Local band the Bed Heads to release debut album, hold release show this weekend
After a steady flow of singles and EPs going back to 2024, the evolving sound of local band the Bed Heads will culminate in their debut album and release show at their “second home,” the Chameleon.
The 10-track record, “Three Words,” is set to release on Sunday and has been a long-term notion for years. Although various restrictions (the financial kind, in particular) held the group back, a trip to Olive Garden turned into serious musical conversation, which led to the five-piece band starting the process last fall. The album was recorded beneath the North Idaho pines at Cider Mountain Recording Studios in Athol, Idaho, and produced by the “sixth member” of the Bed Heads, Taylor James Carroll. Carroll, the only producer the band has ever had, has also worked with fellow Pacific Northwest musicians Vika, Amelia Day, Izzy Burns and Allen Stone, along with names like Zach Bryan, Train, Vance Joy, Big Thief and Wyatt Flores.
“He’s been a huge part of being able to help us find the sounds that are in our heads,” said drummer AJ Ramirez. “He’s just a really special person, incredibly talented, incredibly musical and just a sweet individual … just a huge part of what we’ve been able to do sonically and musically.”
The band chose to tackle 10 songs out of over 30 demos that all began as lead singer Landon Spencer with his acoustic guitar. They approached the process with excitement that they would get to record more than a handful of songs at a time while simultaneously being precise in selecting songs they resonated with as a collective. Sometimes this process was challenging, simply because, as Ramirez puts it, “Landon writes, a lot.”
Much of Spencer’s songwriting has revolved around displaying narratives, sometimes more “on the nose” through projects such as the band’s retelling of “The Odyssey.” Usually his words are inspired not by occurrences in his life, but through characters instead.
“I like how it’s always kind of framed as telling a story or telling a story in character,” said guitarist Drew Brereton. “Rather than song after song of pouring out feelings onto the page, which that’s great as well, but I think Landon does it in a unique way that sometimes reads more like a book than a journal entry.”
On the album, Spencer continues to tell stories about his own experiences and people he knows, but often through an “unreliable narrator” that may not be as sure about a situation as the listener might want them to be. For example, the track “I Hate to See You Go” is driven by a character who is simultaneously upset at the idea of their romantic partner leaving, but is also aware that if they stay the rift between them will only grow.
“People say the darndest things, and we have to figure out what people are trying to say at any given time, and I think that’s kind of the fun part about songwriting, who you can tell stories about,” Spencer said. “I don’t want to listen to songs about somebody saying how they’re the greatest person of all time all day long, that’s not the most fun to listen to … there’s a lot of different ways you can read the characters.”
Sonically, the album is more directly alternative or indie rock than the indie-folk sound of Bed Heads past. At first, the band’s production was limited, resulting in their folk roots. They have spent years gradually growing more electrified, experimental and heavy, culminating in an album rooted in Spencer’s singer-songwriter abilities but unafraid to explore broader, more assertive, heavy-hitting moments.
“Really the whole time, we’ve just been moving outwards and trying to do more stuff with the music, adding whatever sounds, whatever instrumentation we want to the songs, and it has felt like it’s kind of just evolved gradually,” Brereton said before bassist Sam McQuarrie added, “This is really just a culmination of us being more confident with the people that we have and the music that we’ve made, enough so that we can actually feel good about putting more money into our projects.”
The Bed Heads are excited to mark a new era and to finally have a full-length record out, especially considering Spencer and McQuarrie have been releasing singles and EPs together as far back as their days at Mt. Spokane High School with a band called Spilt Milk. Each member has slightly different wishes for what listeners take away from the project, but all in all hope their progress can be seen and that listeners are able to walk away with their own relatable translations.
“I just want them to think about it their own way, however that is, however it connects to them,” Spencer said. “If I want someone to think about it a certain way, I’ll go blue in the face before they understand what I’m saying or I understand what they think when they hear the song.”
The band will be holding a release show at a venue each member of the band is extremely familiar with, whether it be with the Bed Heads or the wide array of other groups nearly every member is also part of, the Chameleon. At the Saturday show, the entire album will be performed front to back in front of their local supporters, family members and friends, making for a show they may have never been more excited for.
“At the risk of sounding cliche, I feel like the Chameleon stage is kind of a second stage for us, for me certainly, and that was the obvious choice for us to have our release show, I wouldn’t have wanted it anywhere else,” Brereton said before McQuarrie added, “I think that other people know and understand how important this is to us, so like my girlfriend’s grandma is coming,” with a laugh.