As every boy and girl knows, band bios are often embarrassing, self-serving pieces of flattery-filled garbage. We hate them as much as you do. But they serve a purpose. We would hate to open up our morning edition of the Florida Librarian Union Weekly and see an article falsely claiming that the co-founders of HtH used to be sweatshop floor managers or that Joe Marrett invented the world's first robot (it was the world's 2nd robot and it was awesome thank you very much). To that end, we hereby begrudgingly present a terse and homely Hallelujah The Hills Fact Sheet.
* Hallelujah The Hills is a beautiful, absurd movie made by Adolfas Mekas. Ryan Walsh was shown the film on the first day of his “Films Of The Sixties” class at Boston University. He made an illegal VHS dub from the BU library copy for future reference.
* Ryan Walsh and Eric Meyer (guitar and drums, respectively) started a band around the same time called The Stairs with Evan Sicuranza. They made music in unchosen obscurity until the week of their final show in 2005 during which the Boston music press called their final album one of the best of the year.
* During an interview taking place moments before The Stairs' final show, Ryan told a Boston Phoenix reporter: “After tonight Eric and I are starting a band called Hallelujah The Hills”, thereby crossing the point of no return with their risky six syllable moniker.
* Walsh on the title turning into a band name: “It's a beautiful sounding phrase. It doesn't quite make grammatical sense. The movie is about two men retreating into the woods to try and forget about a women they both loved who has rejected them both. They do this by having imaginary gun fights in graveyards, taking over an abandoned cabin, and trying to drive a Jeep up a mountain. These men are buffoons but they're also pretty admirable for their devotion to foolishness. It seems to work with the music we make. That's all.”
* Walsh and Meyer asked three other people to be in the band with them: David Bentley (cello, guitar), Joe Marrett (bass), and Matt Brown (synth, samples, guitar, melodica). Practices commenced in the space they shared with Ho-Ag (in which Meyer also plays drums).
* The first Hallelujah The Hills show was at Great Scott, Allston, MA in November 2005. They opened for Chicago's Devin Davis. After playing their eponymous theme/fight song for the first time live, Walsh asked the audience “I don't know, is it cool to have the band name in one of the songs' lyrics?” Local music enthusiast/journalist/chef Steve Gisselbrecht quickly shouted his reply: “Once. You can do it once.”
* Shows in New York and the Boston area followed. One older concert goer in Salem, MA told the band they were so close to being great but they were missing “someone who can really shred the shit out of the guitar.” This problem has still not been remedied.
* Tyler Derryberry from Ho-Ag used to be in a band from Columbus, OH called The Rancid Yak Butter Tea Party in which Brian Rutledge played trumpet. When Brian moved to Boston, Tyler alerted HtH to the arrival of a new trumpet player. Rutledge played a few shows with HtH before everyone decided that the addition was permanent.
* The band's debut album Collective Psychosis Begone was recorded between February and September 2006. Walsh on the title: "My grandpa once told me that you should save your most outlandish wishes for birthday cake blow outs and album titles. So there you go."
* Cory Brown (Absolutely Kosher/Misra Records) took notice of the band after they played a show with AK label bands Sunset Rubdown and Frog Eyes at TT The Bear's in Cambridge, MA. The first two HtH albums will come out on Misra Records, and the band used their advance to buy a tour van.
* In winter of 2007, Matt Brown left the band to pursue other musical activities. Elio DeLuca (Keys To The Streets Of Fear, sound man extraordinaire) joined the band shortly thereafter, creating an element of HtH that knows the difference between a tube and a solid-state amplifier.
* Adolfas Mekas (director of the film) was made aware of the band after accidentally stumbling onto their MySpace page. According to sources close to Mekas his first reaction was “I'll sue!” but later a colleague explained that it was a very loving tribute to the movie. The band is very thankful for that. “Any attention the band brings the movie is icing on the cake for me” comments Walsh.
* The band has promised to make 33 albums before breaking up.
