Straight Up Random

Straight Up Random had the chance to talk to He Is We before their show at the Beacham Theater in Orlando, FL. We talked about the current tour they’re on, their Skip To The Good Part EP, the band’s writing process, and upcoming plans  - which looks like it’ll include a headlining tour. Read below to find out more about all of this: 

SUR: Can you introduce yourself?

Trevor: [Says in announcer-type voice] My name is Trevor Kelly

Rachel: Rachel Taylor.

Trevor: And together we make up a band called!

Rachel: He Is We.

Trevor: Sorry, I like it when it’s not visual so I don’t look like a fool.

SUR: Alright, so how’s the tour been going so far?

Trevor: Good. What are we like, uh, going on two weeks in? I’ll tell you what the worst part of this tour is: I didn’t pack for the warm weather.

Rachel: Yeah…

Trevor: I thought this was a January tour and I should’ve packed heavy clothes. Well guess what, it was 80 [degrees] yesterday in Ft. Lauderdale, and I looked like a fool.

Rachel: I couldn’t even finish my Jamba Juice because it got hot.

Trevor: Yeah, right?

Rachel: My Jamba Juice got hot…

Trevor: That never happens. Not in Washington.

Rachel: Not at 9 o’clock at night.

SUR: It’s South Florida though…

Trevor: Yeah, but even today, its like…Washington is like 10 degrees out or something.

Rachel: It’s like a bajillion inches of snow, and then here we are, hanging out a dive bar with strangers.

Trevor: Well I mean, it’s called The Dive Bar…not really a…well, it could be a Dive…

Rachel: Whatever.

SUR: With playing your music live, you’re like on the mellower side of pop rock. How has the fan reception been to you guys?

Rachel: Weird. [laughs]

Trevor: Yeah, I feel like it’s kind of like that guilty pleasure music where kids are like “man, I want to like this, but like, I don’t know if it’s heavy enough.”

Rachel: [mocking fans] “I don’t know what to do with my hands!”

Trevor: Yeah, it’s like “do I jump?” No, it’s funny from my perspective to like watch, and I wouldn’t know what to do if I was at a He Is We show, would you?

Rachel: I would be that kid in the back…Even at metal shows, I’m in the back just kind of like nodding my head. [So] I would look like an idiot at a He Is We show.

SUR: Do you give them any kind of direction?

Rachel: Ok, um, sway. Swaying is good. I don’t know, what else could you do at a He Is We show…

SUR: So what’s been your favorite part about this tour so far?

Trevor: The beach! I went to the beach yesterday. The beach in January? Are you…As Rachel would say, “are you farting me?!” That would never happen.

Rachel: The venues have been like, gargantuas…There have been some awesome, just venues in general that I never thought that we’d play because they’re so big, but here we are.

SUR: Alright, so you released your Skip To The Good Part EP in December. How was the writing and recording process for that compared to your album?

Rachel: A lot of them are actually are songs that we had recorded, but couldn’t put on the album because we already had too many songs. So we just like saved them, and we didn’t know what to do with them.

Trevor: Or for like “Our July In The Rain” was just kind of one of those songs that we sat on for so long, and we didn’t really want to release it until we were content with it. And we finally had the time to sit down and finish it. So that’s my personal favorite on the record.

Rachel: And we got to work with a producer who was very very open to whatever we wanted to do with it, which was awesome.

SUR: So why’d you release it as an EP and not save the songs for a full-length album?

Trevor: Well, even ever since the beginning of the band we were that kind of band where it’s like we make a song, we release it. I feel so bad like having these songs, and then..

Rachel: Just waiting…

Trevor: Then just wait, and your poor fans go over a year without new music, kind of thing. So we didn’t want to do that. Even though it’s only 5 songs, [and] most of them are “leftover” songs, or whatever you want to call it, it was nice just to release so our fans had something to listen to.

SUR: The song “All About Us” was actually on the debut album so why’d you release it on the EP again?

Rachel: Because one of them had…

Trevor: Owl City singing on it, and one of them had Aaron Gillespie.

Rachel: So it’s the revised version.

SUR: Oh ok that makes sense because I was wondering about that… I kept seeing “Owl City” and “Aaron Gillespie” but it’s the same song…

Trevor: [laughs]

Rachel: No, I guess, it’s the same song, but a different – Adam Young definitely brings a different dynamic to the song, so we felt like it was different enough to release.

SUR: And how was it working with [Adam Young] to record the song?

Rachel: He was incredible. He really really surprised me at how…I don’t know, he and I are a lot alike in the way that when we hear a song – we get the story. If he were to come to me and say “Hey Rachel, I want you to write something with this” – I would listen to his part over and over, and over and over just so I could get the story. And that’s how he was because he really truly understood, and wanted to understand what I was going for with the lyrics and stuff, and the emotion of it. So it was good.

SUR: So as far as writing goes for the band – how does a song come to life for He Is We both lyrically and musically?

Trevor: No script whatsoever.

Rachel: Kind of random.

Trevor: I hate when it’s broken down to like a science of “oh we have to write lyrics first and fit ‘em around like this blahblahblahblah.”

Rachel: Happily Ever After started as like two lines that were a joke, and I came to Trevor, and Trevor was like “oh” [mimics guitar sound]. I was like “oh yeah, that works.” And then “All About Us” was written on guitar, but I couldn’t write a bridge. Trevor wrote the bridge, and then made it a little more intricate, and a little less, I don’t know, it was a little less sloppy when [Trevor] played it. [He] added a lot more detail, different leads. It’s like it really depends – sometimes it’s lyrics, sometimes it’s guitar parts…

Trevor: No real consistency.

SUR: Ok, and do you guys have plans to release an album this year?

Trevor: Yes M’aam.

Rachel: I don’t know if this year…

Trevor: At least record it this year.

Rachel: Yeah, start it and hopefully get it all….People don’t understand that you don’t just go in and record a song. That’s not how it works. You go in, and then what they have to do is they have to master it, and all this mixing and stuff that takes forever! It’s a process…

SUR: What are your plans after this tour?

Rachel: Headliner.

Trevor: Yeah, headliner eventually, and then taking some time off to write new music because we’ve just kind of been go go go since the last release.

SUR: Ok, and can you give me one straight up random fact about yourselves. [Points to Rachel] You do him. [Points to Trevor] You do her.

Rachel: He refuses to wear pants if it is hotter than I would say about 75 degrees.

Trevor: Yes, which has happened this tour. Random fact about Rachel…She has a guilty pleasure of stopping at every single truck stop and buying the ugliest possible shirt she can.