The Current present

Heart to Gold

with she’s green and WHY NOT

Doors: 6:00pm | Performance: 7:00 p.m. | 18+

INFORMATION | TICKETS

Heart to Gold

Free Help (2024) is Minnesota trio Heart to Gold’s celebration of the titular idea, conceived while broken down on the side of a road in Georgia. Recorded at Will Yip’s Studio 4 and releasing on Memory Music, it’s an expertly arranged, arena-sized rendering of the group’s scrappy, bold guitar rock, a heartening mix of melodic punk, cavernous post-hardcore, and ’90s alt-rock. It’s the sound and feeling of a band growing into adulthood and maturity—singer Grant Whiteoak’s writing is subtle and figurative, a result of deepening introspection spurred by years of touring.

Free Help represents a push beyond Heart to Gold’s long-time community, and a broadening of the boundaries of the project. The rich, spacious single “Can’t Feel Me,” released in February, evidenced this new sound and space, and record opener “Surrounded” leaves no room for doubt: This is Heart to Gold operating on a new level. It’s a sleek, pit-ready thrasher, tearing at the seams with energy and intention, loaded with melody. There are classic, pedal-to-the-metal bangers, like “Get It Back” and “Blow Up the Spot,” alongside the down-tempo drift of “Pandora,” and the multi-movement epic “Belonging.”

Here it is, from Heart to Gold to you: Free Help.

she’s green

Likened to a soft summer rain, she’s green is a Minneapolis-based dream-inducer composed of vocalist Zofia Smith, guitarists Liam Armstrong and Raines Lucas, bassist Teddy Nordvold, and drummer Kevin Seebeck. The band has played many shows throughout the Midwest and East Coast, sharing bills with acts such as Hotline TNT, Glixen, Friko, and more. The Star Tribune recommends bringing “earplugs and maybe a tissue for their set.” They initially received recognition through their first two released singles, “river” and “smile again”, both recorded and mixed at home. A raw emotional intensity shines through their honest and explorative songwriting process. After the release of their debut EP, Wisteria, they were named one of First Avenue’s Best New Bands of 2023. In April of 2024, they got the most votes from industry professionals for MPR station The Current’s first annual Scouting Report Poll of the top rising artists in Minnesota.

WHY NOT

WHY NOT is the Minneapolis trio's self-titled mission statement. Fueled by the tension and uncertainty of the time and the changes in the band's personal lives -- from graduating high school and moving out of their childhood homes to growing into and out of long-term relationships -- and colored by the joy of creating with each other and feeling inspiration in dark times.

Henry Breen, Isaac Dell, and Joshua MacGregor met playing in a middle school music class at Great River School in St. Paul, MN. The trio formed WHY NOT in early 2016 as Breen and MacGregor enrolled in high school at nearby St Paul Conservatory of Performing Artists while Dell continued at Great River. Before any band member could drive, they had released their first album and booked their first tour -- relying on Isaac's dad, Irve, for transportation to their shows.

Now based in Minneapolis, the band have pivoted from their math rock and punk beginnings, incorporating more of their wide variety of musical influences and showcasing their burgeoning songcraft. The result is an amalgamation of punching drums, intricate guitars, digital distortion, and whatever experimental recording technique the band uncovers all built around an incredibly memorable suite of songs.

WHY NOT was born on retreats to Dell's family farm in Viroqua, WI. Holed up with no cell service, the band spent most of their days set up in the living room, demoing songs, reading books, and taking walks around the property. When an idea would hit, they would chase the initial feeling, sometimes going through dozens of evolutions, building the original core demos into the album in its final form over time.

The band enlisted Minneapolis producer and brother of MacGregor, Caleb Hinz (Hippo Campus, Samia, Miloe), to produce WHY NOT, booking their first session at Flowers studio in Minneapolis at the end of summer 2020. The group confesses they didn't end up recording much during those sessions, instead using their time together to reconnect and get the human connection they were all desperately searching for throughout that summer. After six months had passed, the group reconvened at Hippo Campus' recording studio and finished the tracking over the course of the next couple of weeks. The result is a virtuosic, genre-fluid statement from a young band just beginning to harness the heights of their craft.