Street roots., November 06, 2015, Page 9, Image 9

Street Roots • Nov. 6-12, 2015
Culture
Page 10
The tour was great. The record had never
been on vinyl, and the Portland label, Jealous
Butcher, they decided to re-release the record
for Record Store Day this year. We decided to
do some touring for it It was pretty quick. We
did a week and half on each coast. It was
great.
S.Z.: Any interesting stories from the road?
H.H.: We did some touring with Allie
Goertz, an LA-based songwriter, comedian.
That was really cool. I’ve been doing stand-up
for almost a year now; These are inuch
quieter, more intimate shows than thé shows
The Thermals do. They were really fun shows
and funny. We got to talk and interact with
the audience a lot
S.Z.: You’ve had
some different
manifestations of the
band, but you and
Kathy have been there
since the start. What
is the trick to
collaborating well?
Comedy really mate me
happy. I really enjoy it« »«It -
feels so different» It's really
exciting after doinp mask for
so longF to haw a new area of
performance»
H.H.: You need to
find someone who
has similar tastes as
you, but not identical. Kathy and I agree on a
lot of things. Another important thing is to
find someone whose opinion you trust. So
that you can run an idea by them and if they
don’t like it, it’s not something you will fight
over.
Kathy is brutally honest, so shewill; tell me
right away if she doesn’t like something, but I
trust her opinion enough that I don’t take
things personally. It makes things way more
productive.
You don’t want someone who just agrees
with you on everything because then you
might as well be working alone.. And then you
don’t want someone who shoots down
everything you come up with. It’s too
disheartening.
S.Z.: Tell me the creation story of The
Thermals.
PHOTO COURTESY OF HUTCH HARRIS
BY SUE ZALOKAR
STAFF WRITER
The Thermals
co-founder
reaches back
with a “Hutch
and Kathy*
revival, and
looks forward
with a
newfound
panache for
stand-up
I go out and do comedy at night. Our practice
space is close to Helium, so there are some
nights where we’ll practice and I’ll just go
straight over to Helium. It’s awesome.”
utch Harris has been making music
out of Portland for 20 years - the past
13 as a member of the post-pop-punk
band The Thermals, which he co-fóunded Sue Zalokar: Hutch is a curious name.
with his musical partner, Kathy Foster. The
What’s the backstory on that?
group pláys as á trio with Westin Glass
For the past year, Harris has been dipping
Hutch Harris: Hutch is my mom’s maiden
his toe into the waters of the Portland
name. It comes from the Italian “Ucci.” When
comedy scene, and making somewhat of a ’
her grandparents emigrated from Italy, they
splash.
just changed it to “Hutch” at Ellis Island. I
This year, Harris and Foster toured as an
don’t know where they got that from. But it
original iteration of themselves, revisiting the
stuck. I didn’t like growing up with the name
album “Hutch and Kathy,” which the duo
Hutch at all. I like it now.
released in 2002, before The Thermals were
formed. The album has a more pop folk feel
S.Z.: It’s been 13 years since you went on tour
than the pop punk of The Thermals’ sound.
as Hutch and Kathy. What was it like to revisit
The label, Jealous Butcher, decided it wanted
that manifestation of a collaboration that spans
to put out a re-issue of the LP. It was a vinyl
decades?
press.
You can catch Harris many nights of the
H.H.: It was great. Kathy and I have been
week doing stand-up in town. A quick glance
playing music together for like 20 years.
at his Twitter or Facebook feed will tell you
We’ve been friends for longer. We met in
where to find him next. It’s all a matter of /
1993 or 1994. She’s my best friend in the
finding a balance.
world. I haven’t been on tour without her in
“It’s easy, we do music during the day, and
15 years.
H
H.H.: It was 2002, and I was living alone in
this really tiny house on Woodstock. Kathy
and I had just finished that Hutch and Kathy
record. We recorded it ourselves. We really
took our time with it and did some touring.
When we got back from that, I wanted to
make something that was quick and fun as
opposed to laboring over a record for a long
time.
The first Thermals record, I actually just
did it myself. I recorded all of the instruments
on a 4-track cassette machine in the house
where I lived. It was a fun little project I was
doing. Once we started giving copies to
people, they really liked it right away, and
then labels got interested. It just happened
really fast for us after that.
S.Z.: You broke your chops a bit at Amy
Miller’s Midnight Mass and at a local Moose
Lodge in a Southeast neighborhood - doing
standup.
H.H.: Amy’s so great. She had a big hand
in getting me started doing stand-up, too. I
followed the Portland comedy scene for a
while before I got involved in it. I was really
See HARRISpage^ll