ARTIST SPOTLIGHT: Chris Haise Band
Americana rockers Chris Haise Band had their “Future, Future, Who Am I?” album release party alongside Tae & the Neighborly at Anodyne on Friday night.
Chris Haise Band consists of the titular singer-songwriter on vocals, guitar and keyboard, Mark Harrig on guitar and vocals, Tony Sturino on cello and vocals, Chris Dickerson on bass, and Chad Burgess on drums.
“Mark engineers all our records and Chad handles a lot of the non-musical portions of our band, which I’m extremely grateful for,” Haise said. “I do much better without having to worry about all the outside stuff. Chris is our new bassist and this is his fourth or fifth show, going on a year.”
This is the band’s third year in a row with a new album; “The Quarantine Tapes” came out in 2020 and “Half of All of Nothing” came out last summer.
Haise explained, “I write way too many songs; if you need bad songs, I can give you 50 right now. But the ones I keep, they’re in this notebook that I have. We just played “Whiskey Meat” tonight, which is brand new. “Half of All of Nothing” has songs that we played at our very first show together, like “Bag of Bones” and “Ode to Poor Decisions.” Then it had new ones like “Better Glue” and “Tell Me True” so it was a good blend. We initially were going to do our first record “Suburban View” with 14-15 songs, and then Kanye West released several seven-song records in a row and I thought that was a good model – thirty minutes is plenty – so we split “Suburban View” up and some songs we released down the road. All of the songs that I write are more reflective than they are cathartic; I like to use the posterity of time to better analyze and describe old things. I have a line in the new song “King James” that kind of summarizes what all the songs are about – “remember who I used to be, Lord, ain’t it tiring” and that’s the gist of “Half of All of Nothing” as well. That one’s supposed to rise though; it starts a little down and ends hopeful with “Changing the Guard” which is also an old song.”
“Future, Future, Who Am I?” also was written over a long period of time.
Haise continued, “There’s a lot of songs about trying to figure it out…bad results…but also hope. I think I have a fatalistic optimism sometimes, like a belief where things are bound to get better if they’re going this poorly, and I think this record doesn’t move too far away from that. I like that all the songs are short and that there’s not really a slow one, so there’s good energy and they’re all a little pop-forward. “When it Rains” hit that but the whole “Half of All of Nothing” didn’t, so “Future, Future, Who Am I?” is a record of all catchy songs. This is also the third record that Mark’s made for us and we’ve been able to see how much we’ve grown, and it’s very clearly the best-sounding record that we have so far. Hopefully that doesn’t stop and every record sounds better than the next one, and the songs just have to keep up with that pace. Good luck to me (laughs).”
Chris Haise Band play Gibson Music Hall in Appleton on May 13th and Linneman’s for a John Lennon tribute on May 15th.
Haise concluded with a glimpse of what’s next. “I do know the title of our next record; it’s going to be “Assorted Compositions From Chris Haise Band” and we’re going for nine or ten songs this time. At least three or four of what you heard tonight will be on it.”
Fun fact: Sturino proposed to his girlfriend during the band’s final song, filling the room explosively with cheer.
