. I’m also working on my own solo record, and this sophomore album with Sami. Playing live feels very important, but it has always come second to me from the studio. It’s kind of a convenient time, I guess, because it buys some time in my mind. I was fearing an upcoming tour and stuff, but now, all of these past plans are up in the air.
Once again, a big thanks to Spencer and Sami for sitting down to chat, and I'd like to thank Nik Soelter over at Group Effort PR for getting us in touch. Keep your eyes out for their new single, “Pill Poppin’ Therapist” coming out on June 24th, and their debut record that drops August 7th. In the meantime, go run up their current single that is out! Thanks again for checking this out, and I hope you stay tuned for more bazzreviews content coming soon!
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