Hashtone Alley are an exception to the rule..or the standard, status quo, what have you.

You see, we’re fortunate to even have grabbed an interview with this “off the grid” band. Seeking electricity and connection to the web of the wider world from a nearby cafe, Hashtone Alley aren’t much for the modern age.

Finding it easier to solve a Rubik’s cube than to navigate the music industry, the creative minds of Hashtone Alley find comfort in a disconnected experience. One where thoughts and frequencies are not subject to the digitization of most of the planet.

With that said, this is definitely one of the best band interviews we have had the opportunity of publishing in a while.

Sit back, grab a cup of your favorite liquid, and let’s get into it.

Folks, I introduce you to Hashtone Alley.

Introduce yourself and let our readers know what style of music you create.

Perhaps it will be disappointing for you to hear that our “game plan” eschews the standard sequence of starting our Hashtone Alley career by playing at clubs, on the chance that we’ll somehow run into a mentor who turns out to know of a wormhole through the mayhem of the defensive perimeter of the music industry to where good workmanship actually earns you a living.

I (Peter Wale) spent decades chasing that rabbit down hundreds of blind leads to nowhere, coming home in the wee hours of the morning feeling ripped off. A more sensible person would’ve heeded the writing on the wall, sold his guitar and got a not-too-hard-to-hold-down, well-paid gig with all the standard benefits – in the government, for instance.

But, though I am often exceedingly clever, I’m almost completely incapable of being sensible, forever tilting at windmills and dreaming of larger-than life outcomes. Sensible may work for some but, to me, it quickly gets tedious and tedium is forever my undoing. Besides, the call of the piano in the morning continues to be absolutely irresistible. Also, having wasted the best fifteen years of my life trying to prove to my father that I could be as successful a business owner as he was (and having had all of that charming, youthful insouciance – the bedrock of what people interpret as charisma – gradually ground to dust inside me), I am now far beyond being taken seriously in the world of clubs.

For Rachel and me, it’s all about the writing – the melodies, the harmonic structures, the content and the artfulness of the lyrics, the arrangement of the instrumentation – painstakingly tweaked this way and that in response to what intuition tells us the song is trying to become.

Others “write” their songs; our material grows the way trees do – fast, at first, and then ever slower until some kind of equilibrium is reached. Always, it’s as much a case of being able to play it without obvious mistakes and with the appropriate modulation of expression. Neither of us would ever lay claim to having exceptional innate musical talents. Getting to the point where, to others, it might look that way, is the product of endless practice.

Any hope of achieving a truly unique “sound” rests entirely upon protecting our inner ears from being too affected by current trends. In both our cases, decades before we met, Rachel and I were both exposed to a great deal of music – children’s, classical, musicals, show tunes, pop, folk, jazz, blues, early rock, fusion, psychedelic, film and many kinds of music from other countries. Notably, we missed out on most (but not all) country, western, Appalachian and Tex/Mex. Today, the structures of those early absorptions are percolating back up as influences we gravitate toward using, not consciously, mind you, but subliminally. In essence, what we are hatching should, theoretically, resonate well with those who went through a similar musical trajectory. This approach suggests that there is a large, untapped audience of people whose taste in music has evolved toward a somewhat more sophisticated and subtler version of what they grew up liking. Whether we’re right on this, or not, I guess we’ll find out.

What was the last song you listened to?

The last song we “dug” and discussed was the song “Try Everything”, the theme song of “Zootopia”, sung by Shakira. The timing of the chorus – a five over four beats – is simple genius. The movie was a tour de force of creative output.

Challenges?

Basically, it’s difficult to see beyond the primary difficulty of not being able to afford things we think we need. This can cloud one’s judgment. Sometimes you think you need things. Not being able to just go out and buy them tends to reinforce the impression of need when, in reality, you either don’t need that thing or, a little imagination, using what you already have, will do just as well. That said, it’s hard to see how we could imagine our way around access to a great studio, an expert engineer and someone who really has that mastering touch down pat. Beyond that, assuming one has an awesome album-length “tape” in hand, what do you do with it that will ultimately reel in what you’ve invested, plus some? These days, old-fashioned A&R people have been replaced by a thicket of gatekeepers, all with their hands extended, reaching for your wallet – in our case, a very thin one. Mostly, they don’t represent our demographic group. Beyond them, further up the chain, you get those who used to be A&R people who might like your masterpiece but they don’t do that job anymore. The challenge we face is how to bypass the first tier and forge a link with those people – the ones who are ultimately responsible for deciding what to run with and what to let go.

Even then, supposing someone like that says, “Great! Are you ready to roll?”, what do you do with the life you and your life partner have so painstakingly set up to help both of you survive in a definitively poor household? Who takes care of your pets, or the garden you put in to sustain yourselves?

These are the real-life challenges we face. A sufficiency of money could address them. Arrangements can be made, but the people who make a bridge for you, in your absence, so that home doesn’t become the price you pay for following your dreams, need to be appropriately compensated.

A hefty inheritance might have done that for me, but my father, a millionaire, who died last year, completely stiffed me in that respect because I refused to become inducted into his operations and, instead, followed the path my heart preferred – that which gave an outlet for my own special abilities.

It seems that in order to become a middle class songwriter, you need first to be rich. It’s a cruel truth these days.

Gigs?

With the piano being fundamental to our performances, and with fully playable pianos in music venues being rarer than hen’s teeth, it’s hard for us to find places to play, other than at get-togethers in houses where friends of ours have pianos in good condition. We do have guitar-based songs and when the crowd is right, down at Suds, 30 miles down Route 395, we do perform there, strictly for pats on the back. This is ranch and timber country, so when you see lumber workers, cattle hands, fence-builders and heavy equipment operators really digging what you’re performing, it’s a huge compliment. Quite truthfully, these people have given us far more encouragement than we ever got from sophisticates in Seattle, back when we lived there.

Where can we connect with you online? Discover more music?

Online, our presence is restricted by the fact that we do not have internet in our home. Currently, we don’t even have electricity (nor have we for the past two years). We get it at the cafe across the street, but it goes off when they close. That’s OK. It gives us more time to discuss what we should put on the web. Our maxim is “Go slower. Do better.” Connecting up with a decent videographer would be big step forward. We do, however, have some things up on YouTube, in case anyone has the time.

There’s more up there on Rachel’s YouTube channel, rachelchristenson1, and other stuff as well on other people’s channels.

There’s also an interview with us, done by Dave Miller and Sage Van Wing, of Oregon Public Radio, totally by chance, as they traveled down Route 395, aired just this past week.

Any last thoughts? Words of wisdom? Shout outs?

Honestly, with respect to additional thoughts, what kind of response we get out of doing this initiative through musicSUBMIT.com will determine what we do next. It’s a Rubik’s Cube type of puzzle; what to move first, what next, and so on (by the way, we have one of those and solving it is a damn side easier than finding our way through this maze).

Thank you so much for giving us, stuck out here in the middle of nowhere, the chance to express ourselves on this issue. All the best to you in your work.

–Peter Wale and Rachel Christenson of Hashtone Alley