The Home Team: “We are very precious about what we do – we have no choice!”

Part of being a musician, reckons The Home Team’s Daniel Matson, is being “delusional”.

“I’ve known that every song, every EP I put out, was going to be ‘the one’ since I was 15,” the drummer begins. “And I was wrong every time until Slow Bloom!”

Since that aforementioned 2021 album, Daniel and his bandmates have been carving out a signature sound of ‘heavy pop’, and have quickly become a group that people can’t stop whispering about.

And now, the whispers have grown into full-blown screams with their third album The Crucible Of Life.

Here, we sit down with Daniel and frontman Brian Butcher to talk about The Home Team’s origins, the evolution of their sound, and how the band’s new record came to fruition…

How did you both get into music?
Brian: “I’m a Guitar Hero baby. I started playing Guitar Hero because my dad wanted it for fun because he had grown up on rock music for a long time. I got really good at it, and my dad said I should probably play a real guitar, so he got me one in seventh grade. From then, I went on and started noodling songs. It wasn’t until my high school band that I switched to trying to sing. From there, The Home Team was an already-established Seattle band, they had a different singer, and when he quit, I auditioned.”

Daniel: “So, everyone in my elementary school had to play an instrument in band or orchestra in fifth grade. And I thought all other instruments were lame, so to get out of it and not really have to learn an instrument, I had my dad sign me up for drum lessons in fourth grade, so I could spend a year getting good and then beat everybody and quit in sixth grade! But, someone convinced me to keep going, and then I eventually started my own band. I had a moment in high school where I saw some bands onstage at one of our local venues and I had the brain click of, ‘This is what I want to do – forever. And I’m not going to stop.’ And still haven’t stopped! It was watching Chelsea Grin at Studio 7… I saw them onstage and thought, ‘I can do that.’”

Along with Chelsea Grin, what other artists did you find formative in your early years?
Brian: “I think I had a similar moment like that at a Jamie’s Elsewhere concert. I grew up on a lot of prog metal. My number one favourite band from years past is Coheed And Cambria. My music taste has changed so much since, but I really liked Born Of Osiris, ERRA… and I know that none of these bands sound like The Home Team…”

It makes sense, though. You can hear the metal influence…
Daniel: “Our guitarist, John [Baran], is a metalhead through and through. You can see in promo pictures, he still wears obscure metal and black metal shirts, and is very much a die-hard metal fan. And he is the primary instrumental songwriter – most things start from his brain, often with a guitar riff.”

Brian: “John listens to an insane variety of music – he’s got one of the most eclectic Spotify playlists you’ve ever seen. But, over time, the way we got to this sound was from doing [2018 debut album] Better Off, which was in its own right a pop-punk album, and none of us really listen to that much pop-punk. Like, I have bands that I like in that genre, but realistically, that wasn’t the music we were listening to. I think we thought it was the music that people would like because if we look at The Home Team, it’s about us selling out. And trying to make money from music. So, when Better Off didn’t do all that well, we went, ‘Well, if we’re not going to succeed in music, we may as well do whatever we want.’ So Slow Bloom became, ‘Well, what do we listen to?’ I listen to mostly R&B and pop. John listens to a variety of different metal, and also pop. And that’s how we arrived at heavy pop.”

How does that play out on The Crucible Of Life?
Brian: “Well, the record writing process was pretty difficult, to be honest. And that’s part of why it’s called The Crucible Of Life. We had this impression that once we ‘succeeded’ in music to the point where we could pay our own bills, and do it full-time, things would get a lot easier. And that’s just not the case. Realistically, the way we see this album’s process was just hardening us, and we’re way better for it. That said, because of how much more touring we were doing, it was a lot harder to find time to make sure we put our all into the music. We also did this big writing trip down in LA, where we wrote the majority of the album, but it was just really intense as far as how much we had to get done in that amount of time. We’ve just never had that experience, and it resulted in a very difficult, but very fruitful process. Part of me thinks the only reason it’s as good as it is, is because of what we went through.”

In what way was it different for the band? Was there more pressure?
Daniel: “The pressure was definitely one thing, because with Slow Bloom we were coming off of being a DIY band. We wrote and recorded that album during lockdown, so we had all the time in the world. There was no pressure because we decided we were not going to have a career in music and we were just going to write what we liked and put out the best record that we could. And what felt like an infinite amount of time to do it, and when that album started connecting with people, we switched to a new label. And then all of a sudden, the stakes were way higher. We kept hearing, ‘This is the most important album of your career because if it flops, and no-one likes it, then you were a flash in the pan and people will remember that one album from The Home Team and nothing else.’ So, we were put into some situations that were a little uncomfortable for us – which, in hindsight, it was a great experience, and I’m really glad we did and never want to do it again… [we tried] to do things the way people had written records before, but we found is that we’re not a typical band…”

What do you mean, you’re not a typical band?
Brian: “I think we might be a bit more precious and connected to our music and our art and the way that we communicate it to the world, because a lot of musicians go into music not necessarily because they’re wanting to create art, but more so because they want to play music. Both are completely viable reasons to want to be in this world and do this for a living – though I think there is a pretty drastic difference, mostly because a lot of musicians I know are super down to go to a producer in LA who is really good at what they do, and they crank out hits, go in with nothing, have the producer basically write it for them, and come out with a finished song in one day and release it, and be like, ‘Yep, that’s what I want to do.’ And then go tour on it, get paid and go home. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Honest to god, I’m kind of jealous, that sounds kind of sick! I hate the fact that I love my art, I hate that I have to make it perfect, I have no choice. That is who I am, honestly – that’s who all four of us are. We are very precious about what we do and we really want to make sure that it satisfies our artistic integrity and creativity before anything else.”

The Crucible Of Life is out now. Catch The Home Team live on their sold-out UK tour in December.

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