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The Ashtray Hearts are a six-piece ensemble from Minneapolis that plays what is best described as 'apartment music'. Taking elements of Americana and alt-country, the Ashtray Hearts add eclectic instrumentation (horns, organs, accordions) to create their lonely, broken-hearted sound. I was able to catch up with the lead singer Dan Richmond after their recent gig at the Village Inn, Edinburgh
CMS What's the band's history? Schoolmates?
AH Well we're all from Minneapolis - we all went to school there. I'm from Minneapolis but I spent some time overseas 1999 / 2000 working in Dublin and London and as soon as I came back and got a job at a radio station. I've been writing songs and playing in bands for years and years but throughout university I didn't have much time to do it. I'd amassed all these songs so O got together with Steve Nurenburgh and Brad Augustine just to kinda play it out and hang out during the winter months and it kinda came together as the Ashtray Hearts as a three piece in 2000 and stared playing out in 2001 and slowly started adding members
CMS Yes well, that was my next question. What was the evolution from three to six? Was it a conscious decision or did it just kinda happen?
AH Well, y'know it's always been about hangin' out and makin' music and we kinda just came together and bought some strange instruments like our piano and the accordion and started to have, like, this kinda unique sound here.
CMS So did you wake up one day and say "I know what this country band needs - a trumpet player!"?
AH Y'know it was like -all these guys were my best friends from Minneapolis so we had more friends that weren't doing anything at the time. My friend John, who plays drums; I'd played with him, like, casually before so we brought him in and then Brian Scheifer, he played bass in a band called MIJ, so then we were a five piece and then the guy that was doin' our Website has got a great voice and he played trumpet so it was a kinda like "Why don't you come and be in the band…?" and by then we had six members.
CMS The trumpet makes some of the songs. The songs are lovely songs but when the trumpet come in it brings something special.
AH I hadn't really thought about it but what I've noticed on this tour is how our instruments really blend well together. But, last night and the night before it struck me how well the accordion and trumpet sound together
CMS Yeah, I noticed that. They sound absolutely superb.
AH So, it's almost really by accident that it's come about.
CMS You must be bored by this by now but 'Apartment Music' - is it now a generic term for a kind of Mid-West sound or is it specifically attached to the Ashtray Hearts?
AH It all started 'cos there was just three of us and we practised in Steve's apartment until we got kicked out 'cos we played too loud and we were doing our late night recording sessions. So people kept asking us over and over again "What do you guys sound like - are you Indie rock?" and y'know we're not really country, we're not really folk so, we're not quite Americana although that's probably the next closest. So, because the music had come out of an apartment that was really kinda an era of our lives where we were practising in apartments and writing songs in our bedrooms and we actually practised with the full band in my apartment so it just seemed a logical way to describe the music.
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