15 years on, The Head and the Heart looking back and forward all at once

In 2022, The Head and the Heart released its melancholic opus, “Every Shade of Blue,” a 16-track “collection of songs that celebrates the beautiful mess that we were during this time of transformation,” the band wrote on Instagram. The opening notes of the title song introduced the exquisite complexity that characterized the album as a whole.

The album documented how six individuals separated by COVID-19 could bring their disparate ideas together, but the result was admittedly disjointed among some standout moments. It was also the final record of their major-label deal with Warner Bros.

“Aperture,” the band’s sixth LP, released last May, couldn’t have come together more differently for The Head and the Heart, which will give a free performance at the Brookhaven Cherry Blossom Festival on March 28.

“With this one, we just wanted to be way more concise,” drummer Tyler Williams said in a recent interview, “but also more together through the whole writing process, where we’re all touching the songs from the beginning.”

On the tour that brings The Head and the Heart to metro Atlanta, the band is playing songs from its self-titled debut album to celebrate its 15th anniversary. (Courtesy of Shervin Lainez)

Over the course of more than 15 years, The Head and the Heart have produced dozens of relatable, sentimental songs, establishing itself as a folk-pop band full of choral harmonies, catchy songwriting and inviting performances. The band members are currently touching back on their beginnings with a tour in which they’ll play their self-titled debut album to celebrate its 15th anniversary.

That’s not the only reminder the group has had recently of their early years. By the spring of 2023, the six musicians had no label or manager. They went into “Aperture” being bound by no one but themselves, and it was a familiar feeling. The group’s self-titled breakout in 2011, which was picked up by Seattle’s legendary Sub Pop Records, was the last time they self-produced one of their records.

“We felt like we were in that position again where we were doing it for ourselves and not really having deadlines or outside influence or pressure put on us. So it really did feel like we were back to those beginning years in more ways than one,” Williams said.

The “Aperture” project began in Richmond, Virginia, in April 2023 at The Brink, a recording studio that just happens to be across the street from Williams’ home. With two-thirds of the band present — including oft-songwriter and guitar player ​​Jonathan Russell, pianist Kenny Hensley, bassist Chris Zasche and Williams — “things just felt a little more spontaneous where we were not even really talking about song structure or chords or anything like that,” Williams said. “We were really just jamming in the moment, and fully formed songs were coming out of that. And that was exciting, because we’ve never really written that way before.”

Violinist Charity Rose Thielen and guitarist Matty Gervais were intentionally left behind as the couple had recently welcomed their second baby in Seattle. But the pair were ecstatic to hear the foursome’s efforts from this first session, which included the emotive album tracks “Pool Break” and “Cop Car.”

There’s a stark rawness to “Cop Car” in the intensity of Russell’s cracking vocal accompanied by unpolished studio sounds like muffled chatter and laughter. But it all meshes so perfectly with the six members’ tried-and-true group harmonies on the gospel-tinged “This Little Light of Mine” outro, a hymn that harkens back to so many of those classic singalongs from their debut.

The Head and the Heart have seen how audiences react to an ethereal moment like “Cop Car” in concert. “We’ve actually started extending that outro, because it just feels so good to sing together as a whole venue of people,” Williams said.

Some of The Head and the Heart’s most enduring early work features a songwriter and singer — founding member Josiah Johnson — who left the group in 2016 to focus on his addiction issues with drugs and alcohol.

Gervais stepped in, and on “Aperture,” he has found his footing and become integral to the group’s sound.

“He went into this record process fully himself and ready to attack these songs with a tenacity that I’ve rarely seen in songwriters,” Williams said.

Gervais took home impromptu jams from various sessions in Richmond or Seattle and returned with “full lyrics, melodies and beautiful top lines and all this stuff,” Williams said, adding that, time and again, Gervais “created this beautiful piece” when “we thought it was just a jam.”

In the early days of The Head and the Heart, everyone lived in Seattle, some even in the same house. Now, the band has two sort-of home bases on either coast, but distance makes the heart grow fonder. “We’re kind of back to that living-in-one-house, family feel again, and that was how this record really was made,” Williams said.

The record’s title has a few different meanings, but “one of the ideas is opening up the aperture to the collective vision of this band and allowing all of those influences onto the record,” Williams said. For the first time in a long time, the six members had full autonomy to do whatever they wanted to do, and everyone contributed to the final product.

“It’s kind of amazing how many songs we were able to create in the moment when we’re all feeling trusting of each other,” Williams said. “This album also feels vulnerable because it is so much us. There’s so much of our spirits in it.”

Discussing another, more poetic perspective, Williams said, “The aperture on a camera is the technical piece that allows more light in to expose the image. It’s the idea of allowing more light in, even though there’s darkness. … Focusing on the brighter moments can enhance your life. You can feel alive while also fighting for good in this world.”

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The Head and the Heart