INTERVIEW: Chris Kelly talks about the future of his new band, Hillhaven
Photo: Hillhaven’s new single is called “Killing Time.” Photo courtesy of the band / Provided by Atom Splitter PR with permission.
Chris Kelly is a super-busy musician, a guitarist and vocalist whose résumé is filled with bands that metal fans have come to know and love. He has played with Ice Nine Kills and Galactic Empire, and now he’s back with a new group called Hillhaven. For this band, he serves as the vocalist — a somewhat new role for the lifelong guitarist — alongside Maty Madiro on drums, Ricky Armellino on guitars, Jimmy Bennett on guitars and Jaime GoWell on bass.
Hillhaven stayed active throughout 2024 and is now gearing up for a packed 2025 with the drip-drip-drip release of powerful singles, including the tunes “Damned to Dream,” “Killing Time,” “The God You Think You Are” and “This Time Tomorrow.”
Here’s how Kelly describes the genesis of the group: “I had written a song that was originally meant to be used for another band that I was sort of producing and performing with at the time. That song wound up being a song called “Gaps” that we put out back in June, and I had had that original band’s singer on it. Some interpersonal stuff had come up that caused the song not to be getting used by that band, so I sent the song to Maty, our drummer, just to get his thoughts on it, not really thinking I was going to start the band with it. I was particularly proud of the song. I hadn’t previously considered myself very good at writing vocals or lyrics or anything like that because I’ve always been a guitar player primarily, so I sent it to Maty for his thoughts. His answer was effectively, ‘If this is something that you’re going to make a project out of, then you need a drummer. Then give me a call.’ That was kind of the thing that sparked the whole thing.”
Kelly recorded the song a second time with his vocals taking over, and he sent the tune around to some friends and industry insiders. The feedback was positive, and Hillhaven was born. “At certain times, I sort of realized, I didn’t really think this through,” Kelly admitted. “I’m the one that has to be making all the content and the face of the whole thing. I kind of forgot that that was part of the singer’s job, so I’m figuring that out as I go.”
There has been a solid handful of singles so far from Hillhaven. All in all, there are about 10 songs that will be unleashed on the listening public. Kelly was honest that he’s unsure about the future prospects of these tunes: Should he put together a formal album, or simply keep releasing singles one by one?
“So we’re still kind of deciding what to do with those, whether they’ll just be released as a larger body of work or we’ll keep doing singles or what the deal is,” he said. “Then there is some more material that’s being worked on and completed at the moment that I would consider to be the next era of the band. It’s a little nebulous at the moment. The plan was originally to do a record, but because a lot of this was just throwing darts at the wall and seeing if we could make a decent proof of concept this year, by the time it came around to, well, maybe it’ll be time to announce a record, we didn’t really have any proper groundwork laid in terms of merch bundles or marketing or anything like that, to do what I would have considered an appropriate album push. So the conversation is a little up in the air at the moment while we figure out what the plan for 2025 is going to be.”
That’s one of the positive problems that Hillhaven finds itself facing: They have a ton of songs, two batches, with each batch sounding slightly different, and now they are trying to leverage their opportunities in the industry to ensure the music gets out to a wide audience.
“If we did do a record that was comprised of any of the material that has been released already, we would probably just have it be all of it,” Kelly said. “But with the new stuff that’s being worked on, the production sounds different, and the vibe is a little bit different. I think the sound and the identity is a little more evolved or developed, so the question then becomes, do we include both things on one record, which kind of feels like not necessarily the most appropriate move to me. And so if that’s the case, then do we have two separate releases on our hands, or do we just keep doing the single thing for a while?”
Kelly recognizes that singles have become the new language of the music industry, even more than albums, but he’s nostalgic for what an album says about a band during a certain era of their existence. He likes the idea of a package that shows where Hillhaven currently stands.
“Singles have kind of become the move just because the public attention span is lower than ever, but at the same time, I think once you have a developed and established fan base of whatever given size, I think everybody wants to see an album or an EP or some kind of body of work that they can save to their phone or whatever device that they’re using and kind of have it all in one place,” the vocalist said. “I think albums still are what defines the era of the band, whatever era that band is in, defines a particular point in the band’s career. Part of me wants to give the current material that sort of satisfaction of having its own album and defining it in that way, and another part of me feels like, well, it’s kind of defined itself. And the band is young and growing. Maybe it’s more appropriate that the first full-length is with newer material, but I’m not entirely sure what we’re going to do yet.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Hillhaven, featuring Chris Kelly, is currently releasing singles, including “Killing Time.” Click here for more information.
