Quotes from Tom:

“It was a personal test to see if I had any skill as a songwriter, I just wanted to give it a try and see what happened, friends were so helpful and it just became a labor of love, and people like the songs and they like the music, so it’s been great.”

“People ask me if my songs are personal, or documentaries or portraits, every song is its own thing, it becomes its own thing, like a child the minute it leaves you, you have to kind of follow your song and find out what it’s trying to be.”

“I try to push a song around the playground to see if it will work if it’s just a lick, it’s really easy to lie with a guitar in your hand, you can tell anybody anything.”

The Ingredients to Heathcote Hill:

“It was kind of building everything around Megan’s voice, I would come up with some words and some chords, and we started to work it out with Megan, and kind of built everything around it and a lot of my friends were surprised that our first record was not what they expected. Cory was our drummer, Bruce was our Bass player, Megan was our singer, and I played guitars and that’s how it all became something.”

A pivotal moment for Heathcote Hill:

“For me as the “trying to be a songwriter person,” the first time I heard Megan,Tori, and Bruce and I play a song and it became something outside my head, and I said that sound really interesting, it wasn’t what I expected, it was it’s own thing, and I thought that’s really neat, to, from heard only here, to, heard there, every time it’s a surprise.”

Songwriting in your blood:

“I was a writer and director in advertising, that was my career, I’ve always been in a creative community and worked with some great directors, great actors, and great musicians, it was a really talented group, and a really fun world to be in, then I got back into music later in life and found a lot of the same creative challenges. So I wanted to see if I could go from commercial writing to songwriting.”

Real Artists Ship:

“You have to send it away at a certain point, I just have to let it be. The one song that has been tortured to within an inch of its life is called “Don’t Even Wave Goodbye”, it has three different passes of drums, different vocalists, I did countless guitar tracks, and we just kept trying it and trying it, and we finally got it to were we all liked it. I could have kept tinkering, and we finally had to just send it away.”

NY Clubs:

“Bowery Electric, The Bitter End, Rockwood Music Hall, there is something about the Bitter End, we always sound really good there, and all my friends sound better there, maybe it’s the horizontal room, or maybe its the vibe of the room, but we always sound good there.”

Megan:

“Megan has always been a singer, her sisters sing, they sing at every baptism, wedding, and first communion, and everything in the family. Megan and I were in a band a few years ago, that’s how we got to know each other, it’s something she does in her spare time. The last band took two 3 month leaves when Megan had her last two children. She is a Mom and works in Education and her husband is an Annapolis Grad and one night a week we try to rehearse and do music.”

Tim Hatfield CTS Studios:

“Tim Hatfield at CTS studios in Brooklyn thought that the song “Some Things In Life” will sound great with a keyboard part, what do you think? he asked. I said I’m homeless I’m looking for help, who do you know? I’ll send it to my friend Rob Arthur, and maybe he can do a neat thing for us. Rob Arthur has been touring with Peter Frampton for the last 15 years as his keyboard and guitar player, he is an astonishing musician, and a week later thanks to the miracle of the internet, Rob’s piece comes back and its the opening of “Some things in Life”

Featured Songs: 

Some things in Life
Rain all Night
Oxford Depot Blue
Love me a Little Bit More

You can follow Tom here:

Website
www.heathcotehill.net

ReverbNation
www.reverbnation.com/heathcotehill

Facebook
@heathcotehill

Instagram
@heathcote_hill

Youtube
www.youtube.com/channel/UCq396f_9NqCnfFNBU6MYPbA 

Listen to the podcast here!