Nashville-based band Humming House took the stage Saturday, April 13 at The Railyard after Tedo Stone opened at 9:00 p.m. Full of energy and offering a variety sounds from Irish pub influences to ukelele accompaniments, Humming House doesn't disappoint. The show served as an after party to weekend-long Alabama G.O.A.L Fest - a local non-profit organization aimed toward encouraging the community to 'go out and live' by hosting trail runs, criterium bike races and more. Lead singer and lyricist Justin Wade Tam recently visited WEGL Radio's recording studio where The Plainsman caught up with him.
Q: Can you tell me a little bit about how you grew up and how it influenced you musically?
A: I kind of grew up in the weird southern California world of indie rock music like Radio Head and Red Hot Chili Peppers. There was also all the emo stuff going on back then too with Jimmy Eat World and Death Cab for Cutie and stuff like that. But actually, one of the only reasons that I moved to Nashville is because I ran across a Ryan Adams record. I was like, 'This sounds really country but I really like it a lot.' I was looking at schools, and I looked at Belmont and saw they had a music business program. So I came out for that, and sort of stuck around.
Q: What do you remember about your first gig?
A: My first gig, I think was in 8th grade. I think it was like a lip sync competition, but we broke the rules and actually played. Me and this guy that we called Stoner Mike had a band together, and the song that we played was called 'Summer.'
Q: Who would you say your biggest musical influences are?
A: That's always such a hard question. I listen to so much music, but I think some of my bigger influences are Simon and Garfunkel, I'm a big Paul Simon fan. I mentioned I grew up on Radiohead, and then just a bunch of singer songwriters. I think ryan adams is probably one of them. I love Gillian Welch and Ray LaMontagne, Van Morrison, Bob Dylan.
Q: How did the band form?
A: Well it was kind of born backwards. I had written an album, and was kind of toying with the idea of doing a solo project or a band. I had some people play with me at shows and they came in as the session musicians on the record. Then because it went so well and it turned out much more like a band record than a solo album, I just decided to keep rolling with it. They decided to jump on board and we became a band. That and also we used to do these Irish pub nights at my house. We're big appreciators of Irish music so we started jamming on these Irish pub tunes on Sunday nights. Our mandolin player started coming to those, that's the only reason he ended up in the band is because of these Irish jams.
Q: What was the inspiration for the band name?
A: Well we came up with all of these crazy back stories, but none of them are true. I really like the images that it conjures a lot--something inside of a house, there's a lot going on, there's activity, it's a musical term, 'humming,' and I'm sort of a sucker for alliterations. You'll notice that in a lot of my lyrical content.
Q: How long have you been on tour?
A: I guess we've been touring for a little over year now, on and off. At this point we've been focusing mostly on the Southeast. We live in Nashville, Tenn., so we draw a six hour circle around Nashville, Tenn., in about 13 major cities. We've just been trying to build up our regional deal. The farthest we've been out is Colorado, thus far, not for lack of want to go farther though. We're about to get really busy in April. We'll be opening for the Carolina Chocolate Drops in Charlotte and festivals in Nashville and Knoxville. I think we're going to be doing about 30 colleges this fall, so it'll be a lot of universities as well.
Q: What other times have you played at Auburn in the past?
A: I guess our first show was in the fall. We did a small show at the Overall Company and we came back in January and it was pretty much sold out, so there's definitely been a good response here locally and we're excited to get more involved with the campus here more if we can. Opelika is just a cool town.
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