by Holli Stephens
At 11, Noel Heroux could loop his guitar riffs and vocal recordings without even realizing what looping was. He would record parts on various boomboxes and sing over them for days on end. Heroux laughs before saying, “I was always kinda messing with stuff.” Years later his dad would by him his first 4Trak recorder.
It was never a decision for Heroux to seriously get into music, it was more like a series of nonchalant jam sessions in high school with drummer Christopher Principe and early demo recordings that got his music picked up. The duo has stuck together ever since and seen a various amount of musicians pass through the band they created. Hooray For Earth has now solidified into a four-piece of Heroux, Principe, Joseph Ciampini, and Jessica Zambri.
A Boston native, Heroux felt like he was “stuck in a bubble” and on a particular gig in NYC he played the show and didn’t go back to Boston with the band. “At that one moment I happened to have the right amount of money and it was enough to move. It wasn’t much thought.”
After solidifying the band and getting his now wife Zambri onboard, Heroux is a lot more confident with their sound. Especially live, “it was a struggle to get everything to sound a certain way” and so this time around touring is something that he’s especially looking forward to. “It will be fun to go back to places that we’ve been and feel more at ease.”
Released on July 29, the actual recording of Hooray For Earth’s second studio album, Racy, was “very easy ”, says a relaxed sounding Heroux. “There are no arguments or discussion and it’s obvious. We’re like, yea! Lets do this and do this and we’re good.”
“Racy” was the only song not intentionally written for the actual album. Heroux laughs before saying how the song and album are about what he’s trying to do now. “I’m not able to explain what I’m thinking and that was the process, my racing thoughts and my brain and how it’s just a constant racy mess.” He labeled the song “Racy” and let it sit for a while before solidifying its title. And when the time came to name the album, Racy seemed fitting as well because Heroux felt that he’s not “able to stop [his] brain from spinning sometimes.”
Heroux only hopes that his audience will see the album the way he sees it. Not even sure of what the intention is, Heroux believes that the songs will create an emotion and make sense to people the way it makes sense to him.
You can catch Hooray For Earth along with Grooms and Night Panther on August 5th at The Underground Arts.
