Trenton from Hands Like Houses tells Jen about their World Tour and upcoming Album ‘Dissonants’

Australian rock band Hands Like Houses are proud to announce a worldwide headline tour in support of their upcoming and third studio album, Dissonants, which will be released this spring through Rise Records.

“We are unbelievably excited to announce our very first world tour! We’re hitting the roads and skies in support of our brand new album Dissonants this October-December in Australia, the US and UK. Even better, we’re dragging a whole bunch of friends, old and new, along for the ride!” says frontman, Trenton Woodley. Joining Hands Like Houses on the Australian leg of the tour as main support is UK rock band, Lower Than Atlantis, and openers Far Away Stables.

Hands Like Houses is Trenton Woodley (vocals), Matt “Coops” Cooper (guitar), Alexander Pearson (guitar), Joel Tyrrell (bass) and Matthew Parkitny (drums).

I had the chance to interview Trenton while he was on a break on their US tour. 

Hi Trent, you are releasing your third album soon, ‘Dissonants’ can you tell me what if anything has changed from your first in the writing process and recording? 

Our writing process is always evolving, relative to our own creative process and also the practicalities of balancing touring against writing and recording. ‘Ground Dweller’ was a 2 year mammoth effort of constant grinding at our instruments in front of a computer, as we were as yet to begin touring at that point. ‘Unimagine’ was a more confident, off the cuff writing style, developing ideas we’d started at home, by jamming in the studio and bouncing ideas off our producers (Erik Ron and James Wisner). ‘Dissonants’ was a progression again as we had very limited time off tour to lay down the foundations so we had to be incredibly focused and motivated by what we intended to do with the record to make it happen. Doing so took longer than we actually had booked, so we went back in the studio after Warped Tour to put the final touches on the record and in retrospect we can’t imagine it coming together any other way!

You have had some presale merch bundles in the lead up to release, how has the response been from your fans?

Absolutely fantastic – we were stoked on the ticket bundle items we were able to include and fans reciprocated that. It’s great to have things beyond the shows themselves for fans to enjoy and by which to feel a part of the journey.

Do you have a goal or a hopeful expectation to debut higher than your album Unimagine that debuted at 37 on the Billboard Charts? That was an amazing feat!  

Of course! You always try and outdo yourself and we’re confident this album is better than the last so fingers crossed we aren’t up against massive releases that might push us down the list haha. It’s definitely a cool feeling to see your music recognized in such an established part of music culture as the Billboard chart.

You released a stand-alone song that debuted at number one on the iTunes Rock charts and number 2 in the US. It has huge views on youtube and got heaps of radio play. Congrats on that. Is this song a taste of what we can expect from ‘Dissonants’?

Definitely – even if we’d written the whole album at once, I Am would probably still be the first song we’d put out. It feels like a perfect introduction to the energy and themes of the new album. The success it’s had already is wild and has us pretty pumped to get the rest of Dissonants out to the world J

Prior to the US tour starting you did an Australian tour including some free all ages shows sponsored by Indent. Were they well attended, was it worth doing the free shows? I am sure fans appreciated it.

They were truly great – regional shows always feel like a gamble and of course they weren’t as well attended as you might see in a capital city, but at the same time the response was so positive and encouraging that we could still reach beyond the metropolitan culture in Australian music. Indent is an amazing program we hope to see continue as it’s such an important social tool, especially in these regional areas.

The ‘Dissonants’ Tour is underway in the US, prior to that you played shows in Australia in October, how did the Aussie crowds respond to your new music?

Those shows were so much fun – intimate and powerful and the new songs went down a treat. Was a great chance to road test them prior to the album release! 

You are in the middle of a massive US tour, clearly you have a solid fan base there. Any highlights from that tour so far?

The New York show was wild, and we had a bunch of sweaty packed out shows in Florida, Massachusetts and Georgia. Still plenty to go but it’s been such a fun ride with a legendary bunch of dudes in the supporting acts. 

Being in the US for Halloween was that better than being in Australia for it? Did you dress up etc?

Halloween isn’t really a thing at home, so it was great to see people just wandering the streets in all kinds of costumes. We planned to dress as the Wiggles but finding coloured skivvies is way harder than you’d think. So we just dressed up the stage with plenty of spooky props. 

I have been reading your bio and looking up tours that you guys have done, seriously you guys love being on the road touring! Have you any funny stories that have happened to you on the road?

We have to love touring – it’s the primary income source for musicians these days! But it’s way easier to love when you’re out with friends and playing to people that genuinely appreciate who you are and what you do. We’ve had a lot of laughs along the way but mostly just in jokes and ‘had to be there’s haha!

So far you have released ‘New Romantics’ off ‘Dissonants’.

I really like the lyrics,

“I’m trying to find myself

Coming back to the same words to try and tell a different story

I’m further from myself

Coming back to the same words, in hope they come alive without me’

Was there a particular reason this was the lead single off the album?

This song was just about trying to find the core of what I am, and what we are, and how that impacts our life and music – these things don’t necessarily change within the time period of an album cycle so it was about trying to find the common truths of ourselves that went beyond the individual stories we’ve told before. It’s hard not to rehash the same topics and metaphors, so this song was almost self-aware as it came together lyrically. It’s about detaching from the immediate future and past to let things happen as they naturally do, embracing that and using it to illustrate the common threads in our existence!

Who designs all your album covers and merch? I must say that they are very talented!

We have a hell of a team of designers to call on for our designs, some in house through our merch company or record label, and a couple we’ve discovered via our peers’ music and media. It’s a cool creative world out there! And we always want to have the best representation of ourselves – even to the point of designs that we’d happily wear ourselves if our band name wasn’t slathered all over it. Bands wearing their own merch is always weird, so I just save them for grocery trips or laundry days 😉

You are playing Unified in January, that is like my dream Soundwave line up (as next year is disappointing)….. that is one sweet line up! This time I am definitely going to catch your set.  Thanks heaps for your time and I wish you well for the rest for your tour and the release of ‘Dissonants’.

 Thanks for your time – can’t wait! 

           ~ Trenton