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Welcome to the HereSay Anthology - a page devoted to the popular band from Adams County, Pennsylvania.
THE GUYS:
On Beginnings
"The official beginning of HereSay would have to be when Rob, Ben, and I wrote the words "HereSay," "Hearsay," "Heerse'," and "Horensagen" on the cinder blocks of Ben's basement wall..the last one being the German spelling of "hearsay." We had been playing together for maybe a month or two, and decided on the word - it took another month to figure out the spelling.
But the beginning of the beginning was when Ben and I began hanging out - Ben had his Stratocaster guitar, and I had...well, I had anything I could play, but primarily an autoharp. The first song we played was "Big Me" by the Foo Fighters, because all the chords were on the autoharp. There we were, playing guitar and autoharp and butchering a simple song, but in our minds, we were already a band." - Joe
"Technically, I think it began with Joe and Henry [Benton] in my living room playing '5/4 Jew Funk' which was never released. At that time, Joe and I both played bass....well, we both had basses. Henry had the oldest, ugliest, sweetest green fake strat I'd ever seen. But beyond that, I think it really began late Summer '99 at Ben's house. We spent an afternoon recording 'Bad Moon,' 'Out of My Head,' and 'I've Got a Feeling'. I believe Crotch was also there at that time, playing Grant DeLong's mouldy drum set. I'm pretty sure HereSay officially began when we convinced Mr. DeLong that we'd bring the drums back someday soon." - Rob
"I remember I had just been told that HereSay would be happy to have me as a drummer and then one night I get a call from Ben. He says that the Quixotics need a drummer for a gig that night. I had never met any of the Quixotics and had never played with them. But I packed up the drums and Ben filled me in on the way. We sat down and played a great show, had lots of fun. And by the end of the night, when it was all over I realized I had just gotten the greatest introduction to a band ever." – Mike
On Recording
"Recording was a chore, but I don't remember it as one because we were always clowning around. I can't pick one funny thing over another, really - it was all very silly and I like it very much." - Ben
"[Sessions] were hell. Straight up. If Indie was ever cool, girls should be fainting in our footsteps, and we should be too cool to look down or avoid stepping on them. Our first recorder, lovingly dubbed 'Track 4' was actually worse than a standard stereo tape deck. It had 4 inputs, but only the fourth one worked. We also had one microphone, one stand, and a bunch of static-y instrument cables. From that, we produced the Soup Can Tape, our first album. As a result of high speed dubbing, all the tapes in existence ( I believe) self-destructed after 6 days.
Needless to say, things got better, but it was always by slip and by shod. We were always trying to get new sounds into the same old microphone. And we were always building foam walls and hanging mics from the rafters to try to keep other things out of them. I think recording with HereSay provided me with more problem solving tools and spacial conceptualization than Mr. Bair's Mechanical Drawing class ever did!" - Rob
"I think the sessions were a testament to the amount of Mountain Dew a high school kid could drink between midnight and 5:00 AM. They were a riot, and at the same time, they were a chore. My ultimate regret is that most of the sessions were at my house - which caused Ben trouble because of his allergies and my pets.
We also had about three "walks" a night - we would walk from my house down past the old Thomas mansion, to where the "Humpty Bridge" used to cross the railroad tracks. We would talk about anything and everything - our songs, our lives, our problems, what we'd record next...we talked a lot, and I think that's a good thing. It's almost like our CDs, to us, were a record of our conversations." - Joe
"I just remember the experience of recording all night and waking up to see if what we did the night before actually sounded good or if we were so tired that our "masterpiece" was actually some audible version of shit. Most times they really were masterpieces. I secretly kept all the sh*** sessions and now hide them in my cassette drawer filed under 'Randy Newman'." - Mike
"Several memories come to mind:
I remember the horrible midnight-8am session that produced "Fiberoptic Dog" in all of its unable-to-ever-recreate-again glory.
I remember Joe falling asleep in to lucious sex-filled dreams courtesy of an all-night 'Undressed' marathon, while Ben and i slaved to record "I'm Confused" in its never-to-be-played-live-even-once-thus-excluding-the-possibility-of-trying-to-recreate-it glory.
I remember Ben and I writing songs by candle light on some cold ass fall night because the power was gone out. We wrote "All I See" and something else brilliant. Then we went outside and screamed "Go Home Joe!" into the wind because we thought Joe was trying to come down to Ben's house from Boy Scout Camp. He wasn't though. He was pursuing other creative urges at the time.
The best memory by far was when Joe was doing the final take of vocals in Somebody/Nobody. Ben and I stood behind Joe asses bared to the sun waiting to give him a heartfelt round of applause. Its still on the track on most copies of the disc. Some of the ones I distributed did not have it because I liked an alternate mix of the track in which i had removed the jocular reveries. Thinking now, I'm not sure why Ben and I did it, I think the idea came from Sgt. Pepper's." - Rob
"(Laughing) Yeah, I remember coming back to Ben's house...I actually did walk a good mile from Boy Scout Camp to my girlfriend's house...and I stopped by Ben's so that Rob could drive me back. It was freezing that night! I remember that Rob and Ben played me "All I See" and "Why Do I Stay Up"...and they had started writing "So Hard Feelin' Good." I was amazed - it was almost like I myself wasn't taking the band as seriously as they were until I heard those songs that night. This was when we were going from a goofy, almost comical band, to a group that was seriously putting a lot of time and effort into our music." - Joe
On Touring
"I think the reason for HereSay's popularity wasn't that we did anything flashy or extremely crazy...most bands during our high school years were either loud heavy rock bands, or moshing punk bands. We just wrote music and wanted to share it. Our success was really due to our confidence and our ability to get people to our shows - which, for the most part, was all Ben." - Joe
"My favorite live memory was when we struck up "Sunshine" at the Ridgewood Wedding gig, to see a throng of people rush up to us and start their own dancefloor! Sweet!" - Ben
"Okay, picture it: Emily Paull's birthday party. We were on between Boot-n-Jon and some sadly band from New Oxford. Boot-n-Jon played. No one noticed. They got off easy. We played, and played with such fury and depth of character that the winds began to whip around us at upwards of 70 knots. Unfortunately, this just blew all the equipment off stage and made any semblance of cohesion impossible. The fury was so great, they say, one of the New Oxford kids was suddenly un-bored, causing his head to explode. However, the rest didn't even stir from their sad contemplations, and we didn't get paid either. I say this memory was good because it was on that very day that I became aware of my own mystic powers, forcing me to drag my feet about and shun live preformance forever after, fearing for the lives of those around me." - Rob
"We used to play "Baby One More Time" a lot, that Britney Spears song. I think the fact that it was just a ballsy move struck a chord with most people, but in reality, we were trying to show people that it's actually not a bad song at all. It was when we started teasing people with other songs, like "Stairway to Heaven," before going into a Britney Spears tune - that was when we got some reactions. Not always good reactions, but reactions, nonetheless." - Joe
"I'll always remember the middle of "Rocketman" at the Biglerville show. When we hit the middle and started rockin', we clicked. All of us there just knew it. I remember Ben lookin' over at me and smiling ear to ear. We really became a band that moment, up on stage, rockin and just loving music. And of course, the light-stylings of Jarrod Jones put the icing on the cake." – Mike
"Our shows were usually two sets, and we'd take a break between them - which became time for Ben and I to play solo songs. I performed "Out Loud" by Dispatch once, and it was just a cool feeling, even though I didn't write it, to see people singing along. And other times, it was great to just see people bobbing their head to our songs.
My favorite song to perform live, by far, was "Red House." Ben knew that song like the back of his hand, and Mike would feed off of what he played. And I just got to sit back and groove on it. When my solo would come up, I'd always go crazy with it, until one night I started playing, and my hands started doing the melody of "Night Train." And since we were all in the BHS Jazz Band, Ben and Mike went right along, hitting the accents perfectly. It was just a fun time." - Joe
On Songs
"They were an amazing batch of songs for who we were at the time. So Hard feelin' Good, Pudding, BOJ, Joe Forgotten, and Elevator were always what I thought of as the big five- the ones that held the album together. But honestly, Somebody/Nobody is genius. Till the End ismost moving song we ever had. What the hell did I write again?" - Rob
"'All I See.' It's a pretty simple song, but it's a beautiful melody and a beautiful message - "you and love are all I see", it's a simple notion. See? It all fits together!" - Ben
"My personal favorites, from the early days, were the collaborations: "Elevator" and "Lullabye" are both written by Ben, Rob, and myself, almost to the point where it's hard to remember who contributed what. And "Joe, Forgotten" and "Polygamy" were both lyrics written by Rob - his words literally sing their melodies to me, and I just write it down." - Joe
On Each Other
"Ben was cool because he'd let me do what I wanted in whatever songs he brought to the mix. Ben is actually the reason I began to feel comfortable writing my own songs and instrument parts in the first place. He was never not encouraging, even when I didn't want him to be. He'd make me make up my own part when he didn't have one in mind. That was right, Ben. Thank you for doing that." - Rob
"Ben is the peak of musical love. I don't know any man that loves playing and enjoying music as much as him. If nothing else I would have been glad to hear him play - to get to play WITH him has truly been an honor." - Ben
"Ben goes into anything one hundred percent. There were a lot of times where we'd be playing a pointless gig with less than ten people there. Ben would be playing and talking as if it was an arena. We'd play a song horribly - Ben would end it and go on as if nothing went wrong at all. It wasn't only his confidence, but his honesty - Ben always went into his music with a "this is me, accept it" type of attitude.
And his ability to publicize the band was just amazing. He'd make flyers, he'd post them all over Gettysburg. He'd send out mass emails to everyone, and he's the reason we could pack the Reader's Cafe every month." - Joe
"People might not have cared a lot about Heresay if Mike wasn't in it. Put to simply say that people generally don't listen to rock bands that don't have drummers is to sell Mike WAY too short. We threw Mike in there and asked him to play along with recordings of songs he hadn't heard before that often fluctuated in tempo when we made our album. And once he'd heard the song a few times, he knew what he wanted to do and added the most appropriate and tasteful rhythms and fills to everything he did. We hadn't really had a drummer in mind when we wrote many of the songs, but when Mike played with us, all the sudden the songs sounded better than we'd ever thought they could. Mike took a more creative role in the "Fallen Tower" album, and his contribution to songs like the title track and "Paper Moon" are far too overlooked." - Ben
"Every high school drummer learns this first: that in order to make sound on drums, you have to hit it, and this usually leads to excruciatingly loud drummers. Mike was the most tasteful drummer for our music, being able to actually play along with the songs, volume-wise. He was the first drummer I met that WILLINGLY played softly.
And the beats he added to our albums...just listen to "Fiberoptic Dog" and "We Got Time." Mike is the master of the hi-hat." - Joe
"Mike, to me, was like that person your parents call 'Uncle' even though he's not related to you. He's awesome as shit, but you have no clue where your parents picked him up. Unfortunately, Mike and I didn't have a great chance to bond. Looking back, we ought to have gone fishing together or something. What I do know of him though is that he harbored incredible creativity, though he was content to let the rest of us argue amongst outselves. Proformance-wise, Mike was the person who made HereSay a band, though I'm sure he wouldn't say so." - Rob
"Joe always felt like a partner in crime. We come from similar musical pools, we both love improv and ballads, and we both, talent-wise were really blossoming as musicians when Heresay was getting off the ground. I felt like we connected as friends, and as musical minds, and we always seemed to be thinking on the same track when it came to every decision." - Mike
"Joe took three chords I played in succession once or twice (conveniently this was within a week of me purchasing "Frampton Comes Alive", but I digress) and created "Fiberoptic Dog" - an all around good song that would have been a really bad joke with just three chords (unlike "Smoke on the Wa..", ahh nevermind). Likewise, Rob's lyrics to "Joe Forgotten" give Joe a few words, he'll write a damn good song, everytime. Joe has a sensibility for melody and harmony that isn't taught or acquired, he's always just had it. Of all the musicians I've played with, I think I learn more about music playing with Joe than anyone. He's just a supurb listener and it took me playing with other people to realize how rare that really is." - Ben
"Joe was my foil. He was usually trying to sweeten up what I was trying to sour. The reason things went so well in the end was because he was wrong half the time. That's why we're still writing together today." - Rob
"Rob is the best lyricist I've ever worked with. He can make your head spin with his use of the English language - in his lyrics and when you talk to him. He has one of the sharpest wits, and any conversation you have with him leaves you at his mercy - he can stear the topic anywhere he wants.
You'll read lyrics Rob wrote ages ago, lyrics you've memorized and heard ad nauseam...and then you'll FINALLY figure out what he meant in this line or that, and how it fits the entire message. I've gone through four years of college at Berklee College of Music, met countless songwriters, and have never collaborated with anyone as well as I do with Rob." - Joe
"We'd be recording an album and we'd come up with some crazy idea of something to add to a recording in a song and Rob would make it happen everytime with, let's face it folks, barebones resources. I still don't know how he did it, half the stuff on that album. Furthermore, he's a very honest and a very clever songwriter and his songs were the kind of songs that really shaped what the band sounded like because they were often different than what Joe or I wrote. He also spearheaded many of our collaborative songs, which are the songs I'm probably the most proud of." - Ben
"Rob is awesome. He's the member I had the least amount of time to bond with and I really wish I could have more. He's got a great, care-free, fun-loving attitude and he's got some great song writing talent." - Mike
"Rob, Ben, and I were having a conversation earlier this year, discussing the old days of HereSay. We were trying to figure something out:
Ben's goal in music is to perform songs for people, and constantly let people hear his work live, seeing how it evolves and changes from its original state.
My goal in music is to write songs, let other people perform them (live or recorded), and let the song be judged primarily on its writing.
Rob's goal in music is to create songs that cannot be recreated or performed in a live setting, and record them for people to hear.
So, we had to ask: How did we end up playing together in the first place? It was a chore - we'd have small arguments about whether to focus on recording or playing live, which led to the band being split up a little - Ben, Mike, and I playing live while Rob and I recorded and asked Mike and Ben to help every now and then. But, I think the main reason we joined together so well was because we all believed in our music. We may have been different: Rob the poet, Ben the joker, and Joe the romantic, but we put ourselves into our music, and the music is a representation of our friendship." - Joe
On HereSay's Fans
"The fans were always nice to us, and we would try to be nice back - we'd attempt requests if we could, or even take questions, play some games like "HereSay musical Mad Libs."
We were always surprised at how many people would show up, and how many people knew the music enough to sing along." - Joe
"I supposed you were an extinct breed- too splendid to live. Given your relative scarcity to begin with, I figured you'd have all been killed for your pelts by now. But I guess this entry is a testament otherwise. I think all of you were incredibly gracious to us, and at the shows, it always floored me that there were certain people who'd come early, like seats were hard to come by. I appeciated that. Through the years though, I've noticed you guys aren't much for dancing, are you? (Grant DeLong excluded)." - Rob
"In my first month at college in Boston, I was walking out of a convenience store, and I heard a voice behind me say "hey, were you in HereSay?" I was eight hours away from Pennsylvania, and this guy remembered me. He went to a local college and grew up in Hanover, and saw a few of our shows. It was wild!" - Joe
"We had fans? I thought someone paid those people to show up..." - Mike
"We'd play a show for people and look out into the crowd and see grade school kids with their parents and siblings next to baby boomers. A friend and neighbor of my grandmother, a lady in her 70's, keeps her Heresay cd in the car and still listens to it very frequently, as she often tells me. I think it says a lot about to have such a wide range of fans - you didn't have to walk a certain way to be a Heresay fan." - Ben
THE FANS:
"I really liked going to the coffee houses and listening to heresay. it was always entertaining, the music, you guys, just everything that went on." - Danielle Hulse
[The HereSay guys] were trying to get somebody in the audience to discribe the band, and somebody said they're like the Beatles but just not as good. To which they replied. "So, we're like the beatles, just not as good. So what you're saying is...we're less than great." - John Daniloski
"I was very close to the guys in HereSay...sharing my bed with ben, and making exquisite breakfasts the morning after sessions...or afternoon after, depending. You can find MY voice on "Fiberoptic Dog" as the official studio bi***! I have some fond memories of late night recordings and shows...you kids are okay by me!" - Hannah Huettner
"My favorite memory of HereSay was the barn concert at Ben's farm [April 2002]. They played a song by Barenaked Ladies called 'What a Good Boy.' At the time, they played it so well and so beautifully, I thought they had written it. Their music sounded just as good as a song already on a huge album.
They need more barn concerts!" - Lydia Martin
"If I never hear "Hit Me Baby One More Time" again, it will be too soon. While I can't entirely blame HereSay for that, they do have to share the guilt. Somewhere around the twenty-third time they played it, I felt the need to shout, "Twenty-three times? That's going too far!" In fact, I'm almost sure that I did. But they never listened." - Lupe Linares
"First off, my favorite part of any Heresay song ever is the kazoo solo in Joe Forgotten. It's a kazoo solo - enough said.
My best memories of Heresay aren't specfic moments, but the ambiance at their live performances in the summer. The soothing harmony and diverse company that could be found among a Heresay audience have all blended together in my mind to create an idyllic summer evening. When I'm feeling nostalgic and thinking back to high school, my mind turns to thoughts of sitting behind the Ragged Edge, with candles on the tables and random members of Heresay playing at open mic night or to the final summer concert at the park in Biglerville.
Thank you Heresay, for providing whimsical lyric and charming melody to the emotional Hell known as high school." – Liz Fox
"I can look back upon my younger days watching HereSay perform, whether at the Hard Bean, Ragged Edge, the Reader's Cafe, or Ben's barn, and being driven that much harder to perfect my own craft. After just about every show, I'd go home and practice my bass and guitar, that one day I would be up on stage like them. After having the limelight experiece through high school ensembles and a run with the band Synergy, I was finally ready to join the magnificent four. I doubt I'll ever forget playing sax along side them that first time at Oakside, which thankfully wasn't the last.
Also, if you enjoy the music of HereSay as much as I do, you'd be interested to know that the Urban Achievers features a host of HereSay alums. Check them out this summer, won't you?" - Dave Cutshall
HERESAY FACTS AND TRIVIA:
-"HereSay" is spelled incorrectly because a band (or perhaps several) already claimed the correct spelling. The S is capitalized to try and keep people from confusing it with the word "heresy."
-"You Can't Prove That" was the title track of the original 'Hearsay' cassette album, which was completed in January 2000. Unsatisfied with the result, the self-titled CD release would give the boys a chance to revise several tracks - "Lupe," "You Can't Prove That," "BOJ," "Somebody/Nobody," and "All I See."
The remaining tracks on the tape fell by the wayside - "I've Got Your Girl," "You Trouble Me," "I'm Confused," and "Why Do I Stay Up All Night." However, at the BHS Auditorium gig, HereSay dusted off "Why Do I Stay Up..." and brought it into their live set.
Joe is still attempting to bring back "You Trouble Me."
-On the song "We've Got Time," you can hear whooping and yelling in the background. These sounds were supplied by Ben, Joe, and "Noteworthy" Bob, the producer. Mike was in the room, but being a quiet guy to begin with, he did not supply any yelling.
-"So Hard Feeling Good" was originally titled "So Hard Being Good," but was changed due to Ben writing the lyrics down differently. It was never changed back.
-The first recordings HereSay made were of the following songs: "Bad Moon Rising" by Creedence Clearwater Revival, and "Out of My Head" by Fastball.
-Ben has broken a string while performing "Fiberoptic Dog" live...at least three times.
-The horns in "Elevator" were recorded in the key of Bb - the song is in the key of A. They were recorded with the tape playing at a higher speed, and then the speed was returned to normal afterward.
-Rob and Joe had an argument during the months before the recording of the self-titled album. Joe had written an instrumental song dubbed "The Sleeping Song," and Rob wrote lyrics for it. Joe was adamant that the song remain instrumental, and Rob was adamant that the lyrics be shared. The argument was resolved when Rob begin writing what would later be known as "Lullabye," and lent his lyrics for "The Sleeping Song" to a much more fitting composition.
-"You Can't Prove That" is actually the retelling of a conversation between the boys. There is such a drink as MD Plus. Joe did become quite angry with Ben while discussing cities in Nebraska.
-The melodical and lyrical phrase "Somebody/Nobody" was written by Joe while he was walking by a lake on his farm. When he returned home ten minutes later, the song was complete.
-"I'm Confused" is the only HereSay song from before 2002 that the boys have never performed live.
-"Mildred" began simply at the request that "we write a song about a girl with a funny name." This was encouraged by the Boot -n- Jon song "Gertrude."
-"Theme from Theech" contains three background noise tracks - three different recordings of Rob and Joe talking about an idea for a TV show called "Theech."
-"Tomorrow Will Be a New Day" and "Reds and Greens" both share the same chord progression in the verse. Rob composed "Reds and Greens" while trying to learn the part for Joe's song, and his way of playing it became his composition.
-During the recording of "Somebody/Nobody," Rob jokingly suggested that the hand claps be replaced with "bare ass smacks." Joe, wanting the song to not be a joke, vetoed the idea.
The hand claps were recorded by Ben and Rob, who were standing on either side of Joe while he sang the lead vocal.
Ben and Rob added the applause at the end of the song on a whim. It is not hand claps.
-At the end of the song "Ride a Rohr" on the album Reds and Greens, you can hear a short conversation. Joe was in charge of hitting the stop button after Rob recorded the vocals.
As the song ends, there is a short pause, and then Rob says "Joe fell asleep!" You can hear Joe mumbling, and then Rob says, "Yeah, man, you were out!"
The vocals were recorded around 4:30 AM.
-The backwards voices on "Fiberoptic Dog" are Ben, Joe, and Joe's sister Hannah, arguing about whether or not Buck (Joe's dog) can do whatever he wants.
-Mike's addition to the band came in the middle of the recording sessions for the self-titled album. His drums were the first instrument to be recorded in the songs "Fiberoptic Dog" and "Polygamy." However, in all other songs involving a drum set, they were the last instrument to be recorded.
-The song "Elevator" includes that unforgettable hook at the beginning of each chorus, where Joe sings "..life begin anew," and "I thought love was gone." Rob was the one who came up with that melodic line, and Joe tried in vain to find words for it, writing out endless five-syllable lines (both simple and strange)such as: "Then you came along," "Love is all I know," and "South on 34," the last being a reference to Route 34, Biglerville's main street.
The final lyrics for the chorus were written by Rob.
-Ben's song "Till the End" was performed at the 2002 Senior Class Assembly at BHS. A surprising number of students in the class knew the words, and sang along.
-"Fiberoptic Dog" proved to be the toughest song to record for the self-titled album - involving two 4-track recorders: one to record the song itself, and one to condense the song to two tracks, leaving two tracks for the sound effects.
-"Joe, Forgotten" is not about Joe at all - it's about a G.I. Joe action figure.
-"BOJ" was Joe's first serious song, and is an acronym for "Bohemian Orchard Jam." In the first demo version of the song, Joe is so embarassed to be singing a love song that he can't do more than deliver the lines in a Shatner-esque style.
The "Hey Jude" style stop at the end of the demo was improvised by Ben, and remains in the song until this day.
-Embarassment was a problem for the band when they first shared their recordings with their friends; often times, Rob and Joe would have to leave the room while it was played.
-Rob is a superb writer, and his lyrics often begin as poems. The song "Losing Me" was actually written by Joe in the summer of 1999, when he put music to one of Rob's poems.
The lines "I'm confused / 'cause I don't know / what I feel or what I felt at all" were revised slightly, and became the chorus to "I'm Confused."
_______________________
This website is currently under construction, so check back for more song updates and stories!
YOU ARE THE WEBMASTERS!
Have a story about HereSay you'd like to share? Any favorite song or favorite memory from a show? Email me at joe_huettner@hotmail.com and we'll see if we can add it to the page!
THE GUYS:
On Beginnings
"The official beginning of HereSay would have to be when Rob, Ben, and I wrote the words "HereSay," "Hearsay," "Heerse'," and "Horensagen" on the cinder blocks of Ben's basement wall..the last one being the German spelling of "hearsay." We had been playing together for maybe a month or two, and decided on the word - it took another month to figure out the spelling.
But the beginning of the beginning was when Ben and I began hanging out - Ben had his Stratocaster guitar, and I had...well, I had anything I could play, but primarily an autoharp. The first song we played was "Big Me" by the Foo Fighters, because all the chords were on the autoharp. There we were, playing guitar and autoharp and butchering a simple song, but in our minds, we were already a band." - Joe
"Technically, I think it began with Joe and Henry [Benton] in my living room playing '5/4 Jew Funk' which was never released. At that time, Joe and I both played bass....well, we both had basses. Henry had the oldest, ugliest, sweetest green fake strat I'd ever seen. But beyond that, I think it really began late Summer '99 at Ben's house. We spent an afternoon recording 'Bad Moon,' 'Out of My Head,' and 'I've Got a Feeling'. I believe Crotch was also there at that time, playing Grant DeLong's mouldy drum set. I'm pretty sure HereSay officially began when we convinced Mr. DeLong that we'd bring the drums back someday soon." - Rob
"I remember I had just been told that HereSay would be happy to have me as a drummer and then one night I get a call from Ben. He says that the Quixotics need a drummer for a gig that night. I had never met any of the Quixotics and had never played with them. But I packed up the drums and Ben filled me in on the way. We sat down and played a great show, had lots of fun. And by the end of the night, when it was all over I realized I had just gotten the greatest introduction to a band ever." – Mike
On Recording
"Recording was a chore, but I don't remember it as one because we were always clowning around. I can't pick one funny thing over another, really - it was all very silly and I like it very much." - Ben
"[Sessions] were hell. Straight up. If Indie was ever cool, girls should be fainting in our footsteps, and we should be too cool to look down or avoid stepping on them. Our first recorder, lovingly dubbed 'Track 4' was actually worse than a standard stereo tape deck. It had 4 inputs, but only the fourth one worked. We also had one microphone, one stand, and a bunch of static-y instrument cables. From that, we produced the Soup Can Tape, our first album. As a result of high speed dubbing, all the tapes in existence ( I believe) self-destructed after 6 days.
Needless to say, things got better, but it was always by slip and by shod. We were always trying to get new sounds into the same old microphone. And we were always building foam walls and hanging mics from the rafters to try to keep other things out of them. I think recording with HereSay provided me with more problem solving tools and spacial conceptualization than Mr. Bair's Mechanical Drawing class ever did!" - Rob
"I think the sessions were a testament to the amount of Mountain Dew a high school kid could drink between midnight and 5:00 AM. They were a riot, and at the same time, they were a chore. My ultimate regret is that most of the sessions were at my house - which caused Ben trouble because of his allergies and my pets.
We also had about three "walks" a night - we would walk from my house down past the old Thomas mansion, to where the "Humpty Bridge" used to cross the railroad tracks. We would talk about anything and everything - our songs, our lives, our problems, what we'd record next...we talked a lot, and I think that's a good thing. It's almost like our CDs, to us, were a record of our conversations." - Joe
"I just remember the experience of recording all night and waking up to see if what we did the night before actually sounded good or if we were so tired that our "masterpiece" was actually some audible version of shit. Most times they really were masterpieces. I secretly kept all the sh*** sessions and now hide them in my cassette drawer filed under 'Randy Newman'." - Mike
"Several memories come to mind:
I remember the horrible midnight-8am session that produced "Fiberoptic Dog" in all of its unable-to-ever-recreate-again glory.
I remember Joe falling asleep in to lucious sex-filled dreams courtesy of an all-night 'Undressed' marathon, while Ben and i slaved to record "I'm Confused" in its never-to-be-played-live-even-once-thus-excluding-the-possibility-of-trying-to-recreate-it glory.
I remember Ben and I writing songs by candle light on some cold ass fall night because the power was gone out. We wrote "All I See" and something else brilliant. Then we went outside and screamed "Go Home Joe!" into the wind because we thought Joe was trying to come down to Ben's house from Boy Scout Camp. He wasn't though. He was pursuing other creative urges at the time.
The best memory by far was when Joe was doing the final take of vocals in Somebody/Nobody. Ben and I stood behind Joe asses bared to the sun waiting to give him a heartfelt round of applause. Its still on the track on most copies of the disc. Some of the ones I distributed did not have it because I liked an alternate mix of the track in which i had removed the jocular reveries. Thinking now, I'm not sure why Ben and I did it, I think the idea came from Sgt. Pepper's." - Rob
"(Laughing) Yeah, I remember coming back to Ben's house...I actually did walk a good mile from Boy Scout Camp to my girlfriend's house...and I stopped by Ben's so that Rob could drive me back. It was freezing that night! I remember that Rob and Ben played me "All I See" and "Why Do I Stay Up"...and they had started writing "So Hard Feelin' Good." I was amazed - it was almost like I myself wasn't taking the band as seriously as they were until I heard those songs that night. This was when we were going from a goofy, almost comical band, to a group that was seriously putting a lot of time and effort into our music." - Joe
On Touring
"I think the reason for HereSay's popularity wasn't that we did anything flashy or extremely crazy...most bands during our high school years were either loud heavy rock bands, or moshing punk bands. We just wrote music and wanted to share it. Our success was really due to our confidence and our ability to get people to our shows - which, for the most part, was all Ben." - Joe
"My favorite live memory was when we struck up "Sunshine" at the Ridgewood Wedding gig, to see a throng of people rush up to us and start their own dancefloor! Sweet!" - Ben
"Okay, picture it: Emily Paull's birthday party. We were on between Boot-n-Jon and some sadly band from New Oxford. Boot-n-Jon played. No one noticed. They got off easy. We played, and played with such fury and depth of character that the winds began to whip around us at upwards of 70 knots. Unfortunately, this just blew all the equipment off stage and made any semblance of cohesion impossible. The fury was so great, they say, one of the New Oxford kids was suddenly un-bored, causing his head to explode. However, the rest didn't even stir from their sad contemplations, and we didn't get paid either. I say this memory was good because it was on that very day that I became aware of my own mystic powers, forcing me to drag my feet about and shun live preformance forever after, fearing for the lives of those around me." - Rob
"We used to play "Baby One More Time" a lot, that Britney Spears song. I think the fact that it was just a ballsy move struck a chord with most people, but in reality, we were trying to show people that it's actually not a bad song at all. It was when we started teasing people with other songs, like "Stairway to Heaven," before going into a Britney Spears tune - that was when we got some reactions. Not always good reactions, but reactions, nonetheless." - Joe
"I'll always remember the middle of "Rocketman" at the Biglerville show. When we hit the middle and started rockin', we clicked. All of us there just knew it. I remember Ben lookin' over at me and smiling ear to ear. We really became a band that moment, up on stage, rockin and just loving music. And of course, the light-stylings of Jarrod Jones put the icing on the cake." – Mike
"Our shows were usually two sets, and we'd take a break between them - which became time for Ben and I to play solo songs. I performed "Out Loud" by Dispatch once, and it was just a cool feeling, even though I didn't write it, to see people singing along. And other times, it was great to just see people bobbing their head to our songs.
My favorite song to perform live, by far, was "Red House." Ben knew that song like the back of his hand, and Mike would feed off of what he played. And I just got to sit back and groove on it. When my solo would come up, I'd always go crazy with it, until one night I started playing, and my hands started doing the melody of "Night Train." And since we were all in the BHS Jazz Band, Ben and Mike went right along, hitting the accents perfectly. It was just a fun time." - Joe
On Songs
"They were an amazing batch of songs for who we were at the time. So Hard feelin' Good, Pudding, BOJ, Joe Forgotten, and Elevator were always what I thought of as the big five- the ones that held the album together. But honestly, Somebody/Nobody is genius. Till the End ismost moving song we ever had. What the hell did I write again?" - Rob
"'All I See.' It's a pretty simple song, but it's a beautiful melody and a beautiful message - "you and love are all I see", it's a simple notion. See? It all fits together!" - Ben
"My personal favorites, from the early days, were the collaborations: "Elevator" and "Lullabye" are both written by Ben, Rob, and myself, almost to the point where it's hard to remember who contributed what. And "Joe, Forgotten" and "Polygamy" were both lyrics written by Rob - his words literally sing their melodies to me, and I just write it down." - Joe
On Each Other
"Ben was cool because he'd let me do what I wanted in whatever songs he brought to the mix. Ben is actually the reason I began to feel comfortable writing my own songs and instrument parts in the first place. He was never not encouraging, even when I didn't want him to be. He'd make me make up my own part when he didn't have one in mind. That was right, Ben. Thank you for doing that." - Rob
"Ben is the peak of musical love. I don't know any man that loves playing and enjoying music as much as him. If nothing else I would have been glad to hear him play - to get to play WITH him has truly been an honor." - Ben
"Ben goes into anything one hundred percent. There were a lot of times where we'd be playing a pointless gig with less than ten people there. Ben would be playing and talking as if it was an arena. We'd play a song horribly - Ben would end it and go on as if nothing went wrong at all. It wasn't only his confidence, but his honesty - Ben always went into his music with a "this is me, accept it" type of attitude.
And his ability to publicize the band was just amazing. He'd make flyers, he'd post them all over Gettysburg. He'd send out mass emails to everyone, and he's the reason we could pack the Reader's Cafe every month." - Joe
"People might not have cared a lot about Heresay if Mike wasn't in it. Put to simply say that people generally don't listen to rock bands that don't have drummers is to sell Mike WAY too short. We threw Mike in there and asked him to play along with recordings of songs he hadn't heard before that often fluctuated in tempo when we made our album. And once he'd heard the song a few times, he knew what he wanted to do and added the most appropriate and tasteful rhythms and fills to everything he did. We hadn't really had a drummer in mind when we wrote many of the songs, but when Mike played with us, all the sudden the songs sounded better than we'd ever thought they could. Mike took a more creative role in the "Fallen Tower" album, and his contribution to songs like the title track and "Paper Moon" are far too overlooked." - Ben
"Every high school drummer learns this first: that in order to make sound on drums, you have to hit it, and this usually leads to excruciatingly loud drummers. Mike was the most tasteful drummer for our music, being able to actually play along with the songs, volume-wise. He was the first drummer I met that WILLINGLY played softly.
And the beats he added to our albums...just listen to "Fiberoptic Dog" and "We Got Time." Mike is the master of the hi-hat." - Joe
"Mike, to me, was like that person your parents call 'Uncle' even though he's not related to you. He's awesome as shit, but you have no clue where your parents picked him up. Unfortunately, Mike and I didn't have a great chance to bond. Looking back, we ought to have gone fishing together or something. What I do know of him though is that he harbored incredible creativity, though he was content to let the rest of us argue amongst outselves. Proformance-wise, Mike was the person who made HereSay a band, though I'm sure he wouldn't say so." - Rob
"Joe always felt like a partner in crime. We come from similar musical pools, we both love improv and ballads, and we both, talent-wise were really blossoming as musicians when Heresay was getting off the ground. I felt like we connected as friends, and as musical minds, and we always seemed to be thinking on the same track when it came to every decision." - Mike
"Joe took three chords I played in succession once or twice (conveniently this was within a week of me purchasing "Frampton Comes Alive", but I digress) and created "Fiberoptic Dog" - an all around good song that would have been a really bad joke with just three chords (unlike "Smoke on the Wa..", ahh nevermind). Likewise, Rob's lyrics to "Joe Forgotten" give Joe a few words, he'll write a damn good song, everytime. Joe has a sensibility for melody and harmony that isn't taught or acquired, he's always just had it. Of all the musicians I've played with, I think I learn more about music playing with Joe than anyone. He's just a supurb listener and it took me playing with other people to realize how rare that really is." - Ben
"Joe was my foil. He was usually trying to sweeten up what I was trying to sour. The reason things went so well in the end was because he was wrong half the time. That's why we're still writing together today." - Rob
"Rob is the best lyricist I've ever worked with. He can make your head spin with his use of the English language - in his lyrics and when you talk to him. He has one of the sharpest wits, and any conversation you have with him leaves you at his mercy - he can stear the topic anywhere he wants.
You'll read lyrics Rob wrote ages ago, lyrics you've memorized and heard ad nauseam...and then you'll FINALLY figure out what he meant in this line or that, and how it fits the entire message. I've gone through four years of college at Berklee College of Music, met countless songwriters, and have never collaborated with anyone as well as I do with Rob." - Joe
"We'd be recording an album and we'd come up with some crazy idea of something to add to a recording in a song and Rob would make it happen everytime with, let's face it folks, barebones resources. I still don't know how he did it, half the stuff on that album. Furthermore, he's a very honest and a very clever songwriter and his songs were the kind of songs that really shaped what the band sounded like because they were often different than what Joe or I wrote. He also spearheaded many of our collaborative songs, which are the songs I'm probably the most proud of." - Ben
"Rob is awesome. He's the member I had the least amount of time to bond with and I really wish I could have more. He's got a great, care-free, fun-loving attitude and he's got some great song writing talent." - Mike
"Rob, Ben, and I were having a conversation earlier this year, discussing the old days of HereSay. We were trying to figure something out:
Ben's goal in music is to perform songs for people, and constantly let people hear his work live, seeing how it evolves and changes from its original state.
My goal in music is to write songs, let other people perform them (live or recorded), and let the song be judged primarily on its writing.
Rob's goal in music is to create songs that cannot be recreated or performed in a live setting, and record them for people to hear.
So, we had to ask: How did we end up playing together in the first place? It was a chore - we'd have small arguments about whether to focus on recording or playing live, which led to the band being split up a little - Ben, Mike, and I playing live while Rob and I recorded and asked Mike and Ben to help every now and then. But, I think the main reason we joined together so well was because we all believed in our music. We may have been different: Rob the poet, Ben the joker, and Joe the romantic, but we put ourselves into our music, and the music is a representation of our friendship." - Joe
On HereSay's Fans
"The fans were always nice to us, and we would try to be nice back - we'd attempt requests if we could, or even take questions, play some games like "HereSay musical Mad Libs."
We were always surprised at how many people would show up, and how many people knew the music enough to sing along." - Joe
"I supposed you were an extinct breed- too splendid to live. Given your relative scarcity to begin with, I figured you'd have all been killed for your pelts by now. But I guess this entry is a testament otherwise. I think all of you were incredibly gracious to us, and at the shows, it always floored me that there were certain people who'd come early, like seats were hard to come by. I appeciated that. Through the years though, I've noticed you guys aren't much for dancing, are you? (Grant DeLong excluded)." - Rob
"In my first month at college in Boston, I was walking out of a convenience store, and I heard a voice behind me say "hey, were you in HereSay?" I was eight hours away from Pennsylvania, and this guy remembered me. He went to a local college and grew up in Hanover, and saw a few of our shows. It was wild!" - Joe
"We had fans? I thought someone paid those people to show up..." - Mike
"We'd play a show for people and look out into the crowd and see grade school kids with their parents and siblings next to baby boomers. A friend and neighbor of my grandmother, a lady in her 70's, keeps her Heresay cd in the car and still listens to it very frequently, as she often tells me. I think it says a lot about to have such a wide range of fans - you didn't have to walk a certain way to be a Heresay fan." - Ben
THE FANS:
"I really liked going to the coffee houses and listening to heresay. it was always entertaining, the music, you guys, just everything that went on." - Danielle Hulse
[The HereSay guys] were trying to get somebody in the audience to discribe the band, and somebody said they're like the Beatles but just not as good. To which they replied. "So, we're like the beatles, just not as good. So what you're saying is...we're less than great." - John Daniloski
"I was very close to the guys in HereSay...sharing my bed with ben, and making exquisite breakfasts the morning after sessions...or afternoon after, depending. You can find MY voice on "Fiberoptic Dog" as the official studio bi***! I have some fond memories of late night recordings and shows...you kids are okay by me!" - Hannah Huettner
"My favorite memory of HereSay was the barn concert at Ben's farm [April 2002]. They played a song by Barenaked Ladies called 'What a Good Boy.' At the time, they played it so well and so beautifully, I thought they had written it. Their music sounded just as good as a song already on a huge album.
They need more barn concerts!" - Lydia Martin
"If I never hear "Hit Me Baby One More Time" again, it will be too soon. While I can't entirely blame HereSay for that, they do have to share the guilt. Somewhere around the twenty-third time they played it, I felt the need to shout, "Twenty-three times? That's going too far!" In fact, I'm almost sure that I did. But they never listened." - Lupe Linares
"First off, my favorite part of any Heresay song ever is the kazoo solo in Joe Forgotten. It's a kazoo solo - enough said.
My best memories of Heresay aren't specfic moments, but the ambiance at their live performances in the summer. The soothing harmony and diverse company that could be found among a Heresay audience have all blended together in my mind to create an idyllic summer evening. When I'm feeling nostalgic and thinking back to high school, my mind turns to thoughts of sitting behind the Ragged Edge, with candles on the tables and random members of Heresay playing at open mic night or to the final summer concert at the park in Biglerville.
Thank you Heresay, for providing whimsical lyric and charming melody to the emotional Hell known as high school." – Liz Fox
"I can look back upon my younger days watching HereSay perform, whether at the Hard Bean, Ragged Edge, the Reader's Cafe, or Ben's barn, and being driven that much harder to perfect my own craft. After just about every show, I'd go home and practice my bass and guitar, that one day I would be up on stage like them. After having the limelight experiece through high school ensembles and a run with the band Synergy, I was finally ready to join the magnificent four. I doubt I'll ever forget playing sax along side them that first time at Oakside, which thankfully wasn't the last.
Also, if you enjoy the music of HereSay as much as I do, you'd be interested to know that the Urban Achievers features a host of HereSay alums. Check them out this summer, won't you?" - Dave Cutshall
HERESAY FACTS AND TRIVIA:
-"HereSay" is spelled incorrectly because a band (or perhaps several) already claimed the correct spelling. The S is capitalized to try and keep people from confusing it with the word "heresy."
-"You Can't Prove That" was the title track of the original 'Hearsay' cassette album, which was completed in January 2000. Unsatisfied with the result, the self-titled CD release would give the boys a chance to revise several tracks - "Lupe," "You Can't Prove That," "BOJ," "Somebody/Nobody," and "All I See."
The remaining tracks on the tape fell by the wayside - "I've Got Your Girl," "You Trouble Me," "I'm Confused," and "Why Do I Stay Up All Night." However, at the BHS Auditorium gig, HereSay dusted off "Why Do I Stay Up..." and brought it into their live set.
Joe is still attempting to bring back "You Trouble Me."
-On the song "We've Got Time," you can hear whooping and yelling in the background. These sounds were supplied by Ben, Joe, and "Noteworthy" Bob, the producer. Mike was in the room, but being a quiet guy to begin with, he did not supply any yelling.
-"So Hard Feeling Good" was originally titled "So Hard Being Good," but was changed due to Ben writing the lyrics down differently. It was never changed back.
-The first recordings HereSay made were of the following songs: "Bad Moon Rising" by Creedence Clearwater Revival, and "Out of My Head" by Fastball.
-Ben has broken a string while performing "Fiberoptic Dog" live...at least three times.
-The horns in "Elevator" were recorded in the key of Bb - the song is in the key of A. They were recorded with the tape playing at a higher speed, and then the speed was returned to normal afterward.
-Rob and Joe had an argument during the months before the recording of the self-titled album. Joe had written an instrumental song dubbed "The Sleeping Song," and Rob wrote lyrics for it. Joe was adamant that the song remain instrumental, and Rob was adamant that the lyrics be shared. The argument was resolved when Rob begin writing what would later be known as "Lullabye," and lent his lyrics for "The Sleeping Song" to a much more fitting composition.
-"You Can't Prove That" is actually the retelling of a conversation between the boys. There is such a drink as MD Plus. Joe did become quite angry with Ben while discussing cities in Nebraska.
-The melodical and lyrical phrase "Somebody/Nobody" was written by Joe while he was walking by a lake on his farm. When he returned home ten minutes later, the song was complete.
-"I'm Confused" is the only HereSay song from before 2002 that the boys have never performed live.
-"Mildred" began simply at the request that "we write a song about a girl with a funny name." This was encouraged by the Boot -n- Jon song "Gertrude."
-"Theme from Theech" contains three background noise tracks - three different recordings of Rob and Joe talking about an idea for a TV show called "Theech."
-"Tomorrow Will Be a New Day" and "Reds and Greens" both share the same chord progression in the verse. Rob composed "Reds and Greens" while trying to learn the part for Joe's song, and his way of playing it became his composition.
-During the recording of "Somebody/Nobody," Rob jokingly suggested that the hand claps be replaced with "bare ass smacks." Joe, wanting the song to not be a joke, vetoed the idea.
The hand claps were recorded by Ben and Rob, who were standing on either side of Joe while he sang the lead vocal.
Ben and Rob added the applause at the end of the song on a whim. It is not hand claps.
-At the end of the song "Ride a Rohr" on the album Reds and Greens, you can hear a short conversation. Joe was in charge of hitting the stop button after Rob recorded the vocals.
As the song ends, there is a short pause, and then Rob says "Joe fell asleep!" You can hear Joe mumbling, and then Rob says, "Yeah, man, you were out!"
The vocals were recorded around 4:30 AM.
-The backwards voices on "Fiberoptic Dog" are Ben, Joe, and Joe's sister Hannah, arguing about whether or not Buck (Joe's dog) can do whatever he wants.
-Mike's addition to the band came in the middle of the recording sessions for the self-titled album. His drums were the first instrument to be recorded in the songs "Fiberoptic Dog" and "Polygamy." However, in all other songs involving a drum set, they were the last instrument to be recorded.
-The song "Elevator" includes that unforgettable hook at the beginning of each chorus, where Joe sings "..life begin anew," and "I thought love was gone." Rob was the one who came up with that melodic line, and Joe tried in vain to find words for it, writing out endless five-syllable lines (both simple and strange)such as: "Then you came along," "Love is all I know," and "South on 34," the last being a reference to Route 34, Biglerville's main street.
The final lyrics for the chorus were written by Rob.
-Ben's song "Till the End" was performed at the 2002 Senior Class Assembly at BHS. A surprising number of students in the class knew the words, and sang along.
-"Fiberoptic Dog" proved to be the toughest song to record for the self-titled album - involving two 4-track recorders: one to record the song itself, and one to condense the song to two tracks, leaving two tracks for the sound effects.
-"Joe, Forgotten" is not about Joe at all - it's about a G.I. Joe action figure.
-"BOJ" was Joe's first serious song, and is an acronym for "Bohemian Orchard Jam." In the first demo version of the song, Joe is so embarassed to be singing a love song that he can't do more than deliver the lines in a Shatner-esque style.
The "Hey Jude" style stop at the end of the demo was improvised by Ben, and remains in the song until this day.
-Embarassment was a problem for the band when they first shared their recordings with their friends; often times, Rob and Joe would have to leave the room while it was played.
-Rob is a superb writer, and his lyrics often begin as poems. The song "Losing Me" was actually written by Joe in the summer of 1999, when he put music to one of Rob's poems.
The lines "I'm confused / 'cause I don't know / what I feel or what I felt at all" were revised slightly, and became the chorus to "I'm Confused."
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