The Head and the Heart’s Jonathan Russell joins Mary Lucia to discuss the band's 2022 record 'Every Shade of Blue,’ overcoming writer's block, navigating touring with children, and the importance of trust in songwriting. Watch the interview above, and check out a full transcription of the conversation below.

Interview Transcript

Edited for clarity and length.

MARY LUCIA: Let's dive in and talk a little bit about the record. I, first of all, lots and lots of life has been lived, obviously, since you last made a record or did anything in the sort of realm of rehearsal, ready to tour—what was your experience, like for the last two years? I know, it's near impossible to put into words and—

JONATHAN RUSSELL: Right, to sum it all up? You know, the first thing that I always think of is how—I remember when I didn't quite realize that this is going to be a marathon and not a sprint, my actions were quite different than what they became. If you can imagine, I'm quite fortunate in the sense that my job is to make art, to make music. And when we found out that we were, in fact, not going to be going on tour in April of 2020 initially, it was just kind of, like, "School's out forever!" Having a great time. Maybe too much of a good time. And then, you know, there's something about the lack of structure. And nowhere really to take that energy, where it just became dark energy, to be honest with you, you know, it wasn't enjoyable to have all this freedom and to sort of take that for granted. So I think eventually, I just started realizing, like, hey, I need to figure out my own structure, which is also part of what we do, you know, any artist or anyone who's in the freelance realm, you know, you kind of have to get good at doing that to get anywhere, regardless, so I kind of knew how to get myself into that realm. But yeah, I think another thing, I guess, in particular to the band, we realize that this is a pretty unique scenario to be in that in terms of like, speaking to one another, and is being honest, and working on our relationships, this was probably the best we were gonna get in terms of having space and time to heal, and to really say honest things to one another. So we brought in a professional and started working on our relationships.

Did you do that via Zoom? Was it a Zoom thing?

We did, yeah. Zoom. Yeah, we've actually never met our therapist. I think she's real. I think we did that. No, but I don't know. It was...yeah, it was a well needed thing. It's been almost twelve years now that this band has been together. And it was the first time that we really had time to do that, which is crazy. I mean, if you imagine being married for 12 years, and never really once admitting that there was something wrong. I mean, it's just not realistic, you know?

Who in the band do you think had the most trouble, sort of expressing their true feelings?

Oh, wow. Um, everyone but me? Just kidding. (laughs) No, you know, I think the most interesting thing about it all was just everyone was sort of dealing with trauma in a way but in their own in their own very different way of, of handling it. Some of us are workaholics where, you take something and you just bury yourself in your work. And you think your actions are showing what your intentions are, and you're like, "Well, I'm good on my end of the bargain, like, what's going on?" Others are really waiting until we have a conversation before they pick up the rope. And you've got somebody waiting to pick up the rope and you see them, it's like, "This person's lazy, they're not invested." And you charge ahead with the the worst energy you could bring them. So whether to really say who had the toughest time to present their own true emotions? I'm not sure that I can really honestly answer that. It was just a complex thing. We learned a lot about ourselves and how to better listen to one another. You know, one of the main things I think, as artists and as songwriters through especially 2020—it wasn't really a prolific year for me as a writer, I tried to become a better listener. There were a lot of things happening around me that I didn't have the greatest understanding of, there's just no way for me to have with protests in and social injustice and things like that, that just felt like a time to shut up and listen, and partake if you can, accept that you're not going to understand everything immediately. And try not to put your foot in your mouth and just be a listener, you know?

That's a great way of dealing, I think the idea of being just, "Let me just observe and listen and absorb," rather than inject whatever I think at the moment, and it was a—I mean, I don't think you're alone in that. Everybody watched this, a lot of this happened, and those of us here in the Minneapolis, St. Paul watched it happen in our own backyard. And it was surreal. And it was completely how much news to absorb and engage in and when to say, I think my brain can't handle any more or having to still having to kind of come in and do my job, while literally things were on fire, was very strange. And you couldn't help but think, "Is what I'm doing frivolous and not important?" And then you really started to look for what was important in it.

Well, very well said, wow. Yeah, that's—you nailed it. Yeah.

Has your therapist ever worked with a band before?

You know, interestingly, no.

I mean, relationships are relationships and I get that.

She does a lot with corporate power dynamic structure, which, if you think of it, the six CEOs in this band, we split everything six ways. So it is also a business, and it's a business where you're making business decisions, creative decisions, marketing decisions, you know, things that impact your life for the rest of your children's lives, there's a lot wrapped up in just starting a band and becoming successful. It's a good problem to have, but it was time to start dealing with those issues.

And the fact that you wanted to go back to Seattle to record. I think you can never underestimate the where part of the who, what, why, where—the where in recording makes a huge difference. Whether it's very comfortable, or there's some uncomfortable things you got to re-face. Did you look at it as a place of familiarity and comfort? Or was it like, "Ooh, I got to face a few ghosts."

You're really good. That's a great question.

No, I'm not. I could be.

Yeah, I mean, you definitely could be. Well, I think the initial—the main thing was that Matty and Charity are—it's the first time that two people—both parents of a child had been in the same dance, right? So Chris and Tyler had children before, but their wives are not in this band. The first and main reason we went to Seattle was to make this as easy as possible for Matty and Charity. Because I think at that point, Francis was like, I don't know, seven months old? Eight months old? Something like that. And we really wanted to try and make these steps like as much as possible work for each band member. I mean, we have just been doing so much work on ourselves and kind of learning what it looks like if you don't—just because there's some workaholics that can like, get it done, "I'll go here and then they can do their stuff remote," it's like no, no, no, no, we're not doing that anymore. Living Mirage was like a series of band aids and patchwork because this band, I don't really know that we realized how fractured our foundation was trying to make that record and get it finished. And we learned a lot from that from that process. And so Seattle was sort of coming home but also a way of showing like we're doing this all together, or we're not doing it at all. It was beautiful. I mean, we even had Francis there in studio with us. She was like less than a year old and just the cutest thing in the world. It changed the energy. We've never had that much time with a kid around and during the work, and I loved it. I thought it was great. She's gonna be touring with us and we've never done that before either. Yeah. It's going to be so much fun—for us. I feel for Charity and Matty, I'm sure it's gonna be—I mean, they've never done it either, you know, there's gonna be times where like, they're probably going to have some meltdowns. And we're just going to have to try and be as supportive as possible. We'll have a nanny, of course. But yeah, I'm looking forward to it.

I think when you're in a band with, let's just say more than three people, I think the bar gets a little harder to sort of determine, "Hey, is this working for everybody?" And are we all looking at the same picture here. And we're all shooting for the same thing, because you've just naturally put yourself at somewhat of a disadvantage by having four, three extra people saying, "Jesus, I don't know, we're not one collective brain," you know, we don't all feel the same way. But I think it takes a certain amount of trust, I would just imagine, you know, with your bandmates to say, you know, "Yeah, if this isn't feeling right, tell me. But are we sort of collectively on the same page?"

Yeah, trust, another great key word there. I think of this album, and to me, it's the most bold record we've made, whether it's in terms of its length, in terms of the Sonic palette, the sounds, even like lyricism. And I think it's because of so much work that we've done to start trusting each other again. You know, it sounds very obvious saying it now, I didn't really put too much stock in—until this person knows that I'm respecting them, and that I have their back on whatever they're gonna say, or throw at me, they're not necessarily gonna jump on board and want to, like, help command or help support what I'm doing. And so you get really diluted, watered down cafeteria food that way, you know, if you're not having people want to be at the top of their game with you, because they're not feeling seen, you know? You're not going to get what you're looking for. And, yeah, I think people feel trusted again, and seen and heard and respected. And it's just, you can hear it all over this record, and I can't wait.

Like you said, sonically, it isn't in just one pocket, there's a lot of dynamics. And I'm always curious—I always want to ask any writer, whether it's a writer of songs or anything, but do you feel like you have to have like a sort of a healthy amount of sentimentality to be a good writer?

I never heard that question before. I love this question. I'm obnoxiously sentimental.

Are you?

Yeah. I mean, the song "Virginia (Wind in the Night)" is, I think, a shot in the—it's like pure sentimentality for me. I was coming and going from Virginia quite a lot. I met my now wife six years ago, and she's from the Bay Area. And because I have the more flexible, almost circusy job where it's like, I don't really work from one place. It really meant me joining her on the West Coast. And I would come back and visit my mom here. And also I've had this apartment here for the last nine years. And I just really, I don't know, I think I was somehow surprised at how sentimental I was reliving all of these memories walking down the sidewalks and—Minneapolis, you guys have humidity there. There's something about—like just before a storm when the leaves are sort of turning up and almost like it's flooding memories, you know, from out of the sky into like, your direct path, and I just got hit by them. It's almost like my little day in the life of walking around my neighborhood is that song "Virginia (Wind in the Night)". So for I don't know, I don't know with other writers but I mean, I don't know, what about Hemingway though? Hemingway seems like the least sentimental person, although maybe not true?

Yeah, I think that if you err on the side of not being sentimental, then your imagination is that much more broad because you're truly—if you're not drawing from your own personal little warm space in your heart, you're just creating it out of thin air. And I think that's a gift in itself. But I'm always just curious because sometimes I think a lot of people connect, "Oh, this sentimental songwriting is...," you always hear the word sentimental slop put together and yet, I really feel like if you're not writing from your own experiences and the things that have moved you or hurt you in the past. And you're truly just imagining what it might be like for someone else? That's just a whole different kind of writing.

Yeah. You know, it's interesting, I feel like I've actually been trying to move closer or further from it solely being about something that I've gone through, I think the first three records that was really my only the only tool in the toolbox. And I think I did a decent job at it.

It's a good tool.

But yeah, I kind of got to a place where I was just like, "Okay, cool. The world has read your diary. What else you got?" It goes back to being an observer and a listener, you know, through 2020 and beyond. It's interesting, the way the world, the pendulum swings in such a way where as a writer, I guess I've always been a little shocked by anyone who has, when someone says they have writer's block, it's like, "Are you sure you shouldn't just be reading more right now?" To me, I'm always reading and observing, when I'm really tapped out as a writer, like right now I've got this record, I have nothing to say, creatively. But because of that, I'm so satiated by a novel again, all of a sudden, you know, or sitting reading in the park and watching people. To me, I don't understand writer's block, it's just like you're not supposed to be writing right now. I mean, do something else, like notice the colors around you. Anyways, I'm sure in ten years, I will actually go through writer's block and I'll slap myself for ever saying that, but—

But what you said about the the idea of ostensibly like pouring out your personal diary for three years in three records, the great side of that is to see how many complete strangers respond to it. Not that you have to base it, because that's another territory you can get into is that need for the affirmation of strangers, but it's like, that's a pretty special connection, when you realize that something that happened very specifically to you and your take on it, in your view, is resonating with a complete stranger. What a feeling that is.

You know, what's interesting, though, is initially that was—I kind of struggled with people taking ownership over it, or relating to it and like, I just had the total opposite of what I feel like, I should have been, I remember those early days, fans coming up to me and talking about "Lost in My Mind" to them, and what it was about—and it was a very personal song about me and my brother, and he had gone through some really serious hardships and like, wasn't in a great place. And it was my platform for my therapy.

It felt sacred to you.

Yeah, it did. And now it's funny. I mean, now I feel very fortunate to have, "Great, that actually meant something just as equivalent to someone else." And as soon as it's out into the world, it's just as much of their story as it was yours. It's been a long 12 years to sort of see the beauty in what we do as artists. But yeah, it's funny how that evolved over time.

That is just interesting to hear. Because I talk to a lot of people and some people get there a little faster where they're like, "No, once I've written it, once I've recorded it, it's kind of not mine anymore." And you know, I mean, it is, but I get the sentiment of what somebody is saying by saying, "It's not mine anymore. It's out there." But I also get what you're saying too, where it's like, "Now this was about something very specific." Yes, I'm glad you're at a place now where you can go, "Wow, you can draw meaning from that, but you truly have no idea what I was actually—you weren't in my head when I was writing that song.”

Right. Yeah. Which which kind of makes you think about well, then what is it that you are getting from it, as well as someone else? It's almost like the content, the perspective—was yours and will also feel like theirs because somehow reading the same story you can, whoever's reading it puts their actual experience into that story, and they're going, "Oh, I know what this is about." But there's something about the glue or the spark, the starch, and the thing that orchestrated those things to go in the order that they did. I think that is the thing whether it's God or the universe, whatever that is, is the thing that to me, is the reason why I never had ownership over it—I was a steward for a minute. But in general, whatever that thing is that created the order in which is that song or that statement. That's the thing that is all of us. I just happen to be the one put the words in the order. It's such a fascinating thing. I can't—I mean, I just feel again and again, so so lucky to not only love what I do, but it's genuinely like, why I get up in the day. I mean, there's, there's just more to be seen, and more to say, and I think it's a strange, it's a good problem to have, where I'm never really, I never feel finished, you know?

And I want to sort of follow up with what you said about you being the writer of those words, and the the sort of vessel if you will, then what must it be like if someone says, "I want to cover one of your songs." Like, has anyone said, I want to cover and record on my own record one of your songs?

I don't know if we've ever gotten that.

You will.

Well, with social media now, you know, you can sort of see it in a much less serious or a much less business-type way, like, you could just see someone covering your song. And you know, honestly, for me, that's usually the first time where I actually really get more perspective on the song because I don't have to sing it or think it in order to see it happening. So I get pretty, like squirmish and uncomfortable every time that happens, because I'm faced with the honest depiction of what those lyrics are. Why did you put that word there? You know, until until I see it played back for me it all just—it's like, "Well, of course, it's what I said." And then you see somebody cover your song, it's like, "Oh, God. No, no, no."

I think it happens to people on every single level of success in songwriting. I will tell you, I talked to Trent Reznor about Johnny Cash recording his song "One," and you think Trent Reznor would just be like, "I know it's a great song." But he he was so humbled and brought to his knees by that song coming out of this larger than life and in a certain place in his life. It was a really interesting way for him to tell me the story about how he re heard the song for the first time in a way that he had never imagined. He said, I can't believe this song that I wrote, I know exactly where I was, when I wrote it. You know what crappy bedroom I was in, and then to see it filtered so many years later out through another artist in a way that he said was 50,000 times more powerful than he could have ever imagined. It was just, I just think that it happens. And it happens on every level.

I just got goosebumps.

Because I can think of that video right now. And oh, dear God, yeah. I feel like we you and I could just sort of just—have we even talked about anything like, of substance? I don't give a shit about anything other than just, you know, how do you feel?

That's probably why we're getting along so well, I feel the same way.

You're not coming to the Twin Cities until next fall. But I would imagine too it's pretty weird that you guys had to, you know, sit down and chart out a proper tour that's not just here and there dates. It's like, "No, this is a big stretch."

Yeah. And we've been making corrections and changes to it literally for the last two years. I mean, we were due to go out in April of 2020. We specifically took off January, February, and March 2022. Then hit it again in April. Of course, that didn't work in our favor. Oh, well, I don't want to say didn't work in our favor, because it gave us something we needed that we didn't know. But so yes, it's almost like trying to predict the stock market in a way of like, "Well, should we go back out in mid 2021 because people will be vaccinated?" But because Matt and Charity had like a six month old they're like, "We don't feel comfortable with that yet. Can we put it off to 2022?" And then you got the rest of the band going like, "Yeah, cool. Okay, we'll wait another half of a year to make money again or to like do what we love doing again so that you can raise a kid." It has been a really interesting democracy, trying to figure out how best to do this and to be honest with you, as things are moving right now, it actually feels like everything kind of happened in the best way possible. We were not interrupted finishing this record, which we've never had the luxury of. Matty and Charity have had a few sort of private off the radar gigs where we've had a nanny come out with us and kind of see like, what's it going to be like, you know, without having to like commit to three weeks straight? So yeah, it's been a really—it's unraveling in a really natural way. And it's a really great feeling to look at so many dates ahead. I mean, my wife and I are going through and it's like, "Okay, so I'll see you for four days in April, maybe five days in May, unless you want to come to—," you know. So on one hand, it's like, oh, my gosh, I've been indoor cat for two and a half years, like, do I have the claws anymore? Like, can I climb a tree? I don't know.

Indoor cats live longer.

I don't doubt it. I mean, watching my body change over the last year and a half years. It's like, whoa, three meals a day. That's what that means. Or like nine hours, eight hours of asleep, geeze, this is what my brain is supposed to feel like, function like this? So hopefully, I can carry some of these healthier habits into the circus. But yeah, circus is going to be on the road, and we're looking forward to it.

Yeah, the new record is 'Every Shade of Blue' and its release date is April 29. It's the fifth album from The Head and the Heart. And I'll just leave you with one thing that I have been ruminating on. I watched this incredible documentary. I think it's on HBO, maybe about the playwright Arthur Miller. And at one point, he just says, "Life is short. Art is long." Keep that with you for today.

I will.

It was a pleasure talking to you. And we can't wait to see you. Of course, it'll be next fall. And we may be wearing hazmat suits then, we don't know.

But what we're gonna do it, damn it.

We're doing it. Thank you, Jonathan. I really appreciate it.

Yeah, Mary, thank you so much. This has been a highlight of my day.

Woah!

Seriously. I did kind of quite a few these back to back today. Anytime I do that I get a little—I don't mind doing them. Actually I enjoy doing them. My only fear is always like, well what if I'm not interesting. And I'm in sweatpants, but I think it's gone great. You did great. I loved your questions.

If you and I were gonna like have, you know, lunch tomorrow, I wouldn't call you the night before and go, "Hey, Jonathan, here's what I want to talk about. And here's what I think I'm going to ask you." I'd rather just go, "Tape's rolling!" And let's just have a conversation.

I appreciate that.

External Link

The Head and the Heart - official website

Personnel

Guest - Jonathan Russell
Host - Mary Lucia
Producers - Jesse Wiza, Derrick Stevens
Technical Director - Peter Ecklund