The 1st wave of Tour Dates are in.  Leave us a comment below and let us know where we’ll see you!

We’re happy to present to you our cover of SBTRKT‘s Wildfire from our session put together by Music. Defined. Let us know what you think!

Stream it on YouTube and Stream/Download it on SoundCloud

“It is at once wildly different from anything else Molehill plays and yet somehow fits squarely in their wheelhouse.”
-Josh Terzino , Music.Defined.

A broadcast of our live set  at Be Here Now in Muncie, IN performed on 3.22.13 is now available for streaming and download.  This was originally broadcasted on Indiana Public Radio, 92.1 FM Muncie on the show ‘The Scene’

Stream and Download on SoundCloud or YouTube

Thanks to our photographer Cory DeWald for this awesome gallery from our performance on 3.29.13 at the Metro in Chicago:

Check out the Photo Gallery from our show at the Metro from 3/29.  There are some great shots!

A few weeks ago we stopped by WIIT Studios on the South Side of Chicago for an interview and performance on the Midday with K Show on 88.9 FM Chicago.  We’ve played this song on tour for a bit and Pete decided to perform it on the show.  Click the video below or click HERE to watch.  It’s definitely a bit of a departure from what you’ve heard on “Equinox”

Listen to the Full Interview HERE
Listen to the add we did for the show HERE

…from the Manhart logs.  April 3rd, 2013

Muncie, IN – 3.22.13

No member of Molehill had ever been to Muncie before, so we didn’t really know what to expect.  However, after our recent great experiences in Shippensburg, PA and Mansfield, OH, it’s safe to say we had high hopes – and Muncie, you didn’t disappoint!  We played a very cool venue called Be Here Now, which had a bunch of old-school arcade games in the band room which Greg took advantage of later.  We didn’t know anyone in Muncie, but there was a great crowd at the show.  A bunch of students from local Ball State came out to the show and, despite the fact that they had never heard nor seen us before, ROCKED THE F OUT!  We’ve definitely never had a crowd that was so enthusiastic before we even started playing!  Every time Greg would play a piano chord during sound check, the whole place would go nuts.  And this continued throughout our set.  We made a lot of new fans, and met a lot of great people.  Muncie – we can’t wait to come back!

On a sad note, one of our colortube lights met its demise that night, falling directly onto one of the screws on Devin’s drums.  The lights worked for the rest of the night, in true badass rock and roll light fashion… it wasn’t til the next day that we started having real problems.

Indianapolis, IN – 3.23.13

The next night was in Indianapolis.  We played a very nice club called Birdy’s.  This was definitely the biggest venue we have played in Indy to date.  After the show, I met a lovely (somewhat drunk) girl whose birthday was that night.  She had come to the venue to see a friend’s band, but she had some wonderful things to say about Molehill.  She kept saying more and more nice things, and telling me how much she loved music, to the point that she actually started crying.  She said she never wants music to stop being a part of her life.  I gave her a hug, because I didn’t really know what else to do.  If people cry after your show, that’s a good thing… right?

The next morning was a near disaster.  We had to leave Indy early on 3 hours of sleep to get Devin back to Chicago in time to play his church gig.  As soon as we opened our beautiful Red Roof Inn door (<cough> sponsor us! <cough>), we saw that it was snowing outside.  Hard.  Indy was expecting about 8 inches of snow that day.  Now look, I’m an avid skier, but the Silver Bullet does not handle well in snow, and that’s specifically why we avoid touring in January and February.  Now, here we are on the 2nd-to-last weekend of March, and there’s a huge snowfall!  What gives?  This was one of the worst drives we’ve ever made.  Before any of us realized it was snowing, Trevor had agreed to take the first driving shift… I was going to try to sleep.  Yeah, fat chance.  The highways hadn’t been plowed yet, the sun wasn’t up, we were in a van that can’t handle snow, and we’re on the highway, trying to make it back to Chicago by 9am.  I couldn’t sleep.  A part of me wanted to take a picture, but I thought that was tempting fate.  Instead, I just stared at the street and prayed that the plows would come soon.  After a couple hours of tailing every semi truck we could (going 20 mph for a nice long stretch), we finally escaped the storm’s reach, the sun came out, and the roads cleared up.  Whew.  In fact, the roads were so clear that we were able to make up for lost time, and still get Devin back in time for his gig!  All’s well that ends well, but I’d prefer not to go through that again.

The Metro – Chicago – 3.29.13

Back in my Libertyville High School days, I was in a funk metal band called Spastic Nytzzz.  This was my first band, and I loved it.  We made our first tapes on an honest to God 4-track recorder.  I would then send these tapes to the Chicago venue that everybody dreamed about playing – The Metro.  I would mail in a tape, then call the venue week after week, asking if they’d listened yet, and if my band could play there.  I sent 2 or 3 tapes, and then when they kept blowing me off, I even made the 1 hour drive to Chicago just to hand my tape to someone in person.  I kept calling, and still got blown off.

Well, 13 years later, we finally booked a gig at the Metro.  No doubt, this is a milestone for us as a band, and for me as a musician.  This is “the” venue in Chicago.  Sure, there are bigger clubs, but none has quite the mystique of the Metro.  Plus, it’s still pretty damn big!  I’ve been to so many great shows here, and so many amazing acts have come through that I wish I had seen – The Ramones, REM, The Smashing Pumpkins, Nirvana, Soundgarden, Oasis, The White Stripes, The Killers, Kanye West, Arctic Monkeys, Fallout Boy… the list goes on and on.

I don’t know if I can describe the feeling of first standing on that stage and looking OUT at the venue, rather than standing in the venue and looking up at the stage.  It was like a seismic shift in my reality.  A pinnacle climbed.  This thing I had always been reaching for was finally in my hands.

Supposedly, the Metro is haunted.  A friend of mine, when he played the Metro for the first time a year or two ago, wrote down about how he explored the place, talked to people about the ghosts, and things like that.  My experience wasn’t like that – I stepped on stage, looked out at the empty venue for a minute, and then got back to work!  I could only soak it in for so long before I had to get back to preparing – we had colortubes to test (which, by the way, decided to crap out in Indy – we only were able to use 2 of them for this show), we had a 3-piece string section that needed cues.  We had sound guys to talk to, guest lists to pass out, Mexican food to eat!  (by the way, huge burrito before playing a rock show – terrible idea)  And then I had to make sure to sit for a little while before the show and get focused and ready.

Once we hit the stage, I was in heaven.  The crowd was huge – the floor was packed, and the balcony was packed as well.  We rocked as hard as we could, and somehow the playing felt so – easy.  After all the touring we’ve been doing, these songs just fall right into place, almost without thinking about it.  We’ve practiced so much and worked so hard on perfecting our craft for times like this that, when the time arrives, it’s almost surprising how well that plan has worked!  Greg told me afterwards that he felt a bit nervous before we started playing, but halfway through the first song it felt like business as usual, we all just locked in.  As soon as we got off the stage, all I could think was – why does it have to end?  Why can’t I spend the rest of my life at this show on that stage, singing for people!  Maybe that is what it will be like when I die, who knows.

So yeah, this was a milestone for us.  It was an amazing night, and we received so much love and support from so many people who have been important in our lives as a band and individuals.   But in some ways, it was also just another show.  One more step on our journey.  It was a huge show, of course, and a GREAT last show to play before another 2 months of dedicated songwriting… but we only have so much time to ride this high, and then it’s back to work.  We’re going to get back to writing, back to practice, back to working on our live show.  We have music videos in the works, and will hopefully be booking some studio time soon to work on our next EP.  This may have been Molehill’s best show YET, but there’s no way in hell it’s going to be our best show EVER.  We’re going to come back stronger, better, louder, shinier, balder, and handsomer than ever before!

So I’m going to end by saying thank you all so much for the support.  Anyone reading this, anyone who’s ever listened to our music or come out to a show, and especially the people who keep coming back to shows over and over again – everything we have achieved so far has been all because of you.  We couldn’t do any of this without your support!  We are truly blessed to have so many wonderful fans and friends.  You are all amazing, and we love you!

And we’ll see you at the next big show – because I’m a live performance adrenaline junkie, and I need my fix!!

-The Heat

…from the Manhart logs.  March 11th, 2013

Well, that was fun.

After taking 2 months off to hibernate, write new songs, and have a crazy drunken Molehill merchandise photo shoot, we got back to playing shows.

SUBTERRANEAN – 2.22.13

First, we played Subterranean in Chicago on Friday, February 22nd.  This was a great show, though we got in a bit of trouble with Officer Corchoran for putting up posters on abandoned store windows.  After a brief, intense interrogation period, and after we took the offending posters down, he was nice enough to give us back our IDs.  No messing around on Corchoran’s beat!

MILWAUKEE – 3.1.13

Lisa told me earlier this week that Mercury was in retrograde.  Apparently, this means that everything’s about to go wrong.  Thanks Mercury…dick.

Now, let me start this by saying that I love Milwaukee, probably more than most people.  Milwaukee stands for 3 things that I love in this world – cheese, sausage, and beer.  In fact, other than the Green Pay Packers, I think I love everything about the state of Wisconsin.  Especially cheese curds.

BUT playing in Milwaukee has been difficult for us, not sure why.  I don’t know what it is, but it’s just been tough to build up a following.  This particular Friday, we were playing with two other very cool bands, but the crowd in the bar wasn’t really paying attention to either of them.  Devin told me before our set that he wasn’t feeling the crowd… yeah I’m not surprised, that first band kicked ass and they got the quiet golf clap after every song.  By the time we played, there were about 12 people in the bar – 4 of them were our friends, the other 8 were the members of the other 2 bands.  We still gave those 12 people the best show we possibly could, but it wasn’t the most fun drive back home that night.  These, friends, are the lows.  Better than one of the other Milwaukee shows we had, where at one point the only 2 people in the crowd were my sister in law and the sound guy…. I guess.

 LIBERTYVILLE – 3.2.13

The next night, we returned to my hometown of Libertyville, Illinois.  Libertyville’s always been good to us, but Mercury had to come F this one up as well.  We played with 2 other great bands, but there was a huge miscommunication amongst the bands, and we didn’t end up starting our set until TEN MINUTES BEFORE THE BAR CLOSED!!!  You’ve gotta be kidding me.  I was sitting backstage the whole time, getting progressively more and more amped up.  “Okay, we WERE supposed to play for 1 hour, but it looks like we have to cut 2 songs <scratch, scratch>… shit, looks like we’ll only have 40 minutes, couple more songs <scratch, scatch> WTF SOUND GUY TELL THESE GUYS TO STOP PLAYING, ONLY 20 MINUTES!!!  <scratch, scratch, scratch>. ”

The band before us was very apologetic.  They had been told they could play for 1 hour, 15 minutes.  If you add up the times every band was told to play, plus changeover time, that would add up to a nice 3 hours and 40 minutes.  Funny, there were only 3 hours of open bar time available for the bands to be playing. Thankfully, the bar let us play past closing time, so we got a nice 23 minute set, and dammit if that wasn’t the best (and only) 23 minute set we’ve ever played!!

Afterwards, we came home, and I attempted to keep Greg awake with beer from Mickey Finn’s and the movie Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World.  He did an admirable job staying up.  But I had some serious adrenaline keeping me awake that night, so that made me the guy taking the picture…

MUSE 3.4.13

The following Monday, the 4 of us went and saw Muse at the United Center.  I took a cab from work to the bar where we met up, and I told my cab driver that just about everything had been going wrong for me lately.  He said “you’ve got to just keep on going.  Every minute, you can make things better, that’s what life is.  The only people who can’t say that are the ones who won’t live past this minute”.  I said, you know what man, I think I’m gonna turn things around right now.  Things have been off lately, but I think I’ve taken my hits, and now it’s time to bounce back!

Needless to say, Muse was incredible.

COLUMBUS/MANSFIELD, OH – 3.8.13

We played a live set on undergroundcolumbus.com in the afternoon.  Very cool.  People from other offices at the Ohio Center for Broadcasting complained that we were too loud, so we had to cut our set short – rock and roll!

Then, that night, we played Mansfield, OH, at Planet Rock.

We had never played Mansfield before.  First thing I noticed – the venue had a huge goalpost at the end of the parking lot.  Somehow, I think that’s a good omen.

The show was great.  The sound was great.  I won’t lie and say there were a lot of people there, but the people who WERE there were awesome.  We got a fantastic response.  We’ve played shows at crowded bars in front of 300 people before where nobody gives even the tiniest shit about the band that’s making them have to yell to be heard by their drunk friends.  If I had a choice, I’d play in front of 20 people who are really into the music rather than 300 people who don’t care every single time.  It makes a world of difference.  Mansfield, while maybe not so high on quantity of people, was definitely high on quality of people, and that’s what’s important.  We can’t wait to go back!

COLUMBUS – 3.9.13

We drove back to Columbus on Friday after the Mansfield show.  First time we’ve ever stayed at the same hotel for 2 nights – pretty sweet!  The next day was super relaxing – as opposed to Friday, where we loaded and unloaded the van 3 separate times in the same day.  Saturday, we got to have a relaxing breakfast, and we even had time to go see Zero Dark Thirty for $1.75 at a second-run theater in C-bus.  That night, we had a fantastic show at the Scarlet and Grey Cafe in Columbus.  Great turnout, all the bands kicked ass, great night overall.  A couple people we met in Mansfield the night before even drove out to see us again in Columbus.  Awesome.  This was possibly the best show we’d ever played in Columbus.  We got a great response from the crowd, and had a great time.  We all had a good feeling about this night from the onset, hence Greg’s sweet bass warmup in the green room before showtime…

The Silver Bullet’s check engine light had been going on and off all weekend, and the van started making a pretty disturbing thumping noise on the drive back to our hotel… No bueno.  Thankfully, the noise eventually stopped.  This was the one unhappy moment of my day, really.

BACK HOME – 3.10.13

After 4 hours of sleep, we hopped in the van and drove to the Waffle House, then back to Chicago.

After 6 hours, a time-zone change, and daylight savings time (bastards), we finally arrived back at our place in Chicago.  I was incredibly relieved that the Silver Bullet made it the whole way without dying, and I decided to celebrate with some delicious beer and 5-year aged gouda.  Note the determined look on my face while I try to slice up that cheese.

It feels great to be back, and it feels even better to be back after a successful tour!  We were feeling great after the Subterranean show, then pretty low after Milwaukee/Libertyville, and then feeling great again after Ohio.  Trevor said on the drive back that he’s glad this band is made up of people with positive attitudes.  I don’t think it would be possible to keep going if we had anything else.  I said to somebody over the weekend that I think the people who are successful in music are the ones who can keep getting back up after being shot down.  It’s about repeatedly banging your head against a brick wall until you finally get through.  Well, this is certainly a band that can keep doing that!  I must say, though, it’s a lot easier to handle when you end on a good note!

Until next time,

-The Heat

We’re excited to announce that for the month of March our music is being featured on WIIT‘s “Midday with K” show every Monday at 4pm.

Beck was one of the first artists that commanded my attention.  I remember putting in Odelay when I was 13 years old and being completely engrossed in how this artist (along w/ co-producers The Dust Brothers) would piece together snippets of noise and melody into something that felt strangely organic. Beck has the unique ability to take a standard pop song, remove an element and insert something back into that place that traditionally wouldn’t “work” and create something that is as close to original as I have ever heard. Beck is an exceptional songwriter, sound designer, consummate performer, and has a chameleon-like ability to shift between genres and styles to make something that is instantly recognizable as Beck.

His 2002 album Sea Change (I know I’m skipping a few–but there’s just not time to write about all of them) is one of my favorite albums of all-time.  This is the strongest songwriting I have ever heard from Beck and the master string arrangements by his father David Campbell push you even further into Beck’s world.  The songs on Sea Change were written in one week.

Last year Beck released a collection of 20 original songs in a format that is long forgotten.  Sheet Music.  Read his full explanation HERE.  I have always wanted to cover a Beck song with Molehill and this album of sheet music took us off the hook.  We didn’t need to try and pick a favorite Beck song and put something out that stood up to his body of work.  Instead, we could take the sheet music that he gave to everyone and be completely clear of the cloud that can hang over someone when trying to present a version of a previously recorded song.  The first of the two songs that we would like to present to you is “Please Leave A Light On When You Go.”  This is Molehill in a more intimate setting recorded in Kate Quinby’s apartment in the Rogers Park neighborhood of Chicago.  Audio and Video was recorded by Zack Whittington.

We hope you enjoy it.

-Trevor

We are very happy to announce that we will be performing at the Metro for the 1st time on Friday, 3/29.  This is a milestone for any Chicago band and we are extremely grateful that you have helped us gain this opportunity!

Tickets are available before the day of the show directly from us for $12.50.  They are $15 at the door so we strongly encourage you to buy directly from us.  You will also avoid ticketing fees when you buy from us.

Buy Tickets HERE