Behind The Album: The House & Home and Suntitle's Split

01-26-2024

House & Home and Suntitle just released their brand new "Split" EP that features two tracks from each group. To celebrate we asked them to tell us about the EP. Here is the story:

The House & Home / Suntitle split was sort of an overnight idea. Suntitle had a few songs that they'd been sitting on for months, and actually recorded vocals with Pat from House & Home. The songs started as demos and ideas that they collaborated on with past band members. The drums were tracked by their old drummer, DJ before Matt joined, and Tyler, who's played guitar with them in the past, was in the studio as well. The instrumentals and mix were done by Jake Clarke, and they were planning on releasing them in the form of an EP at some point in 2023 or early 2024. It was pure coincidence that House & Home was planning on going into the studio to record some new songs around the same time. We wanted to have some new music ahead of a tour that, funnily enough, never even happened. We went into the studio with loose ideas, made a few demos, and brought everything to Will Beasley to get everything polished and ready to record. The studio was an interesting experience, both good and bad. Some ideas came together effortlessly, while others were a little more labor intensive. "Cellophane," for instance, was an idea that came out of a bit of desperation. There was an idea that we'd spent all day working on that we couldn't quite get to work. We all got a little frustrated, went home to take a break, and came back at around 9pm to start something new. We had the skeleton of that song done in about 20 minutes. Regardless, everyone was looking for the best way to release the songs, and I think it was Matt, who drums in both bands, that came up with the idea of just releasing the songs together.

Suntitle and House & Home met in October of 2018 (if I remember correctly) and immediately hit it off. We toured together and played countless shows together, hanging out whenever we were in each other's cities and keeping in touch constantly. You meet a lot of really awesome people playing music, but it's still somewhat rare to make a connection that turns into a friendship like that. House & Home heard about the idea of a split while in the studio recording our two songs, and it was pretty much a ten second conversation. Matt brought it up, everyone looked at each other for a second, and there was a collective "I'm down." It seemed like a no brainer.

On both sides, I think the lyrical content in these songs is kind of "dark" in a way. What's cool about both of our bands is I think the lyricists use the songs as an outlet for negative emotion a lot of the time. We're not sad people, necessarily, but we all understand that there's a certain catharsis in spilling the not-so-happy part of your guts into a song. Then, when people relate to it and react to it at a show, it's like an affirmation that you're not crazy and you're not the only person that feels like that. That's another thing that our bands just naturally have in common. It makes sense, considering we have a lot of the same influences and a passion for the same kind of music. There's a collective vision there that's hard to explain, but everyone gets it.

Both bands were, and still are, in a period of exciting and rapid growth. Suntitle relocated to Richmond a little over a year ago, and has hit the ground running, immediately grinding to make a place for themselves in Richmond, and touring as hard as ever. House & Home is actively trying to write more "evolved" music and doing everything we've been doing bigger, better, and in as many different cities as possible. I think both bands are just in a place where we all know how hard we need to push and we're all dedicated to making it happen. These are some of the most mature and interesting songs our bands have done, and we both want to see each other succeed. That's kind of the spirit behind this whole release. We've been rooting for each other for years now, and we want to do something collaboratively that will help push our bands forward. We're all insanely proud of the work everyone has put into this and are all dedicated to making sure we take these songs as far as they can go.

Hearing is believing. Now that you know the story behind the EP, listen for yourself here