After what can only be described as an EPIC weekend, its time to take a quick breath with help from local pop trio A House A Home. The music tends to be slow, thoughtful, and delicate…you know, everything I’m not. Leadgal Sara Houser’s vocals are right where they should be: front and center, carrying pretty much every track. A House A Home’s soft style evokes visions of hundreds of women slowly swaying at Lilith Fair and in no way do I mean that as an insult.
The song below, “Now I Know” continues to shine the spotlight on Houser’s vocals yet it includes more complex instrumentation. It’s catchy to say the least. Check out the track below along with our Past, Present, Future interview. If you’re a fan of the music, there are plenty of links to more tracks at the bottom of the post!
Members/Instruments:
Sara Houser – keys, vox
Grant Himmler – guitar, bass, vox
Ali McGinley – drums, vox
Year Formed: I first started going by A House A Home in 2008. The band as it is now just started playing together in 2009.
1. Past: What is your musical background? What has led you to this point?
Whenever I get asked this I think of about 20 different ways I could answer it so I’ll do my best to roll them all up into one. My first memories of music are of me singing along to the radio. I couldn’t memorize my times tables but I knew the words to every song that played when I was in the car. My parents always had music playing and I owe my love of music entirely to them. My mom played guitar and sang all the time. She made me listen to every lyric and tell her what I thought it meant. I’m pretty sure my dad’s favorite part of Christmas is getting to blast Handel’s Messiah in its entirety. They both were so excited about music that I got excited about it too although I didn’t really know it yet.
In terms of my education in music, that didn’t start until I was 11. Don’t be fooled by my diatribe about loving music as a kid. I sang along and listened a lot. But my main interests were getting dirty and the power rangers. When I was 10 my family moved from Florida to South Carolina. I had a hard time making new friends and connecting with all these new people in my life. At church one day I found myself really fascinated by the accompanist so after the service I asked her for piano lessons. I guess here’s where you can insert a “the rest is history” type of line. Having no real social life as a pre-adolescent I practiced a lot and fell in love with the piano. In 7th grade I transferred to a performing arts school and stayed throughout high school. I got really into jazz and funk and blues. I also started writing my own music. Ended up going to college and majoring in Songwriting and now here we are!
2. Present: Where are you at now in your career? What are you currently working on?
The word career I think is a little daunting to musicians because so many people do not consider music a career unless you’re on the cover of Rolling Stone. But when people ask me what I do, I don’t say waitress. I’m a musician and I’m at the point where I can confidently call music my career, which I think is a big step emotionally for musicians.
Aside from that and on a more literal level, I’m at the point in my career where I want to play a lot of shows and I want to play them well. We’ve only been in Austin for 8 months or so and we’ve only been gigging for the last 5 or 6 but I’m proud of what we’ve already accomplished. I’d like our fan base in Austin to keep growing and I’d love to eventually play shows elsewhere.
We’re currently working on our summer show schedule and tightening up the business end of things. We need merch and are writing a proposal for Kickstart right now to help us buy some shirts, stickers, etc.
3. Future: What’s coming up for you? Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
5 years is a long time. I will undoubtedly still be making music. Hopefully I will be making money from music. I’ve always been interested in licensing out songs for tv and film or selling songs to other artists. Being an artist means having two full time jobs and only getting paid for one. I hope some day (preferably in the next 5 years) I can live off my art. Until then I’m focusing on doing what I can to pay the bills and getting my music out for people to hear.
4. Where can people find more of your music?
Currently I’m on the juggernaut that is Myspace. I’m also on a site called Bandcamp where you can download two tunes. I’m hopelessly addicted to Twitter and Facebook so if you’d like to get updates on shows and all that please find me on either of those sites.
5. Anything you’d like to plug?
If you want to see some vids from previous shows check out our Youtube channel.