Little did I know after first getting introduced to Signature Sounds through a budding artist’s debut record in 2013, that the woman serving as publicist for the label was also a talented member of a riveting indie rock band seemingly content to keep its fan base close to home in New England. Winterpills, it’s great to hear from you again.
The Fantastic 5 based in Northampton, Massachusetts, where their small but sturdy label is located, are active again after a nine-year “hiatus” basically due to family commitments, other musical opportunities, and COVID-19. They’re back in a big way, too, with the wondrous This Is How We Dance, which will be released on 14 November by — no surprise — Signature Sounds. It’s their first full-length LP since 2016’s Love Songs.
To promote their eighth album spread over a career dating to 2003, Winterpills present an exclusive music video premiere of the seductive single “How We Dance” at PopMatters today (7 November). Philip Price, the band’s primary songwriter who also shares vocal and acoustic guitar duties with his wife Flora Reed (the aforementioned publicist), created the winsome video.
Calling himself “a packrat of found images, photos, and footage” during our email interview accompanying the premiere, Price provides some insight on the video, the album, and the state of the band. It also includes longtime members Dennis Crommett (electric guitars), Max Germer (bass guitars), and Dave Hower (drums, percussion).
Check out this exclusive presentation of the official music video for “How We Dance” now, then read on to learn more about a thoroughly engaging, elegant, entertaining — and apparently egoless — group of players who hopefully won’t wait another nine years to deliver their next album.
Rebirth of a Band
Seamlessly blending vintage photographs, stock footage, and brief bits of animation along with current video of perky party people and dutiful dancers (try to spot the Winterpills cameos), Price “shot around this huge gothic abandoned building down the street (from their house in Hadley, about 3 1/2 miles northeast of Northampton). … I’ve had a recurring narrative in my head for years of a huge party going on inside a building that I cannot get into — a dream of exclusion.
“This combined with the idea of all of humanity forgetting how to dance together, being splintered, and disconnected and too injured to dance. My mother was a dancer and I have to assume this factored in as well.”
For anyone wondering, the lone end credit in capital letters — “Video by WOODYBROOK LANE JR.” — is Price’s pseudonym, named after the street where he grew up in Croton-on-Hudson, New York.
Since his father was a screenwriter, Price shares, “My first ambition in life was to make films … a path I obviously didn’t fully take, but I keep that dream alive by making lots of little films and music videos. I’m feeling more ambitious about that outlet recently.”
Along with helping bring back Winterpills, Price also is a dad, celebrating with Reed the birth of their son in 2019. The new album signals a rebirth of the band, too.
“The band knew there would be a hiatus for this kiddo to happen; it just was extended far beyond our desires,” Price states. While “writing always drags on forever,” he maintains this time it “combined with parenting exhaustion, eldercare exhaustion, world-care exhaustion. But in picking from the pile, I just sent around a mess of songs to the band, and we all picked what we liked. We are democratic to a fault. My son weighed in, too.”
Getting back into the studio and producing with trusted colleague Dave Chalfant (“a member of the extended family” who worked on Winterpills’ first two albums), “It took a concerted push by everyone; but once the wheel started rolling downhill, there was no stopping it,” Price offers. “We basically just decided there were plenty of songs and we started doing weekly rehearsals at several different spaces, before finally settling on Max’s living room as the most conducive and cozy.”
Recorded at the Institute for the Musical Arts in Goshen, Massachusetts, This Is How We Dance has 12 songs that will enrapt the listening audience, propelled by thought-provoking lyrics, sweet harmonies, irresistible melodies, Crommett’s pulsating electric riffs, and the rhythmic bursts of Germer and Hower.
It only took one pop-up show at Darlings in Easthampton (what Price calls “a beloved local tiny bar”) to get the seal of approval from a small crowd of lucky folks. Winterpills performed the entire album “just to see if anyone noticed. They did,” he adds.
While Price and Reed added to their family (she’s a stepmom to “Philip’s two amazing adult daughters”) during the extended break, he managed “to squeak out three solo albums during that time, so it wasn’t totally a vacuum.” Their bandmates kept busy, too.
Juggling solo projects and working with artists like Mark Mulcahy, Crommett is a master guitar blaster who mans another Western Mass band called Spanish For Hitchhiking with Germer, Hower, and Chalfant. (The latter two were also members of the Nields.) Germer has side gigs with the Fawns and Gentle Hen while Hower has recorded with Valley of Weights, his college band.
Making a pitch
While pouring themselves into parenting, Reed continues her efficient work at Signature Sounds, where Price has a part-time job as graphic designer and webmaster. The two met after she moved to the area in 1997, with Reed saying the relationship started “more as an acquaintance and fan of his power-pop band the Maggies,” which also included Germer.
Born in Japan but raised in Virginia, Reed joined Winterpills in 2004. Her group status “quickly changed” from single musician as she and Price evolved into married couple in 2008.
In 2013, Reed first turned me on to Heather Maloney, who soon became one of my fave folk singer-songwriters after profiling her in an article that year for The Huffington Post. While pitching a robust list of artists at her label, including Chris Smither, Eilen Jewell, Lake Street Dive’s Bridget Kearney and the Sweetback Sisters, Reed never mentioned Winterpills. Until 2014.
She sent me a copy of Echolalia, the band’s cool covers album that included several transformations of eclectic selections from a wide range of artists like the Beatles (“Cry Baby Cry”), XTC (“Train Running Low on Soul Coal”) and Sharon Van Etten (“One Day”, with Reed supplying lead vocals). Recognizing her name in the credits, the light bulb above my head finally shined. Tweeting congrats and complimenting her via email on the “lovely album” that October, I added about her participation, “Pardon my stupidity, but I had no idea …”
That was smack-dab in the middle of Winterpills’ career path, 11 years after the group formed and 11 years before delivering a promising resurgence.
Reasons to celebrate
Surviving with little fuss or fanfare, Winterpills quietly go about their business. After previously releasing the Crommett-created lyric video for “Lean in the Wind,” the new parents’ co-write with a soothing group vocal, Price has “several more in the pipeline, some homemade and some by other filmmakers” to build the momentum following “How We Dance”.
“Plus: touring,” pledges Price, “which is somewhat limited due to parenting, but we like to tour smart, not hard.” This year, Winterpills are also just a few days from celebrating the 20th anniversary of their self-titled debut album.
Released on 8 November 2005, it now has a remastered edition (available at bandcamp.com and other digital streaming platforms) that includes two new bonus cuts, “Everybody Gets High” and “Looking Down (Flora’s version)”.
Managing to keep a marriage together for 17 years is a challenge in itself for two accomplished musicians but getting five core members to coexist (on and off) for 23 years is nothing short of a miracle. Reed, residing in Hadley with Price, their son, and a few kittens and chickens, points out they all live within an eight-mile radius of Northampton: Crommett in Williamsburg, Germer in Florence, and Hower in Easthampton. They’re a shining example of the band that plays together, stays together.
Disbanding Winterpills “has never been on the table,” Price declares. “We’re a big open marriage of a band. Why break up? There’s no bad blood. We love each other and take care of each other. We’re boring in that way. When we play, it coalesces naturally and feels (cheesily) like it was meant to be. There’s no money to fight over. We’ll let you know if that changes.”
Asked for a moment he remembers that best encapsulates Winterpills’ existence, Price goes back to when it all started. “Maybe it was early on when we were learning all the songs for the first album and Flora got very pissed at me for writing a good song,” he recalls. “I knew we’d all be all right after that.”
Now that they have more of their own good songs to write and projects to pitch, Winterpills can continue to demonstrate how they dance.