"I mostly make music for the insatiable urge inside me." (an interview with The Woodlands)
It is with great pleasure that the Half Mystic team welcomes Hannah and Samuel, a songwriting couple whose melodies are as magical as they are true, as haunting as they are hopeful. Their stories have taken them near places and far, and have, fortunately for us, brought them onto the blog today for a brief chat. Together, they make up that most wonderful of natural—and musical—experiences: The Woodlands.
HM: What is the 'creation myth,' so to speak, of The Woodlands?
Hannah: Well, you see, kids, The Woodlands were born when... well, what happens is... so how it works is when two people love each other and they take off all their clothes and kind of wrestle around and do some certain funny dances, and then you make a... oh, so this wasn't an artistic sex-ed origin-of-being question? Sorry, my mistake. Let's gather ourselves again... well, once upon a time, The Woodlands were just Hannah and Samuel sitting in the living room tinkering with words and sounds to make songs. We each taught ourselves guitar after we were already grown-ups. We each discovered this need and drive to write songs. We did it for our own private enjoyment for a long time. Then at one point, as we were living and traveling in Guatemala many years ago, we began spending more time on the writing, and we decided: when we go back home to the US, we are going to really chase this. We didn't know what this would even mean; just that we would try. In the early days, we walked dogs for work, while we worked lots on songwriting and began to carve a path out of our perfect naivete. We kept going into it, learning and trying. The actual name came after moving to Portland to make our first album. We both find deep solace and wonder being out in the woods. It felt like it encompassed our writing. Thus, The Woodlands.
When is the music-making process most rewarding for you?
Samuel: The most acute high of the music creation process for me is the initial swell of the songwriting. My senses feel the sharpest and most honed in the moment when an idea for a song first stirs. It starts tapping on the inside of my head and when that is paired with something responding in the creative ether, it starts feeling irresistible. I also really enjoy the nerdy nuances of production and arrangement details, but I think the biggest payoff in the creative process for me is the initial rawness of a new song finding its way out.
Your most recent releases, Parallels Vol. I and Vol. II, contain "alternate versions and reinventions" of work from your past albums. What was the intent behind creating these new takes on already-released songs?
Samuel: I think that is probably due especially to my interest in the concept of transformation. I'm fascinated by reinvention in a lot of different contexts: physical spaces, visual surroundings, usage of items, and re-structuring of songs. I am attracted to the idea of tinkering with things that seem to be already settled in their final state, but where there is some wiggle room to contradict that. The challenge of discovering if that is really the case seems to be alluring to me. I have an instrumental electronic and remix project called Mt. Mineral that mines a lot of samples, and I was using some bits of acoustic samples from some of our recordings from The Woodlands and Quiet Arrows. That process led us to be interested in seeing what other expressions of our songs we could conjure from what was theoretically already a finished piece. We were specifically interested in the challenge of expressing those songs in their most minimal and sparse forms, while still trying to maintain depth. It was originally just going to be a couple of bonus songs, and then we got really into it and just kept going. Two albums later is when we decided to stop.
When writing new songs, do you focus more on evoking sensory experiences or putting together narratives? Or is it both? Neither?
Hannah: I find that writing a song is a blend of many elements, depending on the particular nuances pulling at you right then. One time it is the shedding of emotion, trying to crawl out. It can be an exploration of what you do not know, as you sense a song is tugging at you. In this case, you are navigating through a fog, in which objects are not yet clearly seen. Other times a story is there and simply needs to be told. Or a feeling, that wants a face. An image or a scene will appear, evoking an idea, that then must take on a song incarnation. Melody has a strong grip, which is often the strongest grip of all. And then the rest follows. A theme, words, chords, chorus. The writing is never planned, it rolls in like a summer storm.
For whom do you make music?
Samuel: I mostly make music for the insatiable urge inside me. Feed-the-monster sort of thing. But I think at the end of the day, I am trying to make music that will mean something to whichever ears cross its path, and I try to put my best into the process so that anyone can hopefully take a bit away for themselves and enjoy it for whatever it means to them at the time.
Hannah: Initially, it is for my own soul. But then I want to give others what I had been given through music so often. Having been so moved, so transported or cut to the heart by others' songs, I thought it would be an honor to (attempt) to give this to others.
Recommend three books or poems to fans of your work.
Samuel: All The Light We Cannot See (Anthony Doerr). East Of Eden (John Steinbeck). My Side Of The Mountain (Jean Craighead George).
Hannah: I read My Antonia, by Willa Cather, this winter while we were traveling in Switzerland. It was breathtaking. Out Stealing Horses, by Norwegian author Per Petterson, set in a rugged solitary mountain setting. And lastly, the poetry of Mary Oliver. Gorgeous and true. Nature-centric.
Would you say that your music has a sense of place? Why or why not?
Samuel: I don't really think of most of our music as having a sense of place; probably more a sense of an emotion or a state of being.
Hannah: Although I think of our music as being heavily melodic, and feeling-driven, there are still many times when that needs to attach to something more concrete. A place can give those more mysterious aspects a backbone. Places are powerful, too, in and of themselves, and hold their own secrets. One of our songs that has a very strong sense of place is "Bronze," because writing the song was a really direct interpretation of what I was seeing visually in my mind. Dust and open country and dry desert and lots of pale hues everywhere.
How do the vocals and instrumentals interact in your songs?
Samuel: Our songs are very melodic, so I think there is some degree of intertwined shape-shifting between the vocals and instruments. A lot of times we write arrangements for the songs with different temporary vocalizations to get some sort of countermelody or harmony or lead part that will eventually become an instrument. Sort of like an idea placeholder. And sometimes after trying out a part in the skin of an instrument we realize that it is simply better suited in its role as a vocal ooh or ahh or hum. So in some sense there is an interchangeability between the components.
What role does memory play in your music?
Samuel: I can't remember. Just kidding. I think that is an interesting question, because I feel that a lot of our songs carry a sense of nostalgia. Most of the time I think it is a vague nostalgia, in the way that you might just get the feeling of remembering some time or experience, but maybe you can't even really define what the memories are. Almost like being nostalgic about the feeling of nostalgia itself. Memory is an interesting component for me, because I often write songs with an acute sense of expressing a memory, but I'm not sure whose memory it is. Often I write a song to tell a story, but I'm not exactly whose story it is or even necessarily what the context of the story applies to. Then sometimes I find out later down the road what the song was about or whose story it was, or that it was my story that just hadn't really happened yet. I have a Mt. Mineral song called "Memories Of The Future," and that title was a way for me to phrase an allusion to that idea.
Hannah: In songwriting, memory is a potent element. It is everywhere inside you. It is a chime when a song comes in like the wind. We are a collection of what has been, so that is a treasure chest to draw from. A lot of times it is a subconscious influence rising up. It is a long-time friend.
What are your goals as musicians for the next few years?
Samuel: I think we feel focused on goals for life in the broader sense right now, so we are looking at how music can facilitate those things, as opposed to just what we want specifically for music in and of itself. But in a simplified sense, our goal is to keep making more music in our different projects. For The Woodlands, we have a ton of new songs that are in their skeleton state—a lot of new songs that are already written, but that we will begin to develop and arrange and mature. Let them ferment for awhile and then start really digging in. So we have a goal of starting to put together and record our next album in the next year. We just spent a season of vagabond traveling and also permanently moving (Oregon is now home again), so once we get they rhythms of our normal life humming, then we will start to craft a new album. We are looking forward to it.
Bio: The Woodlands are Hannah and Samuel, a songwriting couple who craft songs of melancholy and mirth.
Explore more: Spotify | Facebook | Bandcamp (The Woodlands) | Bandcamp (Quiet Arrows) | Bandcamp (Mt. Mineral)