Interview & Photos by Lindsey Dadourian
Recently, I had the chance to chat with Mulberry Hill, here is what they had to say!
How did you guys get your start as a band?
S: Well me and Jake kinda got things started
J: I met Savvy through Amanda!
A: We met at Applebees. My friend actually was like “Oh, you’re a lesbian? Well, my friend Amanda is over there and she’s lesbian!” And then we met and hung out a couple times.
S: And then we met Jake.
A: We all went to her house and played music together and they got really serious. I would just go in Jake’s basement and bring my guitar and write songs and sing about random stuff. I was like “Oh what do we both have in common?” and we both had, like, bad old relationships. I wrote a song called I Hate My Girlfriend. Then I brought my snare and hi hat over and then Jake asked me to come practice with them and it just blew up from there! We actually all took it pretty seriously.
J: She actually didnt wanna go, I had to convince her!
How long have you all been playing together?
S: Almost a year!
R: It’s been about two to three months for me, I picked up pretty fast.
S: They were thrown right into it and they did a great job.
A: Yeah we did a show probably within two months of them joining.
R: It was before I had the songs memorized, but it went well!
S: Yeah we had a show booked and when Dan quit it was just like well we can still play the show, we can just find another bassist! I had already seen Roz play here, actually, at Chaplins. I saw Roz play some folk-y music. Seeing them, I knew Roz was good!
A: Yeah, as soon as Dan quit Savvy was like, “I already got a bassist!” and next practice Roz came and we all really liked Roz. Roz wanted to take it seriously just as much as we did. It took me a little bit longer to get serious with everybody else but then when we played, Chestnut Grove kinda took us under their wing and had us practice at the barn and basically show them what we got, and they hooked us up with our first show!
How did you come up with the name Mulberry Hill?
S: Our old bassist, Dan, actually!
A: He’ll just like make stuff up when he sings if he doesn't know the lyrics. He’d replace it with like Mulberry Hill and Huckleberry Pie. It took us a really long time, we were gonna do Sorry We’re Drunk!
What is your biggest goal for the future as a band?
S: Well definitely touring! That’s probably our biggest one. Obviously every band wants to be famous, like yeah lots of money would be great, but touring is what we wanna do.
A: Touring would be really exciting, it would be great to meet- I mean we’ve met so many bands already and this will be our third show and we’ve met so all these bands where all these musicians are super nice and cool.
S: They’re our type of people! All musicians should get along with all other musicians just fine.
J: Except when they’re in a band together!
All: (laughs)
A: Yeah when they’re in a band together, no!
R: ‘Cause we do argue all the time!
A: We’ve gotten alot better though! Dan was a drama queen, but I love Dan!
If you could collaborate with any artist, past or present, who would you choose?
J: Personally, System of a Down.
A: I would wanna say Adam from Tigers Jaw, he’s in another band, Wicca Phase Springs Eternal, but old Adam. That would be awesome to collaborate with him and Bikini Kill.
S: Prince, because he’s freaking Prince! Oh my god, I love Prince!
R: I’d have to go with Jefferson Airplane!
How would you describe your music to listeners?
S: I would definitely say we have a lot of rock influences but also pop influences just mainly because we have a female lead. It’s hard to not sound pop when you have someone female vocal, which sucks because I don’t think that that makes sense.
J: Alternative.
S: That’s easy to describe any band as!
J: I don’t know, it’s hard to say because Amanda’s music is a lot more upbeat than mine.
A: Yeah, we’re pretty garage punk. We threw a lot of stuff out there! We’re still figuring it out.
S: I guess that would be the best way to describe it, a lot of rock influences.
Lastly, who are your biggest inspirations?
S: I would say we do- Jake, because his guitar riffs lead alot of our songs, I would say we take a lot of inspiration from System of a Down. I think he sounds the most like them when he plays guitar.
J: Yeah, I would say the same
S: That’s definitely where our band mostly takes the course of but we all listen to such a wide variety of genres. It is hard to explain what we are when we all have different tastes.
A: For me, for writing songs and stuff, my inspiration definitely came from Adam from Tigers Jaw because he had this like off-key voice and I’m like, I really love this! His lyrics were really cool and I was like if this guy can sing and play guitar and stuff and have other people really enjoy it then why can’t I try it?
J: Definitely a mix of everything!
