It doesn’t matter if you’ve seen The Walkmen a dozen times since their first full-length dropped in 2002; when Hamilton Leithauser grasps the microphone stand and a vein juts out of his neck as he belts lyrics, the crowd shares a single, dumbfounded thought: “Damn, this guy can sing.”
On his debut solo album, Black Hours, Leithauser is standing tall beside nostalgically sweet harmonies, catchy choruses, and flashy harmonica solos. Should he ever waver, though, casual guest appearances from Vampire Weekend’s Rostam Batmanglij, Dirty Projectors’ Amber Coffman, The Shins’ Richard Swift, The Walkmen’s Paul Maroon, and Fleet Foxes’ Morgan Henderson can catch his fall.
It’s comforting to see him pursue music despite The Walkmen’s indefinite hiatus announced last year. To stop would be an injustice. His scratchy vocals have been in the background of so many lives, primarily those who began listening in college and now, much like him, find themselves at the masthead of a family. When we spoke over the phone, Leithauser frequently asked for questions to be repeated, either due to his gradually damaged hearing or his child’s audible cries in the background. It didn’t really matter what the reason was. Getting to hear him speak about being an audio buff, taking the solo route, and donning his best suit and tie onstage was worth the bad reception. After all, it’s easy to stay young at heart, yet it’s eternally hard to swallow the speed at which time passes (So don’t even act like you don’t get choked up watching the “Heaven” music video).
Allston Pudding: How does it feel heading out on tour solo this time?
Hamilton Leithauser: The first thing I’ve noticed is that it’s a lot of organization. I have a rotating band now because people come and go. I have to figure out basically a new band for every tour. Like when we start in Boston, well, I’ll have the guys that were just with me, but right after that I will have a new bass player and will have to teach him everything. Setting up a tour now is a lot of administration.
AP: How do you find the people that play with you?
HL: They’re all friends. It’s great because we all have a good time. But when people come and go, I gotta reach to the far circle. I just hired a guy who I didn’t really know but he worked out great. I can’t imagine it will always be that way, but I hope so. It’s a pain to teach them, but then having a different gang to travel with all the time can keep things interesting.
AP: Absolutely. Were you nervous at all to put this album out? You’ve been playing and writing music for over a decade so I don’t imagine the actual process of writing it being nerve-wracking, but fan and critic reception can be daunting.
HL: It’s scary putting anything you may have had behind you and starting a new thing. We didn’t have anywhere else to go where we were, though. It was time for a change.
AP: Are you going for a different feel in your live shows than stuff with The Walkmen?
HL: I don’t know. It’s still me up there singing and stuff so I think when people come and see it, they recognize that. It’s not a world away, but the music is different enough that, well – I think people wouldn’t have let me have it if I didn’t try to make a different-sounding record, and they didn’t. I think I can safely say that the record sounds different enough to be my own. It’s legitimate in being its own thing.
AP: You have a scratchy tone and it sounds like it hurts a lot, but almost every night you’re able to put it out there. How do you keep it in such good shape?
HL: I started being more a little careful with my voice recently. At the beginning of these shows, the ones in New York, I really blew it out hard. It was such a downer. Now, I’m not in a band; I’m a solo guy who’s known as a singer. If I don’t have my voice, it can’t happen. I started being a hair more careful, but I should do a lot more than I do. I really should. I warm up a little bit and I try to cut down on the foods. I don’t smoke cigarettes.
AP: How did you find that singing voice? Did it come naturally? Did you take lessons?
HL: I don’t know. I’ve been doing it for a long time now, but I don’t know. In high school, I was a singer for a high school band and I was pretty terrible. I was stringy and mumbling. It took a long time to find a way to sing that I was actually happy with. You don’t realize that you’re not doing anything with your voice for a while.
AP: You still have a classic sound to it on the new album, though, where things are still clean from the guitar to the harmonica. Do you try hard to hold on to that sound?
HL: I brought some string players on. I had string players in New York and London, but then I thought I couldn’t afford it anymore. It’s so expensive. It was such a big production putting it together. It was really fun at first, and I would do that if I ever got that money again, but for now I’m back to my rock band which I’m actually really happy about.
AP: Is it hard when you’re recording to bring outside sounds like those in?
HL: Yeah, mainly because of how expensive it is. You gotta have your mind made up on what you want to do because you pay people by the hour. They all come in and stand with a place. It’s funny how that ends up being what you think about, but it is. Unfortunately that’s what I was interested in working on and I’ve been writing stuff with a lot of string players. And piano? Having to travel with piano is no joke, having to load that thing in every day – man. I just don’t see any other way of doing it, really. I couldn’t do without piano because it fits the way that I do music.
AP: When you sit down to write, what instruments do you start with?
HL: It’s usually music first and lyrics come later and follow the melody. It takes a really long time. It’s very hard. If I could find a way to string along the melody, but unfortunately I can’t. It takes me a really long time.
AP: Which song are you the most proud of?
HL: To be honest, I really like the whole record. I know that’s lame, but I do.
AP: No, that’s good!
HL: [laughs] Yeah. I like “The Silent Orchestra,” I think. That was a big struggle for me to make so I was proud and happy with how it came out.
AP: Was it difficult writing everything yourself this time?
HL: Yeah, I wrote most of it myself and wrote with two other guys. I wrote a song with Paul Maroon and a song with Rostam Batmanglij. I like working with other people, too. You have the freedom to work with whoever you want or not. It’s nice that way.
AP: You’re also an audio buff. Apart from having nice equipment, you know a lot about instruments in general. Years of when the best guitars came out, amps that match up well with them, hard-to-find pedals—
HL: Yeah, we’re geeks about that stuff [laughs]. We talk about amps and guitars so much. I was just on tour last week and we stopped at every guitar store we passed. I’ll always be interested in that stuff.
AP: A good number of mediocre musicians want to have that depth of knowledge, but it takes so long to build up.
HL: Yeah, and it just gets so expensive. My favorite stuff is stuff that is flawed. Your millionaire inspectors don’t want it, so they can’t jack up the price. You’re a working musician so you can refinish a guitar. I’m always looking for that.
AP: Which guitar stores do you make sure to stop at when touring?
HL: I always stop at Jay Rosen Music in California. I always stop at Mike’s Music in Cincinnati, Ohio, too. Those are some good ones. Cream City Music in Milwaukee. They’re all pretty small and filled with so much junk, but when you find good stuff, it’s great.
AP: That’s funny to hear because I always think of The Walkmen as being a group that cleans up both their instruments and their look. Did you decide one day that you guys wanted to dress nicely at shows? How did that start?
HL: There was never any conscious decision, but I think maybe I like to put on a tie or a blazer because it reminds you that you have a job. It makes you feel a little more like you’re trying to get something done. You take it seriously and you put a little effort into it. Maybe that’s the reason? I don’t know. I went to a high school that required me to wear a dress code for 12 years; I’m also just so used to wearing a blazer every day that I feel more comfortable in it really. I can’t imagine doing it any other way.