“Heffner are an Athens-based rock band who, after dropping their eclectic and enthralling album ‘Perfect Heaven,’ rolled back through Savannah for a positively electrifying poolside performance of both greatest hits and newly-heard tracks. Prior to this set, though, they took the time to sit down once again with SCAD Radio’s own Production Director Megan to discuss the creative process, superior beers, musical influences, and much more.”
Audio and transcript are located below:
Megan: Hello, SCAD radio. This is Megan, your production director. Today I’m here with the lovely band Heffner.
All: Hi!
Megan: So for the people who are you guys, what do you do in the band?
Reagan: I’m Reagan Byrd. I sing, play guitar, and do a little bit of keys in Heffner.
Taylor: I’m Taylor. I play guitar and sing in Heffner.
McKendrick: I’m McKendrick and I play bass and other things sometimes in Heffner.
Will: I’m Will, and I play the drums in Heffner.
Reagan: I’m Lars and I play guitar in Heffner.
Megan: Awesome. So finally, we get to sit down with the namesake of the band! Last time it was just, just our first two, but, nice to meet you. So real quick, I wanted to start out with the fact that on this album and the last there’s a real sense of kind of nostalgia. There’s a lot of references to childhood being young, like a first friendship on the last one with James Kim versus this one, like 2005, stuff like that. So what drives those? Do you wanna call back to that or just, just kind of happen?
Reagan: I think Taylor and I are–and for the rest of the band, I guess I’m gonna speak for them too– but we’re all kind of big kids, you know, I feel like my personality stopped developing when I was around 12 or 13 and so, you know, a lot of what makes me me comes from that sort of formative period of my life. So I like to write about it.
Taylor: Yeah. Yeah. Reagan and I grew up together. So he can, we have a lot of stories to pull from when we’re writing and, yeah Reagan and I have been in multiple bands where we try to write songs about things that happened a long time ago, but the songs have just started to not be really bad. So we wanted to try to take another stab at it.
Megan: That’s exciting! All right. Then on that note, there’s also a palpable air of fun about you guys. Like when you’re on stage, there’s a lot of bouncing around, interplay between you guys. And then even on the album, there’s a lot of like, Song structures that aren’t really beholden to like typical structures, stuff like that, and even like the vine reference on Hugs and Kisses. So how do you guys keep your music joyful to produce and to play even as like working adults?
Taylor: I mean, the main thing is we love being in the studio. And we’re always trying to amuse each other. And I think we’ve played with a lot of bands now and it’s really refreshing when we meet other bands that don’t take themselves all that seriously, but still are really amazing bands. Or like when we see shows that are big shows, when we take our field trips, it’s really fun. Like you see a band having fun and messing up and laughing it off. And I think with, with the production, we’re always like challenging– we don’t want to be a boring band.
Lars: Yeah. Definitely. I feel like it just comes across naturally in a lot of ways, you know, it’s not something I think we’re really conscious of. We’re all just like good friends, and that helps a lot.
Megan: If anything, I feel like in a lot of bands, people try too hard to be too serious, kind of very pretentious. So I feel like the naturalism of it definitely comes through.
Taylor: Thanks.
Megan: of course. So on the note of production and with this second album, Perfect Heaven, that you just dropped. There’s a pretty amazing jump in concept, I guess, on these songs where they jump around a little bit more, they play structure a little bit more. You never know, from one track to another, if you’re gonna get a blues rock track, if you’re gonna get a ballad, if you’re just gonna get a true blue indie rock. So what made you want to explore these other avenues? And was it intimidating to tackle all of those?
Reagan: I would say, I think all five of us have vastly different interests in music, like things that we find inspiring and want to emulate. And I think that a lot of our songs kind of start in a vein of like, let’s write a Porches song or let’s write a, this song or that song. And they always end up as Heffner songs, but, for all of us to pull our own interests into a track we never show up to the studio with something that’s really concrete. We’ll have like a song structure basically, and then kind of ride the wave from there. It’s nice to, to let everybody put their influence on the track. And you know, some of these songs are written two plus years ago. Some of them were written a week before we recorded them. So, you know what we were finding inspiring at the time that song was written vastly inspires how it turns out.
Taylor: Yeah. And McKendrick and I talk a lot about just serving the song. So I think we’re getting better at that all the time. Like the things that we record are things that feel good and right and necessary. And we just kind of try to like, it’s corny, but like whatever the song needs is what we try to record. And if somebody has an idea, any of us will play or find out what it is or whatever. It’s very democratic in the studio.
Megan: Yeah. That’s good.
McKendrick: I feel like maybe a way to say this is like, one thing about this band is I don’t think we’re really like afraid to try something that we haven’t done before. I think it reflects on the record when there’s kind of, you know, like stylistic jumps and things like that. It’s just us trying to stretch the writing a little bit. At least these guys for sure.
Taylor: And have fun.
McKendrick: Yeah. And like, there’s not really any fear in trying, which is a really nice thing to have.
Taylor: And McKendrick has a huge background in producing music and he has a composition degree. So he helps us do things, think outside of the box and write things that we otherwise wouldn’t.
Megan: I can hear the degree. I’ll say that. On the note of whatever the song needs and like songs from multiple years ago popping up. I bet a lot of it is like, wherever it finds a home on the album, right? Like as far as sequencing and stuff like that.
Reagan: Yeah. I mean, sequencing happens later, to a degree.
Taylor: The first record we recorded like the whole record and then we sequenced it. And we even cut a bunch of songs. The second one was tracked with like a little bit more of a sequence in mind. And then the third one is like, I think at least Reagan and I have an idea of like where all this stuff is going to land on the record. There’s even, the track that starts side B is going to be a rain stick intro that breaks out into like Death Grips. Basically the song is called It’s Time to Get High, and the back half of the record will be songs that fit in that world.
Reagan: Record three definitely has a little bit more of a concept as a whole, I think. Yeah. But I mean, at the same time, the common thread between the ideas on the record are gonna be just the five of us. Other than that, it’s just whatever
Taylor: It’s still gonna be all over the place.
Megan: Yeah, that’s awesome. You’re getting me excited for it already. and you were talking a lot earlier about like how you go into the studio and you’re like, I wanna make a porches song, stuff like that.
Taylor: Yeah. I can hear that. I hear the smattering of influences across it. One that I thought was really interesting–I don’t know if this is intentional–but like on Bad Attitude, it felt like kind of Painting With era Animal Collective.
Reagan: Yes.
Megan: Yeah. So do you guys have any particular like albums, bands, songs, even like moments in songs that really informed any of these tracks?
Reagan: I don’t know if I could get as specific as like certain tracks or not, but I’ve always been really inspired by people like Panda Bear and Animal Collective. His Crosswords EP was really inspiring for me.
Taylor: We were in love with the last Porches record. Yeah.
Reagan: It’s incredible. Dave Longstreth, Dirty Projectors for me is a very big influence.
Taylor: Yeah. Will is a total like UK–
Will: Yeah I love pop and ska, like all the Brit stuff from the eighties, nineties, all the way up to present day stuff. It’s really, really great. So grime stuff, all that is really up my alley.
Taylor: We always start saying, let’s write an insert band X song, and then by the time we finish writing the song and recording it, we forget what band we said we were gonna copy.
Megan: It’s always fun to kind of dig to that part there. Because every band has, I feel like, a couple that they’re like, “I wanna be like a tribute band for this.” There is like a– UK, Black Country, New Road, you know them.
Will: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Megan: On their first album there’s one lyric where they say, I wanna be the world’s second best Slint tribute act.
Taylor: That’s awesome.
Megan: I think that’s fun.
Taylor: McKendrick’s a big Slint guy.
Megan: Yeah. Good one. I wanted to ask what’s the story with the album cover, I know it was kind of a debacle to get the last one shot, but what’s the inspiration for this one?
Reagan: I think the common thread for the album covers so far has been like really high res. Like we did the first one with my sister Morgan Byrd and her husband, Ian. And we did large format photography for those. So that the negative is like four inches by five inches, could be blown up to the size of a billboard. So I thought that that was a really cool way to kind of communicate like beauty in an otherwise mundane setting. By treating it as like high art and so we wanted to kind of expand on that idea with this one. We got our buddy Steven Payne to shoot it with a drone because realistically our large format camera wouldn’t be able to be on a, you know, we’d have to like build a rig for it. But, we wanted to kind of be more intentional with like referencing tracks on the record. There’s like, if you look in the pile of stuff that’s on the front, there’s little nods to songs on the record. And we wanted to kind of employ loosely some Renaissance painting elements, like we’re laid in a spiral, alluding to the Fibonacci thing.
Taylor: Mostly, we thought it was funny to call the record Perfect Heaven and treat the shooting, the cover, like a renaissance painting and stage ourselves that way, but there’s a lot of trash in the photo. I ultimately just think that that’s funny because it makes sense for our music. It does both things, it’s happy and sad and fast and slow–
Reagan: — and refined and trashy sometimes.
Taylor: Yeah, exactly. Chaotic and really poppy and put together sometimes, at the same time.
Megan: Awesome. So I did notice that some of your earliest single releases are on a record label, but these past two LPs have been independent. So do you find that staying independent helps in terms of creative freedom or are there like downsides? Like with the advent of streaming and social media I feel like that makes independence more viable. Have you felt that way?
Taylor: Yes, definitely. I think it makes a lot of sense to be more DIY about things as a band. but I think if the right thing were to come along for us, we definitely would entertain it. Any amount of help with booking tours and helping us while we’re out on those tours we would probably welcome with open arms.
Lars: Yeah. I think we’re shopping a little bit. At least we’re like dipping our toe into it, you know?
Taylor: Yeah. We’re trying to have our cake and eat it too. Like we want to make exactly what we want to make, but we also want somebody to believe in it enough to give us some monies.
Lars: Somebody please give us money.
Megan: This is an open call for investors. So we talked about earlier, with the creative process– you said it’s pretty democratic. So walk me through it. What comes first? Lyrics music, melody, is there one person who tends to lead, what’s up?
Reagan: I would say traditionally the songs have started with Taylor or me. I would say with the first record they were written a lot of the time together. The two of us sat down with acoustic guitars. Second record kind of worked like I would have 70% of a song, Taylor would have 70% of a song. And then we would take it to the band and this third record, as it’s shaping up and even beyond, we have a rehearsal space now that we get into at least once a week on a good schedule. And we’ve been spending some time like jamming little ideas that one of us will start, and those start to take shape as like full instrumentals. So I’m excited to kind of experiment with that approach to where we come together and we bang out the instrumental together in the room, and then we go back and write lyrics, you know? So it’s kind of, you know, it’s shifting all the time, how our songs are.
Taylor: A little bit of both though, for sure. McKendrick’s almost always involved in pre-production, Will always plays the drums. Lars always contributes amazing guitar stuff. And like they both are writing sort of lead integral parts on their own respective things.
Like, even if there’s not lyric and melody coming from them, an equally important part of the song is still coming from the two of them. And they’re both so good in the studio too, that we can get it done quick.
Megan: Awesome. So you guys, I see on your Instagram, you post a lot about, uh, different beers.
What’s your guys’ favorite beer to drink while you’re recording?
Taylor: Free beer, whatever’s free
Lars: Taylor’s lying, it’s Coors Banquet, unequivocally.
Taylor: Yeah, it’s Coors Banquet every time.
Reagan: I’ll stand by thatmy favorite beer is Pinkus Muenster Alt,
Taylor: the world’s first brewery!
Taylor & Reagan: The world’s first organic brewery.
Megan: Shout out! So this one comes from Sophie, my podcast cohost, who asks, do you guys feel like your music exists in the Athens tradition or is it mostly just your own thing?
Taylor: Ooh, that’s a great question.
Lars: I mean, define Athens tradition.
Taylor: Athens tradition, I think in our minds and in the minds of a lot of bands that are in the scene in Athens right now, the whole B-52’s, REM, Pylon, like the whole sort of like grandiose Athens thing sort of died with The Glands in the nineties and early 0’s. The Glands is definitely the best band to ever come out of Athens, although they didn’t ever really come out of Athens, which is a shame. But, yeah, I feel like it’s its own thing. I feel like the scene is transformed, but it will always be an amazing place to live and be in a band and the scene is as healthy and large as ever. But yeah, it’s definitely like, it’s changed with the times a little bit. I can’t think of many bands that are really like calling back to any of those legacy Athens acts.
Megan: That makes sense, yeah. When I think about Athens, mostly, I’m thinking about a lot of indie, a lot of stuff like that. There’s some like chamber pop that I can think of, but none of that like kind of new wavy stuff.
Taylor: There’s a really cool hip hop scene. With people like Lingua Franca and WesdaRuler. And it does, it operates a little bit separate–
Lars: Motorhead TwoTimes.
Taylor: –Motorhead TwoTimes. It operates a little bit separate from our scene, but over the past couple years they’ve been coming together more and more, like we’ve been sharing bills with more hip hop acts, which is cool. It’s cool to see those two worlds come together.
Megan: Okay. As we get to the end, I wanted to ask about something else with social media, I guess– you guys have a way with TikTok. The promo vids you guys did for Perfect Heaven were very fun specifically. I like the boxing one, that one was a modern classic. Do you guys just make those for funsies as a group or is the album promo a benefit from that? Or is it vice versa?
Reagan: I think there’s always kind of a goal in mind when we make a TikTok, I don’t think any of us are young and internet savvy enough to just be good at TikTok. It’s definitely a, a concerted effort on our part, for sure. There’s a learning curve. But we do have fun with it when we get together. It’s the same vein of like not taking ourselves too seriously. I think it’s fun to kind of poke fun at your own music and TikTok has just given us one more way to do that.
Taylor: Yeah. I love TikTok, first of all. And I have a lot of fun making them and we’re pretty much just trying to make each other laugh with them. We don’t really think about it as promo any more than like–
Reagan: an Instagram post.
Taylor: Yeah. Any more than like, let’s just play the game a little bit. And like I’m on this app so much. I might as well make one every once in a while.
Megan: Yeah, that makes sense. All right. Well, that’s all I got. So thank you guys so much for talking, it’s always a pleasure!
All: Thank you!
Taylor: Shout out Nate Nelson, who records us. Shout out Nate Nelson!
Reagan: Baby on the way.
Taylor: Baby on the way.
Megan: Middle name gonna be Heffner.
Lars: Yes.
Taylor: I’m hoping. I’m hoping.
Megan: All right, that’ll do us. So thank you guys for listening, thank you for reading. This has been SCAD Radio, more than music. Goodbye!
