Song Premiere: Joseph Hein, “Looking Backwards”

Joseph Hein’s brilliant new album, AM Gold, arrives on Friday, October 14. It is, in a word, groovy. With a voice that is pure and understated, reminiscent of Mason Jennings, Hein captured me from the first beat with infectious hooks and crisp instrumentation. In a crowded field of incredible music that has come out this fall, Hein’s album has stood out to me as one of the best I’ve heard this year. It’s that good. We got to chat with Joseph last week and are really pleased to share “Looking Backwards,” the first track from AM Gold.

RLR: You’re from Palouse, Washington. What’s it like there? What kind of influence do you find in your work because of where you’re from?

JH: I grew up in Pullman and I live now about 10 miles north of there, right on the Idaho border. I lived in Olympia for 4 years and near Portland for a little while. I’ve lived in a city, always rural areas, because I play music, so I don’t live in places that I can’t play my drumkit.

RLR: You released two albums independently and are now on Yellow Year Records. I feel like a lot of musicians struggle with the choice of staying independent or working with a label. What have you found to be different about those two experiences so far?

JH: I really appreciate working with people, talking about a plan, and not being totally alone. For my first EP, I basically made a bandcamp page and put it up there. I had no social media presence. It actually got a review on Aquarium Drunkard; I don’t even know how that happened.

For the next one, I did a kickstarter to fund a vinyl pressing and I had help from a close friend. Like I said before, I’m a little bit of an outsider, not with my personality, but I was a little behind on the social media side of things. My friend said, “You need facebook” and I was like [cringing], “Really?” And now I realize you couldn’t do something like a kickstarter campaign without social media. But a year and a half ago was kind of the beginning of me on the internet.

Sharing the work with the label has been really positive, because things are moving and it’s not so stop-go when I’m on my own.

RLR: The title of this album is a nod to “AM Country” and “R&B Gold.” But I feel like this record is much more than a throwback – it’s really drawing on so many different genres and ideas. Can you talk about the intersection of the musical styles and traditions that you’re merging on this record?

JH: I wanted the title to be ambiguous — like AM radio but also AM the morning time. The record kind of has that morning time color in mind. This past year, my housemates and I started listening to classic country station, and AM station. The home I live in is a big country home, with, like, greenish/goldish shag rug in it. So I feel like I’m living in the 1970s. When I recorded the demos, I wanted to capture that feeling and the color of where I’m living.

RLR: Which instruments do you play on this album?

JH: All of them.

RLR: Holy shit. [At this point, I was just quiet for a little bit. Because that’s a crazy level of musicianship. It was only slightly awkward.]

RLR: There’s a track on this album, “Been a Long Time,” that I love. And I feel like everything on that song is working in the service of its emotional quality–the drums are spare, but amazing, and these beautiful fills on the organ. There’s not really a question here – I just really love that song.

JH: [Laughs] Well, on my last album, it was self-recorded and I had other people play on it. And that album has a thicker, more layered, mushier sound. For this album I wanted, at any given moment, if there’s an instrument playing, I want it to be heard. The music I listen to doesn’t have eight things happening–it’s often just bass, drums, keyboards, and singing. So this album is a little more sparse.

RLR: The songs on AM Gold have really incredible hooks and I’m wondering where they come in during your writing process – are you noodling around and finding hooks that lead you to feelings and lyrics, or is a different process?

JH: Every song is different. They never start, on this album, with the bass line – that’s not how I write songs. The source of most of the songs is from the melody. I‘ll be at work, and a melody or rhythm will pop into my head. So I’ll try to hold onto it, and then when I get home, I’ll sit at the piano or keyboard. I usually start there with a melody and they’ll be a rhythm. I record the beat, so I have tempo and kind of piece things together from there and slowly add to it.

I try to get it mapped out and composed and then try to imagine, maybe I don’t need to be singing here. I record the other instruments from start to end on the song, so they’re kind of like moving bodies and not just this A/B binary code. Because, you know, when a band gets together and they play, there’s this natural thing that happens. Composing alone can lean toward everything being too planned, so I try to do things to avoid that.

Get this album, folks. It’ll make these chilly fall days a lot warmer.