Next Monday, high-energy punk band The Thermals will rock the Independent in San Francisco. Eight years after forming The Thermals in Portland, lead singer and guitarist Hutch Harris and bassist Kathy Foster are going stronger than ever, along with drummer Westin Glass who joined two years ago.
Harris and Foster, originally from San Jose, have been living in Portland for 12 years. “It’s rad,” said Harris of the Portland music scene, “You know, Modest Mouse and The Shins and The Decemberists…there’s so many awesome bands up in Portland who kind of know each other, it’s been a really strong music scene for a long time.”
It’s those musical connections which helped The Thermals break into the business. After getting to know Ben Gibbard, of Death Cab for Cutie and The Postal Service fame, through a friend, Hutch passed him a copy of The Thermals’ newly recorded first album. “We were just giving copies away to everyone,” Harris recalled. “Not even to get a record deal, just to give it away to people.” Gibbard, who had been working on The Postal Service’s record for Sub Pop Records, was a fan of the demo, and passed it on to Sub Pop execs, who were quick to get in touch with The Thermals.
“Kathy and I had been making bands and recording stuff and sending it to Sub Pop for years, but there was something really immediate about that first Thermals recording that people really liked,” Harris said. “It was really fresh, especially then. Lo-fi is really big right now, but not a lot of people were doing lo-fi in 2001 or 2002. The songs were really fast and exciting and immediate.”
The Thermals’ most recent album, “Personal Life,” came out this September. “Half of you loves it, and half of you is nervous to see how people like it,” Harris commented. When asked if he thought it was their best album yet, he shyly replied, “That’s more for other people to judge than it is for us to judge.”
After five weeks on the road performing around the country – their fifth trip of the year – The Thermals are about to embark on a smaller tour, including San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego and Oakland. Harris says the band has a great dynamic and loves touring together. Last year, The Thermals took “seven or eight trips…including Europe and China. We just tour all the time, we like it. We have a good time, we’re always just laughing our asses off,” he chuckled.
The Thermals are particularly excited to perform in San Francisco again. “San Francisco’s always awesome to play,” Harris said, “And we have so many family and friends there, from growing up in San Jose.”
When the trio is back in Portland, they continue to make music together while working on their own side projects, Foster’s Love Always and Harris’s Forbidden Friends. “You need to take a break from the main project, but you also need to stay creative and be creative in other ways,” Hutch said. “All three of us love to do a lot of visual arts stuff, too, painting and collage and computer stuff.”
So what are Hutch Harris’s plans for The Thermals’ future? “Just keep going. We never really stopped.”