Hello Stranger – True Belief

By starrymag | August 29, 2022

By: Alejandra Gil M.

 

 

 

Q) How would you describe your sound?

A) We like to describe it as a choir with chainsaws. We love heavy drums and guitar riffs, but we equally enjoy soaring vocal melodies and thoughtful lyrics. Hello Stranger’s sound is intense, but never abrasive. It’s the kind of music that we loved in the 90’s and 00’s but have missed for the past few years.

 

Q) Who are some of your musical influences?

A) Muse, Smashing Pumpkins, Arctic Monkeys, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Incubus, Foo Fighters and Tool to name just a few!

 

Q) Talk about the story behind “True Belief.”

A) I came up with the concept for “True Belief” when I was walking through a popular retailer, and I saw a Che Guevara shirt for sale. I had a gut reaction to seeing this symbol of rebellion commodified and sold by massive corporation. From that I wrote “True Belief.” So, generally, the song is about how greed and the decontextualization of history have led to many of the problems America faces like gun violence and political polarization.

“True Belief” actually sat around for several years, before we really committed to recording it. I think the division and isolation of the pandemic made the song’s importance and meaning clearer to us. It suddenly felt like something that we needed to record.

 

Q) “True Belief” is out now from your forthcoming EP available August 26th, 2022. What was your song writing process like? Do you need music before you can create lyrics?

A) The songwriting process was very different for each track on the EP. “True Belief” itself was a song that I’d written before Hello Stranger even formed and was pretty much worked out structurally. Actually, we used it as an audition song for our drummer, Dillon Yoder. In that case, the music and lyrics arrived simultaneously, and each informed the other.

“We’re On Your Side,” on the other hand, came out of riff that our guitarist, Alex Monfort, was messing around with. We liked the idea and kept jamming until we figured out the overall chord progression and composition. I then added the melody and lyrics and it all came together perfectly.

Finally, there’s “Dead Reckoning.” This song had so many different incarnations. I’d been working on it for about five years before we recorded it. I had these disparate parts, the verses and the ending, but couldn’t figure out how to link them. It wasn’t until we realized that the song needed to be much longer so it could breathe that it started to sound right. I absolutely love the instrumental sections we included. They sound really different to anything we’ve done before and help elevate the meaning of the music.

 

Q) My Favorite part of the song is the lyrics from the very beginning: “All the satellites are shining the new starts in the night, the abyss is staring back at us, but it´s blindingly bright, they´re smirking as they send us out to sea. The market sells us false prophets, rebellion on the cheap, marginalized in structured lies, it´s sound & no fury. What do you hope people take away from it?

A) Thank you! I hope people realize that we are surrounded by so much white noise from commercials and advertisements that fundamentally informs our identities and decisions. It’s hard to truly rebel against anything. Even Rage Against the Machine was on a major label. That might sound Nihilistic, but I think it’s important to understand the economic forces to push ideas on us even if you can’t resist all of them.

 

Q) Your upcoming True Belief EP is out now. What are some themes you explore on it?

A) The overall theme of the album is communal isolation. “True Belief” explores this from a political and economic perspective where we are given identities by what we consume. “We’re On Your Side” is really a ballad for a long-lost friend. And “Dead Reckoning” takes an existential perspective, looking at how we ignore each other’s needs to our collective detriment. Ultimately, the record is about how we need to break down these barriers with empathy and reason to consider other perspectives.

 

Q) The EP also includes songs like “We´re On Your Side” and “Dead Reckoning.” Is there a track that stands out as a personal favorite or one that was harder to record?

A) I think we all really loved how “Dead Reckoning” turned out because it feels like a complete journey. It was challenging to record, but everything comes together beautifully in the end with this huge, redemptive musical climax almost like the ending of a film. It’s our Avengers: Endgame, I guess! But “Dead Reckoning” really displays everything that Hello Stranger is: meaningful lyrics, complex instrumentation, and gorgeous melodies.

 

Q) You had a concert August 6 at BlackRose LA | Hollywood. What songs do you enjoy performing live during concerts?

A) We always love playing “True Belief!” It’s a great opener and gets everyone dancing. We’re also excited to play some of the new songs we’ve been working on recently. And maybe a particular, popular cover… We are planning some shows in Los Angeles throughout the fall and a West coast tour in November. Check our website for updates, https://www.hellostranger.band/home-shows

 

Q) Will you be performing any new material from the new EP?

A) Yep! We’ll definitely play “True Belief.”

 

Q) Who would you most like to collaborate with on a song in the future?

A) There are so many people! Dave Grohl would be incredible. Billy Corgan and Matt Bellamy are heroes of mine too. I’d love to see what they do with our songs.

 

Q) What album/band are you currently listening to and why do you dig them?

A) There are a few: Without Fear by Dermot Kennedy, which has great emotion and production. Ripe, a band out of Boston, that has awesome, funky bass lines. And …Like Clockworkby Queens of the Stone Age which is just an all-time classic record.

 

Q) You are a part of social media. Why is that such an important way for you to connect with your fans?

A) Social media is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it makes it easy for us to build a relationship with fans and music lovers. On the other, it’s really dispersed the economics of the music industry and made it difficult for new acts to survive. I mean, nowadays our competition isn’t just the other up-and-coming bands in L.A. it’s Paul McCartney and The Rolling Stones!

 

Q) What would you like to say to fans and supporters of you and your music?

A) Thank you and we love you. Seeing you at shows and reading your comments keeps us going. We’re always humbled by the support for our work.

 

 

 

 

All Questions Answered By Singer/Guitarist Sam Deffenbaugh