Oct. 19: Hush Club ready to put on an indie rock party at The Press Room

PORTSMOUTH, NH – There’s no secret that Boston has had a great music scene for the past few decades with bands and musicians of various styles making an impact beyond the city they call home. For the past few years, there’s been an assortment of indie acts selling out major venues and growing their fanbase with each show they play. One example is Hush Club, which consists of Alasdair Mackenzie, Liz Kantor and Chris Haley. On October 19, this talented trio are going to be performing at The Press Room in Portsmouth. The show starts at 8 p.m. with fellow Bostonians Copilot rounding out the bill.

I had a talk with the band about how Hush Club began when they were all in college, releasing a bunch of singles and looking forward to the upcoming show.

Website: The Press Room

77 Daniel Street, Portsmouth, NH

Tickets

Rob Duguay: Hush Club started when you were all attending college, so which school were you all going to and what were your majors?

Alasdair Mackenzie: We were all going to Harvard and I majored in Political Science, which they called Government there for some reason that I never understood, but it’s the same as any other Political Science program. Chris majored in English and Liz majored in Molecular & Cellular Biology.

Liz Kantor: Nice memory.

RD: Wow, that’s a lot of different subjects. Out of the three of you, who first had the idea to start this band and how did it eventually come to fruition?

AM: I’ve been in bands kind of forever. I had my first band when I was in fifth grade and it wasn’t very good and not very serious, but I had always wanted to be in bands. I came to college while being in a different band with people I knew in high school and then because we all went to different colleges, that sort of fell apart and it slowly morphed into this. I met Chris and I was like, “Wow, he’s great and I want him in my band.” Then we started playing together, met Liz and we both were like “Wow, she’s great, we want her in our band.” I guess I was the one who had it going first, but it wasn’t Hush Club until all three of us were involved.

RD: Over the past few years, you’ve been releasing standalone singles, with your latest one “Movie” coming out on August 13. Alasdair, you’ve been recording, mixing and mastering these songs so do you have a home studio that you’ve been utilizing to create such a prolific output?

AM: In the apartment that Chris & I live in, where Liz also used to live, we have this home studio that the three of us basically built together and that’s where we do a lot of our work.

RD: Is this series of single releases something we can expect from Hush Club moving forward or will they eventually become an album of some sort?

Chris Haley: We aren’t really sure yet. Releasing singles has been nice because we get to really focus on the tunes and give every song a shot at being the best. When you’re making an album, sometimes the first song gets understandably more attention than the last song, so I think each song is an attempt to sort of get closer to making the precise music that we’re really going for. We’re always tweaking and adjusting our writing process as we go. We do hope to put out a new album or an EP or something, but now it feels like we’re in a songwriting lab where we’re experimenting and this platform has been easier for us to do that.

RD: I can totally see why it would be easier. You have this show coming up at The Press Room, so what are your thoughts going into it? Being a Boston band, what are your thoughts on coming up north to play New Hampshire?

LK: We played Portsmouth for the first time back in February and the show was really, really fun. There was a great crowd with a bunch of people who hadn’t heard us live before, so we were really encouraged by the response. We figured we’d come back and we’re really excited about the show, it’s going to be a good one.