After laying low throughout the pandemic, The Head and the Heart are resurfacing with a new single, “Every Shade of Blue,” today (January 21st). An album of the same name will arrive April 29th, and their “Every Shade of Blue Tour” will kick off in the spring.
The Seattle-formed sextet returns to the road May 20th in St. Petersburg, Florida, and currently has coast-to-coast North American dates announced through the beginning of October, with more to come according to the band members.
“This is the first time we’ve booked out so far in advance,” singer-violinist-guitarist Charity Rose Thielen tells Consequence. “The reality and the competition of everyone trying to get out there means a little bit more long-form planning. We’re trying to touch as much as we can within the moving target.”
Thielen and singer-guitarist Jonathan Russell also acknowledge a bit of trepidation after spending so much time largely at home and out of the fray.
“I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have some sort of fear of, ‘Holy shit, do I remember how to do this? I don’t know…'” Russell explains with a laugh. “I’ve learned what it’s like to be an indoor cat now. I’ve kind of been domesticated. I’m so scared I’ve un-learned how to survive the traveling circus on the road. I’m sure the first night it’s all gonna click.”
Thielen concurs, confident that “there’ll be a decent amount of muscle memory and we’ll get into the flow and re-establish patterns and habits again. I think it’s going to be amazing, especially going back into it with this newfound appreciation of live events and live music. That connection between the audience and us is going to really carry so much of the momentum of feeling.”
General public tickets for the tour go on sale today (January 21th), with tickets available via Ticketmaster.
Russell, Thielen and their bandmates are also excited to have a follow-up to 2019’s Living Mirage ready for expected release this spring. The 16-track Every Shade of Blue was started during 2019, but progress was of course scuttled by the pandemic. The group members continued working on material in their home studios and remotely with a variety of producers, including Andrew Sarlo, John Hill, Jon Brion and Jesse Shatkin.
The group connected particularly well with Shatkin (Sia, Kelly Clarkson, Fitz & the Tantrums) and wound up finishing the album with him during sessions last June and September at Studio Litho in Seattle, where THATH made its first two albums.
“It was almost like coming back home,” Russell reports. “We used the same engineer, Shawn Simmons. There was this balance of old and new, being familiar with the studio but bringing somebody much newer in his relationship with us.”
