Wednesday, February 3, 2010

He Is We offer free song downloads

For Trevor Kelly and Rachel Taylor of the alt-pop band HE IS WE, writing music isn't really a job as much as it is therapy.

"These songs are little stories," says the affable and incredibly down-to-earth Rachel, about finding her songwriting muse when she was 15 (she's 19 now). "These are stories that happened to me... little slices of my life."

He Is We's compilation, OLD DEMOS, is a collection of all the songs that Rachel and Trevor have completed up to this point and will available starting today for FREE at heiswe.bandcamp.com.

This also serves as a precursor to their upcoming, as-yet-untitled EP to be released on FrameworkNY in conjunction with a major label to be announced at a later date in April 2010.

PureVolume's #1 Unsigned Artist of 2009 and the Fastest Growing Band ever with close to 1.5 million plays on PureVolume alone, He Is We didn't rely on big marketing plans or label budgets to make their mark. They did it completely on their own.

"I was so excited to see that people connected with our music," she explains. "I was really in shock and I just don't know what to make of it. It's exciting!"

Autobiographical and melodically heartfelt, Old Demos is like peeking into Rachel's diary while Trevor provides the soundtrack. With songs like the refreshingly brisk "I Wouldn't Mind" with its acoustic guitar playfully flirting with Rachel's lovelorn lyrics ("Merrily we fall out of line, out of line/ I’d fall anywhere with you"), to the chiming, lilting pop of "Blame It On The Rain (Acoustic)," to the soaringly epic "Light a Way", its musical and lyrical complexity belies the bandmember's youthful ages.

"I wrote 'Light a Way' after our first tour last August," Rachel explains. "When I got back home, I'd go out on dates and meet guys, but then I'd have to tell them that I'm really not going to be around that much because I need to be working, be on tour, and doing things for my career. No one wants to be in a relationship with someone who's going to be gone all the time."

The immediately infectious "Happily Ever After" offers a glimpse into the source of her unconventional songwriting and the tricky interplay of words.

"I love rap and hiphop," she says quite surprisingly. "Jay-Z is a huge inspiration. Rappers inspire the way I write my lyrics. Everything they write is so real, everything they rap is so raw. It's something they've lived, and that's exactly how I want to write. The rhythm and the rhymes are so powerful."

Equally surprising is Trevor's inspiration for his intricate guitarwork.

"If you listen to our music, you can tell Trevor loves metal. He uses alternate picking and everything is played in dropped D tuning [alternate tuning style in which the lowest string is tuned down one whole step]. You can hear it most when we go into halftime. All he learned musically comes from metal."

Originally co-workers at Ted Brown Music, a music instrument and equipment store based in Tacoma, WA, Rachel and Trevor forged a powerful songwriting chemistry.

"I'm more into indie pop, melodic metal and girlie stuff. Trevor is into hardcore metal and talks about bloody things," she laughs. "When you spend a lot of time with someone and you don't end up hating them, chances are you'll become great friends."

And from this friendship a great melodic indie pop was born. The result is He Is We.

He Is We's collection of early songs, OLD DEMOS, can be downloaded free at heiswe.bandcamp.com.

The band will be playing Bamboozle in Anaheim, CA on March 28th and a tour will be announced shortly including SxSW.

www.myspace.com/heiswe
www.purevolume.com/HEISWE

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