Naked Hour
Introducing Naked Hour; photographed by Claire Gunville.
With roots that go back to their days in middle school, Naked Hour’s Teal Bluestone & Ethan Conroy released their debut album for Good Cheer Records titled Always On The Weekend. Completed as a trio with the addition of Jackson Walker, Teal & Ethan take a math class meeting from 2009 that bloomed into a would-be concept album turned coming of age tale that tackles the complexities of adulthood & youth by way of cathartic scuzz-pop candy. On today’s world premiere of “Crossfade”, Naked Hour bares it all out there on the table for for all to marvel and relate to according to each individual’s own experiences, understanding and intimate connection to the lyrics and catchy melodies. Teal draws from a trove of experiences surrounding former friends, lovers, and the sailing away departure like two formerly allied ships leaving one another as the moonlight casts it’s reflection on the ripples of the sea.
“Crossfade” finds Ethan & Jackson providing rhythm & moods for Teal’s narratives of questionable attachments of oddball ex-significant others and their antics. Bluestone describes the baffling case of the weird one that would often come around and all the awkwardness, excuses for strange behavior, and more that arises as the instrumentation on the verse take on a storytelling style of progression mode. The “sail away in the crossfade” resolve that bursts like a supernova blast is the entire anticipated build-up that results from Teal’s story about those tedious characters that appear without invitation that make life stranger than it has to be (or should be). “Crossfade” keeps your ears glued to the skipping percussive momentum that brings you to the big break in big explosion of emotive audio dynamite that creates the feeling of freeing yourself from all undesirable and unwanted attachments. Now be sure to read our candid conversation with Teal Bluestone, Ethan Conroy, & Jackson Walker.
Take us back to that fateful meeting in math class back in the days of middle school and the musical bond that would launch Naked Hour.
Ethan: Freshman year of high school, Teal and I were in math and band class together. We became close friends pretty quick and started jamming together at her parent’s house a lot. I showed her a bunch of pop-punk bands I was into, and she sort of evened me out with all the cutesy indie bands she showed me, and I think that’s where our sound comes from.
Teal: Gosh, either I was just plain lucky to have sat next to Ethan or, they just got a run for their money because, lets be honest I am horrible at math. So glad Ethan put up with me. I remember asking them how long they had played guitar for and they said like oh five years before I was born also do you want to listen to Bayside….and I think that’s when I really started to get back into pop punk.
Jackson: I was unfortunately not lucky enough to be sharing the same school district as Teal or Ethan; same town the whole time, but we all didn’t finally meet till first year I was in college back in 2012. I’m the recent addition as of about just under a year….can’t say I remember the date exactly. I’m certain the moment in question had a mystical sort of vibe; can’t say I have any reason to be certain at all because I was not physically there. But I will think it anyway.
Interested in hearing about the making of the self-titled, expanding on the minimalist nature of the debut EP Long Run recorded with bass & drums.
Ethan: There are four songs on the upcoming record that are updated versions of songs that were on The Long Run EP. I remember the first day we brought Jackson in to play guitar. He just added so much dimension to the sound. Between that and me being behind the whole drum kit and not just a floor tom and a snare, I’m really stoked on the way we expanded those minimalist tracks.
Teal: Yeah we recorded the new album—it’s going to be called Always on the Weekend—this winter and about half the songs were from the old album and half were new ones. Jackson wrote these sick, sick, sick guitar parts for the old songs that really brought the influences that we wanted into the forefront of the songs. Also with the new fuller sound we could just play louder, something that I desperately had a yearning for.
Jackson: Before I joined Naked Hour officially, Ethan and I both had started this band with another friend called Robot Boy. Some time between these two bands coming together Teal came to me wanting to record the Long Run stuff. I’m not much of an engineer in my own right. Like, through just trial and error I had at that point figured out how recording stuff on a basic level—just enough to get some Robot Boy demos recorded. But I said yes to Teal anyway thinking it would be a fun excuse to hang out more than anything. I’d seen them perform the songs live a few times—in a few differing varieties of my friend’s basements and figured the songs had lots of potential. Looking back now—having recorded Long Run and now playing on the new record Always on the Weekend—it seems funny that my initial thought was to get that potential I heard by strategic recording; again, not too much of a producer in my own right. Now I see that when I was seeing them play I was already subconsciously thinking of it with guitar already added as if I was already in the band—I really wanted to help fill out the sound. The new record definitely reflects that. The minimal vibe on Long Run is still something we try to keep in mind with the scope of what we want this group to accomplish going forward—but after recording with Matt at Ivy League recordings it became clear that it’s still possible to continue to embody that minimal spirit while making something as a three piece and adding guitars. Also on a personal level, having tried to fake being a real engineer for Long Run, Matt’s expert hands in the project really helped us be able to just focus on the musical aspects of the project while he did all that lovely computer wizardry. Seriously can’t talk him up enough.
Ethan you have talked before about the freestyle nature of the Naked Hour songwriting process, and I was interested in hearing how that method was involved with the making of this album.
Ethan: Teal will usually come to Jackson and I with a song mostly written, and then we work together to complete it. She’ll often have a melody in her head and sing it for us and then ask, okay so how do I play that on bass?
Teal: Most of the songs that I write I think about what message or abstract feeling I’m attempting to get out. Either its melody line first and then lyrics or reverse. I will be humming something on the way to my car and then its like, oh, looks like I’m thinking about a dumb boy again, gotta write it down. I will get a weird itchy feeling and that’s how I know I need to go to my room and just write. The best part of this whole process is I’m not very good half the time of translating the song into music from my head so often I will just freestyle shout/yell/dance/hum/ things to Ethan—drum parts, or guitar parts that I cannot figure out—and thank god Ethan and Jackson are so talented because they just right away understand, Oh, that’s just B flat, blah blah blah…
Jackson: Yeah, the songwriting process is kinda all over the place. Teal does take the lion’s share of the initial work—that really is key. Ethan and I both write songs for ourselves and other projects—but the sound of Naked Hour really comes from Teal’s unique perspective. She usually comes to the table with some rough outline of something already thought out; usually about 70% of a chorus and a vague idea what she wants the chords to be in a phrasing sense. The fun, freestyle part comes in just you know—joking around. Playing that as a group over and over until you turn it into something that makes you personally excited to play it again. That tends to be the place where Ethan and myself will find opportunities to suggest fine tuning stuff—usually making a point to add some tonal and rhythmic depth to the songs while still trying not to distract from the song’s initial intent. That varies plenty, sure: sometimes Teal already has it all worked out, lyrics and chord progression and all, and then it’s hella easy. Other times we start writing a song thinking things as vague as “let’s have a song that starts out with drums,” and just play around with that until something sticks. Ultimately through Teal’s example Naked Hour has really been a band that values something that I think is integral to all music but easy to never talk about—that it’s supposed to be fun for those listening. What’s the best way to try and ensure that? Well I wouldn’t pretend to definitively know that—none of us would. But I can say without a doubt that Naked Hour is fun for me to be a part of in every respect—and I think maintaining that on a working level with those you play with is often overlooked when it comes to making your sound together, fluid, tight, all that jazz.
Catching up with Portland’s Naked Hour; photographed by Claire Gunville.
Also want to hear how the concept album approach gave rise to a song cycle of moving experiences and more.
Ethan: I can’t speak much to the lyrical content on the album but I’m sure Teal has lots to say about her experiences that influenced the songs.
Teal: Basically my ex-boyfriend disappeared for eight months and nobody knew what happened to him. Part two of album: he came back and we went out for a while and eventually he became this horrible dark person that ended up making some not safe choices…Then we wrote part three. He called me some really horrible things [laughs], we almost titled the album Jewish American Princess Bitch. Priceless catch phrase. Anyways, what was so beautiful about that relationship was that it brought forth so much material and intricate story lines to draw upon. It had endless nooks and crannies to pull characters and dialogue from. Making art from real life experiences always seems to be the most significant to me.
Jackson: We talk about boys a lot. Boys are often pretty dumb—certain boys have also metaphorically vomited their dumb into Teal’s life whether she’s wanted them to or not. You’d have to talk to her for a lot of the specifics because it’s really not my place to talk about- but these songs are inalienably linked to those experiences: how she has processed and learned from them, and to a lesser extent how Ethan and myself have gone through the same process just being in the vicinity of it. In a lot of ways I think while we started with a concept record in mind—it became harder to call it that the more we realized that it was about Teal, not a representation of a person but the real friend in our actual lives. People can call it a concept record if they want because I mean—they’re not wrong. There is a subtle sort of narrative that moves along the new record maintained from the beginning of the process. But as we’ve played shows we’ve come to see just how many people resonate with the kinds of situations, and subjects, and feelings we mention throughout the record: relationships, distance within them, how they come and go, why that matters, and questioning why it is that boys can get away with so much more terrible things in the process—often without apology. We saw that they weren’t just resonating with the songs on a symbolic level; they were relating to the literal, actual experiences Teal had been through and making a point to tell Teal how much that meant to them—how much it was a nice change of perspective in an art form often dominated by white cisgendered males—myself included. That’s what changes my perspective from thinking of the record less as a concept piece and more as our way to say, hey, we know that there are people out there that are shitty to those they’re supposed to love. And we know that often times the people who receive said shit have no reason to deserve it. And we know there is no one way to help everyone uniformly in dealing with that realization. But we hope these songs will remind you that you aren’t the only one trying- and that there are people all around willing to talk and fumble out our feelings together…hopefully with a party…and guitars.
What are you all listening to, watching, & reading right now?
Ethan: Currently listening to: PWR BTTM, Little Star, St. Vincent, Beyonce’s Lemonade…
Teal: Current Bands: Julie Doiron, Adult Mom, Basement, Teen Suicide Mosaic, Pity Sex, Broadcast, Mirah, Regina Specktor, Pedro the Lion, French pop music from the 60s, Little Star, Blowout…
Jackson: I’ve been loving Frankie Cosmos’ new record. Also our friends Sioux Falls are doing really cool stuff- should be finishing their most recent tour just about the time this comes out. Other local shout outs: Blowout, Little Star, Lubec, Dowager, Cool American, Two Moons. It’s been great to recently be in a place where I forget to listen to a lot of new nationally released stuff because local music in Portland and northwest bands in general are doing such cool stuff that I genuinely want to hear. Blake Hickman just showed us this chill band Churn from Washington that’s pretty killer. Wishing every day that Pedro the Lion would come to a show here that doesn’t sell out before I can afford it. Also that Glocca Morra never broke up.
Summer game plan?
Ethan: Summer plans include releasing the album, writing more songs, and going on a west coast tour!
Teal: Plans: Tourtourtourtour…
Jackson: Looks like this summer we have our record officially coming out with with some bigger shows down here in Portland- following that we have the beginnings of a tour—possibly August? Still working out the kinks—in the works as well as a director already picked out for a video we’ll likely be filming in June. Very up in the air currently but the energy and potential is palpable. Probably soon after all that is done we’ll be getting serious about recording again and, if all goes well, kinda repeating the process.
Naked Hour’s Always On the Weekend album is available now from Good Cheer Records.
