Heartwood talks about their budding success
USC’s Heartwood just released their latest single, “Can’t You,” debuting their new, more polished rock sound but with catchy, sing-a-long melodies. Heartwood is comprised of four USC students, Michael Armstrong (lead singer/guitarist/trombonist), James Prinzi (drummer), Pat Rector (guitar) and Ameet Eini (bass). Playing a single release party this past weekend, the band gave fans a taste of their new work, with more songs to be released in late April.
Armstrong and Prinzi sat down for an interview with the Daily Trojan to talk more about their new music and where the band is headed.
DT: How did the band Heartwood come together?
MA: We were in the pop program together, and it was like the first month of being here as freshmen. I was like, “I wanna start a band!” James and I are technically the first members. It was me, James and a couple other guys, and we had a rehearsal with these other guys and they were kind of like, this isn’t our thing. It took a couple months sifting through people and then it became me, Pat, James and [former member] Chris Jackson. Then about six months ago Ameet joined, and that’s the current line-up, it’s the four of us. Once Ameet joined is when it started going and become a real thing.
DT: Where did the name Heartwood come from?
MA: James and I were trying to figure out a name for the band, and we opened a dictionary and it was literally the first thing we pointed to. The biggest thing was that we were really drawn to the name because of its definition because Heartwood is actually part of a tree and it is the inner part of the trunk, which is supposed to be the densest part. We thought that that was really describing the songs we were writing, which spoke to core human emotions. That’s why we really found an affinity for the name at first, and now it’s just become this thing with the images and the branding.
DT: How would you describe your sound right now? What has changed from the old stuff to this new single?
MA: It’s kind of a new direction for us; we kind of wanted to start fresh. The other stuff was a good beginning effort because we did it all ourselves. It was a little bit more sporadic in terms of our sound. We didn’t really have a good idea as to what we wanted to be. I would say the [new] songs are just better at their core. We’re years older now from the stuff that we started, so we’ve matured a lot and made decisions in the past, and we knew which routes to take as far as the sound we want to go with. Once Ameet joined too, he was very good about getting on us, like, ‘OK guys, let’s talk about what we want to do and what we want to be.’ That’s when we really started talking about what we want our sound to be and our brand to be. That’s when it all came together, when we had these conversations, and it was like, I want to take this kind of Nirvana sound and combine it with these kinds of drum sounds, and it all became this thing that was like, “Wow, We can all really get behind this and support this.” No matter what we’re proud of it, whereas, the other stuff was kind of like, we’re figuring it out, we’re throwing it together. So that’s kind of why the shift happened.
DT: Describe your sound or what the band is in a sentence.
MA: I’ve been calling it 2016 rock and roll. We’re trying to take what rock and roll used to be, the aggressive guitars and all that kind of stuff, and make it into a place that is 2016 basically. People can turn that on and be like, “Woah this is badass, this is rock.” But not, “Oh this is something from the ’90s or the ’70s.”
DT: What’s the songwriting process like for Heartwood?
JP: Michael writes most of the songs on his own. He’ll write an acoustic guitar, chords, melody and lyric kind of thing. A lot of the creative decisions about what we want to do with the song, arrangement ideas, that’s very much collaborative effort. Michael will bring the skeleton, but the finished product is everyone. Sometimes it’ll take 30 minutes and sometimes it’ll take two months.
DT: Are you looking to play more shows this year?
MA: We have a couple shows lined up, San Diego in April and a few more. We’re trying to keep our shows a little spread out this semester just because Ameet’s gone, so we don’t want to do too much without him here, which is why we’re focusing on the releases since those are already done.
DT: Where do you see the band in the next few years? After college?
MA: We talked about that a lot, we’re very prepared to go after college with the band. I think for all of us this is the main priority musically, so we want to take this as far as we can go.