Touring South by Southwest and on Warped Tour

The Heirs recently toured heavily through SXSW in Texas, and now the band returns to the Southwest to perform on the Van’s Warped Tour.

Savannah Hudson, lead vocalist for The Heirs, spoke about her recording process in the studio, love for vinyl and the band’s upcoming tour. This interview gives insight behind the structure of the band. Hudson covers her musical influences and her passion behind experiencing different forms of live music.

Scan over the interview, and connect with the band on Twitter for updates.
How was the recording process for your latest album, Ecliptic? Do you have plans to record soon?

The recording process is always different for us. Brandon and I write all the music so it usually starts with melody or song, or lyric. The great part about being a brother and sister, we live together, so I can wake him up at 3 in the morning with an idea that I have.

The process is kind of different every time, recording is always a really fun thing, you kind of get to check out all the ideas we have going on inside our brains, and putting them to life in studio. You get to try new things out; the things we have always imagined trying out. It’s great. I love recording and I love writing, it’s fun. But that was a really great process working on Ecliptic EP.

We are actually are working on a new EP, so that will be very exciting. We’re hopefully going to have it released before we go out on Warped Tour. We have already started, so obviously the tour is coming up, but we have a few songs, and we are going to record one more.

The band has been touring all over the country. What about life on the road do you love the most?

Traveling is one of my favorite things. Waking up in a new place everyday, and being able to perform the music that you love. I love my band, so being together, and being on the road is so fun, performing, meeting new friends, and seeing friends you know.

I enjoy every aspect of it.

How was SXSW? What piece of that week stands out, and why?

Going into it I actually got the flu, and my whole band was in this small, little van the entire tour. My brother Brandon got it first, then I got it, and it was just horrible going in. I was wondering, ‘what am I going to do?’ We had 8 or 9 showcases. So, we had three everyday. Which is a lot. I’ve never played three shows in one day. I’ve always had one show a day.

I had to mentally, be like, ‘you are going to get your stuff together.’ I got better after the first day, and was able to explore a little bit.

It was so cool, because I’ve never seen anything like that before in my life. Music on every corner, in every restaurant, in every bar. It was like a music carnival.

It was insane, it was wonderful, and it was one of those experiences that when you get home, you think ‘wow, that was so insane and so incredible.’ I’m so happy I was able to experience that.

Record Store Day is coming up this Saturday. Are you going to be able to swing by a record store? Are you a fan of vinyl?

I’m a huge fan of vinyl, actually I was just talking to some friends last night about going.

I want to get some new Bowie records, and a couple Fleetwood Mac records. I’m going to hunt for them. I want to get some Prince records, Brandon has got a really cool one, so I’m jealous, but yeah, I will definitely be attending Record Store Day.

How do you feel the Internet has impacted the music industry?

I feel that the Internet has changed the industry completely. Artists use to release an album, and people use to rush into stores to buy it, and that was it. Now, there is so different many ways, and so different many outlets for music producers.

There is so many different things you can use as a platform for yourself.

I think that it has impacted in a great way. I think that is has been a lot tougher, social media wise, we are not really use to that, and I think you have to use that with your career. I think that being able to release your music for people to listen to is such a great thing, and we have kind of crossed that horizon. I think it is a good thing.

But I also enjoy vinyl. I still buy CDs and I still buy vinyl.

I love going to a record store, and picking up a record that I know nothing about, liking the artwork, looking at the back of it, and reading about it. And then going home and having no idea what it is. Sometimes they are not so good, sometimes their awesome.

What has been one of your more pleasant surprises that you have taken home from the record store? Let’s say you go to the record store, you see an album with nice artwork, and you listen to it at home. What has been one of the best surprises? 

I was at this record store in Hollywood, with a couple of friends. I saw this one, and it has this picture that I still have in my room. It ended up being this French record. And I love French music. It was only three songs. It was this beautiful piece of music. I can’t pronounce the name, I don’t know the words to the songs, but it was a beautiful, little piece of French music that I bought. Now I love French music because of that.

This summer The Heirs will be traveling with Warped Tour. Do you have any punk rock influences?

Oh yeah, I think the foundation a lot of five piece bands have a punk rock influence.

We definitely take inspiration from a bunch of different genres, like punk, definitely electronic, definitely a little bit of hip-hop, a lot of rock. There is so many things that we bring into our music.

I know our drummer is really into the hard rock bands that are going to be on the Warped Tour. I’m excited to venture out, and see those bands because I’ve never really dabbled in that music. I’m excited to be on tour with these bands.

I think I’ll either come back with 10 piercing on my face with tattoos, or I’ll come back a changed women. I’m super soaked.

Warped Tour is known for a high energy crowd. Have you ever been in a mosh pit? Has one ever broke out at one of your shows? Do you have any mosh pit experience?

Actually, I have been in a mosh pit before. I’m constantly surrounded by guys. When we go to shows, I’m either waiting in the corner, or I’m in there having fun with them.

A couple of shows on our past tour, some moshing has been going on. I didn’t know that people would do that to our music. I think I am going to see a lot of it at the Warped Tour.

I’ve been in some intense mosh pits, and your music seems to be a little more mellow, but you have a stronger side to your music. 

You have to see our live shows. The stuff from the EP it is hard to tell, but we rock up a lot of those songs. I would definitely say our live performances are way more rock than our recorded stuff, which is fine, but I’m going to be rocking it out on Warped Tour.

Have you toured internationally? Which countries interest you the most?

We were able to travel to the UK two years ago, maybe a year and half. We weren’t really there for a long time. We were there for two to three weeks. We were able to dabble in a few places, like we went to London, went to Glasgow, Birmingham, Scotland, Ireland, but we haven’t been back in awhile. I love to travel.