People have a history of getting hung up on labels. Mention the band Hooray For Earth to folks and they hit you with the question that everyone loves to ask and everyone else hates to answer--"what do they sound like?" Telling people that listening to Hooray For Earth feels like being dragged down a flight of stairs while being sung a lullaby never seems to satisfy them. Another critic once wrote that the band's music sounds like "Enya and Nirvana breaking things in a video arcade in hell," which predictably led to more head scratching. The irrefutable evidence will show that a few years, an EP, and a full-length album into their career, Hooray For Earth is a band that plays music that's as timeless as it is impossible to classify.
Although the band first appeared publicly as Hooray For Earth in 2006, roots were planted a decade earlier when bassist Chris Principe asked singer/arranger Noel Heroux to join his high school band. The two spent the next few years’ underground, waiting out the wave of rap metal that plagued the good land during the earlier part of the decade. When they emerged from hiding Noel, already an accomplished guitarist at age 12, had assumed mastery over anything-you-can-make-music-with-and-certain-things-you-should-not--make-music-with. In 2003 the band added Seth Kasper, a visceral drummer of frightening proportions, to the fold. Keyboardist/guitarist Gary Benacquista would join the following year as the freshman band quickly gathered momentum. As the band's legend began to grow, so did Noel's skills as a songwriter/arranger. By the beginning of 2004, armed with Noel's stockpile of self-recorded yet fully realized demos, the band hit the studio to begin work on what would be their debut album.
It has been said that any truly great album has an equally awe-inspiring story about its creation. The album that came to be called Hooray For Earth is no exception. Recording for the album began on one side of the continent one year and ended on the opposite side two years later. Obstacles of biblical proportions were encountered along the way. Nobody broke out in boils but at a certain point anything seemed possible. Studios burned to the ground. Equipment was stolen. Hair went unwashed for months on end. Sleep was avoided at all costs. The album was thought to be finished several times only to have the restart button pressed again and again. Yet by the time the band headed to Seattle in 2006 to mix with co-producer Brian Brown (Juliana Hatfield, The Blakes), it was clear the juice was worth the squeeze and the band were sitting on a stunner of debut album. In 2008, Hooray For Earth teamed up with Dopamine Records for their first international release, the critically acclaimed Cellphone EP. Their LP Hooray For Earth is being released on the label on January 13th, 2009!
Dopamine Records Unofficial CMJ Showcase
Thursday, October 23, 2008 - Brooklyn, NY - Alphabeta
(70 Greenpoint Ave, Between Franklin & West)
Doors at 9PM
Line up: Hooray For Earth, Zambri, Pacific Theater, Paul Holmes, DJ Die Young, Baltimoroder
Other Shows (More to be announced)
10.29.08 - New York, NY - Pianos*^
10.31.08 - Allston, MA - O'Briens, Halloween Bash*
* with Zambri, Paul Holmes
^ with The Gang
Hooray For Earth
Track Listing
01. Want Want Want
02. How Are You Here
03. Heartbeat
04. Magazines
05. Carefree
06. Oh No
07. So Happy
08. Party
09. Take Care
10. This All Fades
11. Everything We Want
12. Something Strong
Praise for Hooray For Earth:
"Hooray for Earth's new self-released Hooray for Earth, an outlandishly good CD and one of the best local debuts in recent memory... Picture Squarepusher and Enya collaborating on songs for In Utero." – Boston Phoenix
Boston's Hooray for Earth sound big and famous even if they are still relatively unknown. But even if they aren't a band on a billboard just quite yet, they sure write songs catchy enough to ensure that one day their mugs will grin down on the great asphalt sea of commuters. - Oh My Rockness
"Hooray For Earth plays an exciting blend of raw rock & roll with keyboard and laptop elements that work together and make you say, "Fuck this is good." And then you like them forever."
– Weekly Dig
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