Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to James + Millie Hesser. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Hi James + Millie , thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear the backstory behind a risk you’ve taken – whether big or small, walk us through what it was like and how it ultimately turned out.
Millie and I had been playing together as Waterplanet for some time but had never gone on a proper tour. So, after recording our Ghost Hypnotic album at Baltimore’s Mobtown Studios we decided it was time. Around the same time, we were contacted by a promotion group in another region – not an everyday event for us – that wanted to work with us. So we decided to book a two-week tour of the east coast, south, and Midwest for July 2018. Everything was going well. After a year of planning meetings, paperwork, publicity coordination, and general back and forth, we had shows booked in 10 states. We were practiced up and excited to hit the road. We would do a few Maryland shows then head from Pittsburgh to the upper Midwest, swing through Chicago and Nashville, then as far south as Athens, GA, before finishing in New York City. We would then cap it all off back in our home town at Baltimore’s Ottobar.
Then out of the blue, things took a strange turn. The week before we were to head out, the promotion company, in business for 15 years, suddenly went bankrupt and became unreachable. Even their website vanished.
Millie and I were freaked out and had no idea what to do. Were the shows still booked? What if we got halfway across the country and the bookings fell through? And what of the supporting radio and in-store promotions and interviews they had been setting up for months? Would anything still be happening?
But luckily for us, at the last minute one of our main contacts, our tour booking agent Kristin, wasn’t willing to abandon us and got in touch. She was apologetic but assured us that though the additional promotion in the local markets wouldn’t be happening, the bookings were set and venues were expecting us.
Tensions were high, and we worried how turn-out would be without the extra promotion, but we had put a lot of time, energy, and money into preparing for this, so we gave it a shot. And we’re glad we did! The tour had its glitches, like any long road trip with deadlines and a car full of equipment, but the shows were fun, our musicianship went to the next level, and we met a lot of great new fans and business contacts. Like New York, Nashville is one of those iconic places every musician wants to play – and it lived up to the hype, mostly. We played an incredible, one-of-a-kind room hung with art (sculptures literally hanging from the ceiling). We ended up playing for food there, but it was also a 5-star restaurant, so what a meal! An added highlight was staying in Nashville with our former guitarist Gregtape and his musical partner Eileen. We hope to get back there soon! Undoubtedly, Grand Rapids was the tour’s hidden gem for both of us. We had no idea there was such a thriving and supportive music scene in Grand Rapids, and it was probably our favorite show. The bands that night were as unique as any in Baltimore, and the music scene, super supportive.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers
James – I was always a visual artist. Apparently, my mom noticed that I “…put the wheels on the right sides of the firetruck” at a surprisingly young age. I always loved drawing and painting. My sister Eileen played piano and guitar and was doing more music with her friends, and I realized it interested me and was something I could do. I had dropped out of college and was working in restaurants, and a lot of the folks I was working with were very accomplished musicians – but casual about it. So I started playing percussion with them and learning to sing harmonies, which helped me become more comfortable as a vocalist. It was all covers, classic folk and rock stuff, CSNY, etc., but it was fun. I never really stopped doing some form of music after that. I started trying to write songs in my early 20s. Some were love songs but not in a traditional sense, and even they were idiosyncratic, weird songs. At one point, one of my sister’s friends recommended me to a band, and I sang with them for a few months but it never really worked out. That was the only other official “band”I was in, until Waterplanet, that is. Millie – I sang from before I can remember, and my mom used to get me to do “Feed the Birds” from Mary Poppins for her friends because I was singing it around the house all the time. She began to notice I could pick tunes out on the piano at my aunt’s house, so when I was 6 my parents got a piano and started me with lessons, and I studied classical till I finished high school. I sang in groups growing up in church, scouts, and chorus at school, learning to sing in parts and do harmonies, but mostly I taught myself harmonies by singing along to Beatles songs. Then around 14 I bought a Sears guitar and began writing songs, at the same time I was evolving as a creative writer, writing poems and stories. I started listening to new wave and punk around that time, and then got into the Baltimore/DC punk scenes when I went to college. In college I started playing out, mainly as a vocalist and synth player, then joined a number of bands after graduation and have been performing and recording with bands ever since.
Essentially, Waterplanet is an art-rock band. Even though it’s just the two of us, we see it more as a band than a duo or a more traditional, singer-songwriter outfit. Other than the design work, which James does (with much consultation and critique from Millie), we share pretty much all of the band duties equally and trade instruments and lead / backing and writing roles fluidly. Early on, to get the musical parts and sounds we wanted, we had to find extremely creative ways around filling out our sound, with unique vocal and instrumental parts that were still doable by only two people on a performing stage. When recording we sometimes add parts that we cannot do easily live – especially backing vocals – but we try to give fans and listeners an experience as close to the recordings as possible.
We’re proud of all we’ve accomplished with just the two of us. We have had moments of collaboration with others but have mainly done it all ourselves, whether it be teaching ourselves to record and produce our own music or booking and publicizing our own shows. We prioritize artistic authenticity and originality and actively encourage others to do so as well. We both admire musical innovators and strive to stretch the boundaries of what is possible and marketable in the pop/rock format.
Our work is frequently appreciated by fans as something they haven’t heard before, with elements that feel familiar and warm, because of the driving melodies and vocal harmonies. Our biggest fans are people who are not satisfied with music that sounds like everything else. They are looking to connect with others through an unusual artistic experience.
What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?
In general, with our music, we prioritize originality over marketability. We want to make music that we want to hear, something different. Whatever direction a song or piece seems to want to take, we go that direction. Each song is a separate journey, a separate problem to solve as to what it needs, what sounds best, and how to best make it communicate its particular message. One of our favorite reactions to our music was by the engineer, Shelly Yakus who worked with John Lennon and U2. After listening to our recordings he said our songs “conjured animated movies in his mind.” We didn’t get a chance to work with him beyond that, but it let us know that we were definitely doing something right! Our goal is to make music we are proud of and that people enjoy and hopefully gain artistic appreciation and respect for our unique sound in the process. We are growing our audience and widening the distribution. And our ultimate goal has always been to generate enough income that we are playing music as our career, rather than working day jobs. It would be nice to turn a profit and become a household name. So far that has not happened, but even if that never happens, we will continue to do what we do as the creative expression of our inner worlds. We are driven to do this – it’s embedded deeply in our lives and visions of the world. And we wish to bring people together to join us on our journey.
Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative?
People may not get what drives creative artists and makes them do what they do with such obsessiveness. Part of it is the desire to handcraft something to the best of one’s ability, something that communicates in its purest form to others. Music is about passing on a moment, communing and sharing with others, bringing revelations, insights, and pleasure. Melody and rhythm provide a channel for accessing others’ experiences, allowing others to resonate with one’s profoundest emotions, positive or negative. Songs take listeners on journeys, and occasionally they are so well communicated that they can change the way someone sees something, or the path that person may take in life. Certain songs at key moments definitely did that for us, and we would not be the same people today had we not crossed paths with that music. Interacting with art and the artmaking process helps humans connect to and understand themselves and the world they are passing through. It helps people find new ways of problem solving and moving forward to prepare for a future they can’t quite glimpse yet.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://waterplanetband.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/waterplanetband/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/waterplanetband
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/waterplanetband
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@WATERPLANETband
- Other: https://waterplanet.bandcamp.com/
Image Credits
David Wright Greg Dohler