Healy hasn’t played a show in his hometown since he performed at the 2019 Memphis in May Beale Street Music Festival.
His recent show, held November 16th at Growlers, was jam packed.
What brought him back? “Homecoming show,” says Healy, who now lives in Brooklyn, New York. “I started working with a new booking agent and I just put out a new EP.”
And, he says, “I never had the opportunity to tour on my last project. So, I’m kind of checking the boxes right now. Testing the waters. There was an opportunity to play here. And I’ve never played Growlers before. So, I wanted to keep kind of diversifying the venue.”
Asked what sets his latest EP, Look at God, apart from his previous works, Healy says, “I think the entire approach is a lot different. While I was making it I was shooting a music video and I tore my ear drum jumping into the water in Big Sur. And I lost half my hearing for the majority of a year. And that really affected the way that I just approached life, but also music, specificalliy. Like I really had to let go and I couldn’t really wring things dry. And nit pick them and have like 16 or 17 revisions for a mix for a song.”
It also explains the title of the EP. “You never really know what’s going to happen and what’s in store for you. So, I guess that’s the name of the project. Look at God. This realization that your life is out of your control and you’re just going to have to submit and enjoy the dance.”
The video was for his song, “2D,” Healy says. “The scene was just me jumping into the water. We were cliff jumping from 20 or 25 feet up.”
His life changed. “Immediately, people’s voices that I heard my entire life were different. And localization was crazy. Like there would be helicopters flying over me and I’d be like, ‘Oh, they’re all the way over there.’ And it would just be directly over to my left. It was one of the darkest moments of recent memory. But, really, it just showed me that when vocation is out of the way and you’re thinking things like your job or what you’re really passionate about is done and you might not be able to do it anymore, what’s left over is family and friends and love. So, it really just reoriented my life for me. It was the most beautiful silver lining I think I could ever have encountered.”
As far as his hearing loss affecting his creativity, Healy says, “I don’t think I ever thought it was messing it up. If anything, I think it made it more dynamic, in a way.”
He wanted to immediately get back what he had lost. “It inspired me to use different recording techniques. I started using this binaural microphone. It’s shaped like human ears and it records audio in 3D. I was using it, I guess, to give a new dimension to the music that had become somewhat flatter to me. I wanted to really give it more texture and give it more friction. So, if anything, it inspired me to just keep digging and figuring out how I could make things more multi-dimensional.”
Healy got his hearing back about five months later. He had a graft taken from his left ear to recreate his ear drum. “I had that surgery in November. Right before Christmas. I still am without 20 decibels or so. Which is technically within normal limits.”
Asked if he began listening to lots of records, Healy says, “Immediately after, I listened to this one record, Roy Hargrove Quintet ‘Strasbourg/St. Denis.’ And put my headphones on and just closed my eyes. It was as close to a spiritual experience as I’ve come. Just to be able to appreciate all of the frequencies that I’d been missing for months. And things that I’m so used to. And taken for granted.”
And, he adds, “I haven’t listened to this much music in so long because it’s like, ‘Give me all of it. I need it all.’”
Songs on his new EP include Amber. “I’ve always wanted to write a song about how whenever you either break up with somebody or stop being friends with somebody, when you combine with somebody to be friends with in a relationship you form a new version of yourself. And when you separate from them, you leave that version of yourself behind.
“The imagery that was coming to me was a mosquito trapped in amber like a fossil. And it’s stuck there forever.”
Healy has three more shows on the West coast. “So, I’ll probably just focus on that and family stuff up until then. But following that, I’ve been working on a long form album. Like 10 or 12 songs.”
Asked for some hints on the new album, which may be released in summer of 2024, Healy says, “I’ve been really trying to just throw paint at the wall and see what sticks. I’m really grateful that my fans allow me to be me and they don’t feel like — or I don’t feel like — they expect a specific type of music or version of me. And so there’s this flexibility that I have that’s really special.
“I’m screaming on a few of these songs. Some of them are very beautiful — like Americana singer-songwriter. Just classic imagery. Then others are using some newer recording techniques and newer instrumentation that I’m not used to. I’m just continually trying to diversify my creative circle.”
While he’s in Memphis, Healy plans to check on his friends, Kinfolk restaurant chef/co-owner Cole Jeanes and Amy and Hayes McPherson from Comeback Coffee. “And I also stop by Novel and get the Poetry Foundation monthly edition because sometimes it doesn’t come to my steps in New York. I always like to get it in person cause it’s really a nice source of inspiration. And I love Novel, too. It feels good in there.”
Healy plans to spend time with family. “I haven’t gotten to be with them for Thanksgiving in like three years. So, I’ll do that. I’m excited to just kick my feet up and drink a beer and watch football. Partake.”
