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Renee Heartfelt Photo taken by Michelle Dosson

On Magdalene, Renee Heartfelt sounds like a band in transition.  Their hardcore past shines through, but it is the introspective lyrics and the change in tone that really stand out on these tracks.  References to early nineties favorites like Texas is the Reason will surely come to mind, but far from being clones of these earlier bands, Renee Heartfelt is pursuing a sound that is at once more urgent and more subtle than their obvious antecedents. 

On a Tuesday night in the pulsating punk-rock heart of the nations capitol, I met up with Pete Appleby, the singer for Renee Heartfelt.  Composed of members from various DC and Virginia hardcore luminaries, Renee Heartfelt is a band in transition, shedding its hardcore roots and moving into the realm of melody and subtlety.  They are touring in support of their recent EP Magdalene, and on this Tuesday night, they were plying their trade at the Velvet Lounge on U Street along the edges of DCs hipster district.  It was pretty crowded for a Tuesday night, and in a dimly lit, smoke-filled hole of a room, Renee Heartfelt gave everyone a reason to wake up a little later and sneak into work a little more tired on Wednesday.  After knocking out the songs from the EP and a couple of newer tunes, I sat down with Appleby to find out a little more about the evolving nature of Renee Heartfelt. 

LOTD: When are you planning on coming out with a full-length album?

Pete Appleby: I would say this summer some time. Were writing for it right now.  We have a ton of songs, but weve been trying to play out pretty frequently, and thats been kind of getting in the way of the continuity of writing.  Most bands take like three months or so doing nothing other than focusing on writing, but if you are playing out, you have to worry about that so

LOTD:  Where have you been playing?

Pete Appleby: Mostly up and down the East coast, not really in the West at all.  We need to go out on an opening tour out there; I dont really want to venture out there alone.  Weve done that in past bands, and it can be, uh, dramatic.

LOTD: Well, how have the crowds been treating you so far?

Pete Appleby: Receptive, I guessits tough, because we are going out by ourselves and the crowds have been small, but a lot of people that were into like Collins old bands have been coming out, and its been cool. I feel like its been tough because it was thrown together haphazardly, and some of the dates werent the best.  Like, its Tuesday night and people arent really coming out to see bands.  21 and up, thats our main problemit needs to be more 18 or all ages shows. 

LOTD: At what point did you decide to move away from the more traditional hardcore of your earlier bands?

Pete Appleby: Ah man, how long ago was that? We were still playing in hardcore bands, and then I approached Collin about doing more like a rock band.  I had some songs and they were horrible, absolutely horrible, but we decided that we should go ahead and try to start playing some of them.  We had just been playing between, because Collin was still up in Boston, and between tours, if he would come down to Richmond, we would kind of mess around with some stuff.  So, we did that on and off for about two years, and then we got a band lined up and that went for about a year and then about a year ago we really started playing out with roughly the sound we have now and recorded the EP [Magdalene].  So, I feel like Ive been doing this for a long, long time, because I was always into rock bands even when I was doing more hardcore stuffI feel like Ive been doing it forever, but really about two years ago, this band really began to take shape. 

LOTD: So whos been writing the songs, you?

Pete Appleby: Yeah, pretty much.  I mean, obviously I will bring it to the band as a skeleton and everyone will mess around with it, but yeah, I usually write the songs. 

LOTD: How do you write them?

Pete Appleby: You know its funny, I used tohow I used to do it, I lived in my moms attic and I had a drum set, because I originally played drums, so I had the full band set up and I could play the drum parts and construct the song like that, so it could be full on with all the parts in it.  I have since moved out, so now it is mostly on acoustic guitar

LOTD: Well, that is what I was wondering, because there are a lot of pop elements in it and definitely the pop structure, so I was wondering if you wrote on acoustic. 

Pete Appleby: Yeah, a lot of them are written onwell, pretty much everything is now written on the acoustic, but there is definitely a struggle for us there because some of the people in the band definitely want to stay heavieras do I, I mean I love that stuffbut I definitely love melodies too, and I find that it is easier to write those types of songs on the acoustic.  But were kind of still finding that balance.  I think you can kind of tell on the EP that we are still pulling in those two directions.

LOTD: Where are you going musically? I noticed you played one or two newer songs tonight; what is the full length going to sound like?

Pete Appleby:  I always tell people to listen to the last song on the EP.  You know its funny, its like everyones first record they spend a lifetime to write it, or how ever long they have been writing songs, but from then on out you get songs that were written in the last year, so there can be a lot more continuity to records that come out later.  Those songs (from the EP) came from when the band first started.  For instance, that song Picasso [the last song on the EP] is crazy because we had written it every song we write has like 30 versions, which is my fault.  Ill bring a song to the band and well play it this way and Ill kind of be like, that sounds cool, well do this idea.  Then, two weeks down the road, Ill be like, thats horrible we have to start working on it again.  It drives the band absolutely ape, they hate it because I am always trying to change it.  So that one [Picasso] is definitely one that went through a ton of different permutations.  Its funny, because the second song on the EP [Melodramatic], is kind of an inside joke because there are like 20 versions of that song.  I dont know; were getting much bettermuch faster at writing music.  Where we used to deliberate on a song forever

LOTD: Would you say that songs like Melodramatic and Picasso are more emblematic of your sound and how its evolving?

Pete Appleby: Yeah, I would say that Picasso and Melodramatic are much more so.  There wasIm trying to think of a song that changedwe have definitely been working in that sound much more.  I would say the LP is definitely going to resemble the sound of Picasso without a doubt.  I still want to be really aggressiveI still really love that kind of music.  At the same time, weve been really using piano a lot more too. 

LOTD: The recording quality is really good on the EP, which is unusual.  How did you work that out?

Pete Appleby: We went to Brian; Brian McTurner recorded Count Me Out, so we had always worked with him, and we called Brian and asked him if he would record us and he was into it.  So when it came time to do it, he was absolutely swamped and he said there was no way he could do it.  Fortunately, I had this good friend Matt Squire and he knew someone else.  So we went to work with him.  An awesome guy to work with and he had some really good ideas about producing and I think the recording turned out really well. 

LOTD:  How different is the musical aesthetic between the people in the band?  Are you pretty much in tune with the rest of them? 

Pete Appleby: Everyone in the band right now, theyre pretty punkTheyre all about it.  Our drummer right now, he worships the Misfits, and I love that about him, but theyre all pretty open-minded. Theyre still hardcore kids, but honestly, the music we are writingeveryone is really excited about it.  Its definitely not one of those things where someones like, hey, sorry you dont like the song, but play it anyway. Everyone has been really into the new music we have been writing.  I feel like a lot of bands want to throw in more melody into their songs and be a little more concise in their songwriting.  I mean, there is nothing wrong wit the pop construction of a song with a verse, chorus, verse, chorus.  In a way it serves a purpose, but I think there are people who can do songs that have absolutely nothing to so with that kind of construction and they sound great, but I think there are a lot of bands out there today that are, I dont know, muddling it up sometimes.  I appreciate a nice chorus. 

LOTD: Were you singing in any of the other bands that you guys played in?

Pete Appleby: No, I wasnt. 

LOTD:  So this is the first time that you have been singing out?

Pete Appleby: Yeah. 

LOTD: Have you been comfortable with that?

Pete Appleby:  Yeah, you know singing is crazy.  Playing guitar is just an issue ofwell, you just play.  With singing, the thing is that you can have a bad night and maybe it is cold out or you are tired and that can mess everything up.  You can definitely get obsessive about it.  Speaking to other singers, I can definitely relate.  I never used toI used to play shows with Count Me Out, and our singer would be freaking out because his voice was a little off and I was like whats the big deal?  I completely understand what he was going through now.   Its hard; its definitely a lot more personal than the guitar.  You can definitely hide behind the guitar a lot more than you can a microphone. 

LOTD: Plus, they are your lyrics.

Pete Appleby: Exactly.

LOTD:  Well, I read that when you were in Count Me Out, your singer wouldnt let you read his lyrics.  Is that how you feel?  How comfortable are you with the lyrics?

Pete Appleby: I dont know man. Ill say one thing that when I was coming up, there were bands like the Promise Ring, and I always thought their lyrics were great, but lately its becoming overdone.  Too much about relationships and Ive been harping about it lately and I shouldnt.  No, I mean I have no problem about sharing lyrics.  Its hard at first, but after a while you just learn to accept it.  People are going to hate it, and some people are really going to relate to it.

LOTD: Where do you guys feel like you are going? 

Pete Appleby: Lyrically, when I first started writing lyrics, I was real hung up on, like all kids are, on girls, relationships, that whole coming of age thing.  As you get older, and I think I see this now, kids that are still in that appreciate certain lyrics and Ive said this before, but the fact that she broke up with me is not the end of the world.  So writing a song about breaking up with a girl is just not relevant to me. I have to stop myself sometimes now, because Im just dealing with a lot of issues of growing up.  Ive been doing this since I was 14, and it has come to the point where I need to do something different now.  Its all I want to do, but its hard. 

LOTD: How has the response to the EP been?

Pete Appleby:  The response has been good.  A lot of people have been saying it is a throwback to some of the early 90s stuff, and thats cool and flattering.  I loved those bands and thats probably where I, where all of us got our motivation from, whereas Im pretty much oblivious to some of the more current stuff.  A lot of those bands came up the right way too.  They came up the ranks from punk rock, touring constantly and evolved into the bands that they were and that gave them a certain amount of depth that you dont see in some of the bands today; but again I could just be old and jaded. 

LOTD: I think we are all getting older.

Pete Appleby: I know.  Some of these shows we played one in New Jersey, and I think everyone was like thirteen.  Ive never felt older than on that night.

LOTD:  Thanks for talking to us.

Pete Appleby:  Thank you for coming.   

Music by Renee Heartfelt can be purchased at Limekiln Records

Renee Heartfelt Official Website

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