The four friends at the core of The Heavy Hours have been collaborating in some sense since high school, united by a shared passion for a wide range of sounds, from alternative rock and contemplative folk, to radio-friendly rock ‘n’ roll. While playing together in previous incarnations, the band proved local favorites, earning acclaim for their engaging live performances.

Adopting the band’s name from a line in William Butler Yeats’ Autobiographies, The Heavy Hours emerged in 2018, eager to explore a long-standing fascination with time-honored songwriting and production. Their music soon made its way to Dan Auerbach, who invited his fellow Ohioans to visit his Easy Eye Sound headquarters in Nashville for a few days of collaborative songwriting. The sessions were both productive and a revelation, inspiring band members Marcagi and Yorio to strip away some of their previous artifice in order to touch a more universal chord. Armed with a cache of new songs and innumerable ideas, The Heavy Hours traveled to the rural Catskill Mountains NY to record under the aegis of producer Simone Felice (The Lumineers, Matt Maeson, Jade Bird) and mixer David Baron. The winter sessions proved incredibly fruitful, yielding a collection of distinctive new music that serves as an undeniable milestone on The Heavy Hours’ ongoing creative journey. “The Heavy Hours arrive right when they are needed most,” says Felice, “offering up a truly exceptional blend of Americana, widescreen pop, and heartland rock ‘n’ roll, all lit from within by an audacious spirit and remarkably open-armed approach.”

Having found their voice, The Heavy Hours are now fully focused on the future, determined to develop and expand the parameters of their intrepid sound and vision. Indeed, the band’s musical capacity seemingly grows more adventurous with each passing day. Brimming with self-assurance, creative ambition, and infinite artistry, The Heavy Hours are set to take on the world.

“We started playing music having never played music together before,” Yorio says, “and we played what we knew how to play. Now we’re in a position where we’ve worked with Dan Auerbach, with Simone Felice, these guys that have become our mentors, our professors. It’s like we’ve gone through basic training and now it’s time for us to take all these tools, all these things we’ve learned, and see what comes with that. The different styles of songwriting that we’ve gained, combined with what our natural instincts are, I’m super excited to start writing again and get back to our practice space to create whatever’s going to come next. Every day I wake up and think, ok, now we’re getting started…”