Mitch and Zach sat down with the guys and girl of Eau Claire’s The Heart Pills on a sunny Saturday afternoon for their first real interview and photo session, and talked with the local rockers about the band’s humble origins after watching the film Jesus Camp, their mutual adoration of Courtney Love, and generally introduce them to the world. Read the whole long-form conversation below, and be sure to pick up their long-anticipated debut album To Paul, From Dad 1951 at their vinyl release/tour kickoff show on August 5th at the Bottle and Barrel!
Listen to “Bus Ride,” the debut single from To Paul, From Dad 1951 below.
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Click on the photos below to view the full-size slideshow!
Mitch Gustafson: So let’s start with the origins of the Heart Pills – Josh’s solo project Heathen Camp. What was that like – what were you initially setting out to do?
Josh Ingersoll: Well I watched the film Jesus Camp, and thought, ‘There should be a heathen camp where people like, learn how to lose their guilt and debauchery and whatnot.’
MG: I really like both of those names – Heathen Camp and the Heart Pills. You could always use Heathen Camp as a follow-up album title or something.
JI: Yeah, who knows. Probably. I thought it was maybe just a little too abrasive.
MG: So were you just going to do it for your own enjoyment, or were you planning on actually making something of it?
JI: Yeah, I was just fucking around in GarageBand, never really used it before. And you can tell, because half of the tracks are just like, terrible, and the other half are alright.
MG: So how did you rope all these guys in? How did you pitch it to them?
JI: Well, me and Silas found each other via an internet “looking for a band mate” website, and then we practiced a few times in the basement of his dorm and at my parents’ house.
Silas Thompson: Yeah.
JI: So I had this filing cabinet deal and Silas. Then we did one show with Ben Lester as Heathen Camp at the Cabin.
ST: And you and I did that show at Harmony Corner, in like, late 2009, with John Cranford. That was actually the first time I met Matt.
Matt Haapala: Well Josh and I, we’re old friends from high school, you know.
Sarah Bodeau: Ahem…
MH: Oh sorry, and Sarah too.
MG: So basically, you were like ‘Hey, Matt, you’re my old bud, join my band?’
MH: No, I was actually playing with John Cranford that day at Harmony Corner, and Josh and Silas were playing that same show, and I was like ‘Fuck yeah this is awesome!’ So I actually went up to Josh’s dad, Dan, and I asked what he thought Josh would say if I asked to play with him, and Dan was like, ‘Well I think he would say yes!’ So then we started messing around with the songs that he and Silas had come up with.
JI: Yeah, Ben had left to go on tour with…Justin Vernon I think, actually, and then he came back and we were like “Hey, you’re not uh…you’re gonna play keyboards now!” Which he did for awhile, and we kind of dicked around, played a couple shows, and then Ben was going on tour again, so… I didn’t really think Sarah would want to be in a band with us, so I was like ‘Sarah, would you want to like, just play keyboards on like, one song sometime?’
SB: Temporarily.
JI: And then she actually kind of liked being in the band. And that’s when we started tightening up our sound a little bit, and some of our songs sort of drifted away from just guitar demos and into more Silas and Sarah.
MG: I heard that Josh used to just have all these CDs in his car, of Heathen Camp, and they all kind of sounded exactly same. but he’d be all like, ‘Oh I added percussion!’ And you’d just be banging on a box or something.
JI: Yeah, that’s what I did.
MG: Which you guys have still sort of retained in your sound a bit – you still bang on garbage.
JI: Yeah we do, for that aesthetic. If we had tons of space and motivation, we’d get some metal shit for Matt to play on, we’ve tried it a couple times and it sounded pretty cool.
MH: Mmhm I think it’d be cool.
JI: But it’s just a lot of shit to bring around.
ST: I think it’d be cool if we got one electronic drumhead to incorporate with your drum set. I think that’d be pretty sweet.
MG: Give a little Phil Collins vibe…
JI: I thought it’d be cool to like, take a laptop, and sample a bunch of shit from a junkyard so that you have an all, like Midnight Oil. That’s sort of where I got the idea, Midnight Oil’s “Beds Are Burning”. There’s this breakdown with all industrial, metal stuff.
MG: or like Depeche Mode’s “People Are People”.
ST: Really almost all Depeche Mode.
JI: And Tom Waits has a lot of that too – weird percussion.
MG: Yeah, I can definitely see Tom Waits coming through in your stuff – kind of a junkyardy feel. So, obviously we know what you guys sound like, but you guys haven’t really released anything, so other people might not. If you had to describe your sound to somebody who’d never heard you, how would you describe it?
SB: Loud. That’s what I would say when people ask.
MH: A steamrolling, snowballing series of fuck-ups.
JI: I dunno, we all kind of play, we’re not really critical of each other’s sound. I mean, we started out just like – I gave everybody my demos – and we showed up and practiced once, shrugged our shoulders and played a bunch of shows like that. And then it just kind of evolved.
MH: Yeah, it’s never really been ‘we have to nail this down and nail this down and nail this down,’ it’s just always been everybody playing what they want, and it syncs.
JI: And then we play like six shows in like three weeks…
- Interview by Mitch Gustafson
- Photos by Zachary Oliphant
Click here for Page Two of the interview and photo shoot!
