Welcome to In Conversation, a special interview column on the site where we sit down with artists and dive deep into everything music. This week, Joe sat down with Kevin of Valleyheart to discuss their recent record, Heal My Head, vulnerability in music and creating the album’s artwork.
Joe: How has it been seeing the response to Heal My Head?
Kevin: It’s been incredibly rewarding after working on it for 2-3 years. It’s always interesting to see something that feels very personal and close now out in the world for everyone to see how it’s processed. It’s really cool to see what conclusions people come to in relation to the lyrics and artistic choices. It’s cool to also see how people hear about the album.
Joe: In what ways have you evolved since Everyone I’ve Ever Loved?
Kevin: I think there’s more diversity of sound and genre on the record, musically speaking. We were trying to be more open to other influences that otherwise we would have shut off before. A lot of early 2000’s pop rock. Stuff that influenced us as kids. With EIEL, it was a lot more streamlined with a “rock” centric sound. It felt good to still keep that but see how we can add influence to create something new and fresh. I think “rock” as a genre can get a little boring sometimes, and I love to see how you can take fresh takes on more established styles.
Joe: What was the inspiration behind the album artwork?
Kevin: Oh man, the art was really cool to make. It started with me seeing a bird clock in real life and having a “holy shit” moment. I saw one hanging up and immediately knew that some version of a centrepiece of a bird clock would be the artwork. From there, I reached out to Jordan Butcher and we fleshed out an idea of how to create our version of it.
He ordered a clock and we decided on the wallpaper and created the custom titles for the songs under the birds.
It felt like the perfect cover to wrap up all the themes and imagery on the record: Time, nostalgia, nature, spring, connectivity.
I’m still finding cool connections in the album cover that make me see how it relates to the songs: the vines on the wallpaper look like brain nerve cells – which correlate to the “Heal My Head” idea. Just cool to see how it can be dynamic and hold meaning even after intention.
Joe: Are there any specific influences you draw from on this album?
Kevin: Most definitely! Like I mentioned, we really leaned into that early 2000’s alt rock sound (bands like Switchfoot, early Coldplay, Death Cab etc) to blend with our “Valleyheart” sound. Also pulled some influences from some films: Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind, I’m Thinking of Ending Things. These films were instrumental in the influence of the vibe, artwork, and lyrical inspiration. I was listening to a lot of Alan Watts at the time as well.
Joe: What has been your favorite aspect of working on Heal My Head?
Kevin: I really loved the aspect of collaboration on this record and the memories that it brought. From the songwriting to the mixing to the production. Kevin Billingslea and I co-produced, co-mixed, co-engineered. It felt like a unique balance of structure and chaos. That collaboration led to lots of memories. There’s that cheesy quote but a very true one: “Happiness is best when shared“. Our first record was a very isolating and personal process for me, and I think that shows in that album. This felt a lot more together; there was a sense of winning together, losing together, trying together etc. And that really was a special and cool experience. There was one night we were driving home from the studio listening to the rough mixes from the day and we all looked at each other and said: “Yo who cares if anyone likes this, we love it. We did it!”
Joe: Does Heal My Head feel more honest and vulnerable to you as a record?
Kevin: Compared to other records, not so much. I always try to be as vulnerable as possible in every release to what’s happening in each season of life. So Heal My Head felt like an extension of that rather than being “more honest”. BUT I will say this: this record has much more lyrical basis in the idea of honesty and vulnerability. So if it feels that way, it’s probably because I was processing the meaning and depth of those concepts in the songwriting stage.
Joe: Were there any shifts in the production and mixing for Heal my Head?
Kevin: Oh absolutely. I did a lot of the production sounds months before we even hit the studio in the demoing process. A lot of what came out in the initial demos was kept all the way until the final mixes. Kevin Billingslea did a great job of incorporating his strengths of drum, bass, guitar and vocal recording to my more “atmospheric” and little production things.
For our last EP, Scenery, I had done 90% of everything myself down to the mixing. And although it was an educational and positively challenging experience, I couldn’t imagine undertaking the full record that way. However, I still wanted to have a heavy hand in the production / mixing side, and Kev. B was a true champ to let me try things from mic choices, mixing techniques, and other production aspects. I think a lot of producers would have been like “oh no dude, get outta here.”
Even after working with Kev for 3 weeks, we rented out a studio ourselves and recorded any little production thing we may have missed in this studio space. This was a really cool time too because it allowed us to sort of just spend hours messing with sounds and trying unique things.
The mixing process was continuing on the trend of different and collaborative. Kev B would complete a baseline mix and then send it my way. When we would hop on a call, he would have this program that would allow him to stream the audio from the recording session directly into my headphones in high quality, and we would make mix adjustments and moves in real time. I was in my apartment in Montreal, Canada, and he was in Portland, Maine. We sometimes would work from 10am – 5pm. It was intense but way better than going back and forth on email.
Joe: What would you want listeners to take away from the album?
Kevin: I would say a sense of inspiration. Inspired that really cool/beautiful stuff can come from going through hard moments in life; Musically speaking. Lyrically, speaking – I just was writing about the concepts, emotions and things I was processing at the time. There wasn’t really an intention then. But now after the fact, I hope that it challenges people to look closer into their faith, (in who or whatever that may be) their traumas and relationships.
With all this said, we also wanted to write an album that was fun and enjoyable to listen to. We wanted to play around with song genres, song structure, and a whole bunch of things to keep it interesting.
Joe: In regards to the closer, what was the thinking behind that?
Kevin: At some point I knew I wanted a simple beautiful outro to the record. I had many different ideas about that. I was going to rent out a room with a nice piano and all this stuff to get that. But one day, after the recording process, I was going through my iPhone voice memos and I found one titled “piano jam in D major.” A month prior, when we were at the Halo Studios where we recorded a good part of Heal My Head, I had set up my iPhone Voice memo to record myself playing on the piano.
It was day 3 of recording and I had not finished the lyrics for some of the songs on the record. I was feeling very anxious and stressed about that. So I started playing the song I was looking for lyrics for on loop: “Vampire Smile“. As I looped the chords with this counter melody, no lyrics came to mind. Listening back to it, I remember how frustrated I felt and how nervous I was. Even letting out this big sigh at the end of the voice memo. But a month later, the song had been recorded, the lyrics written and all was well.
Listening back, I made a connection about that moment recorded on my iPhone and the theme of the record. I was writing something that sounded so beautiful but at that moment I was way too preoccupied and worried to see it. But it all turned out alright in the end – every worry was blown away. I think anxiety of the future can be really blinding, and that little iPhone voice recording reminds me just to be in that moment and it will pan out; and a lot of times pan out to something gorgeous. And that’s the story of 6:26. A very unintentional accident of a recording.
Joe: What does the next chapter hold for Valleyheart?
Kevin: We’re playing a HMH release show on 7/23 at Arts At The Armory in Somerville, Massachusetts to support the record. From there we’re going to get this show on the road to other cities. Alongside that we’re going to keep showing this record to the world and hoping to create moments around it.
Many thanks to Kevin or sitting down for a chat with us, and you can read our review of Valleyheart here.