House Warmer talks upcoming album, 'Get Lost!'

Kingsport-based band House Warmer, comprised of Eli Turner and Zaine Austin--who split duties on guitar and vocals--and drummer Caleb McCoullough, recently discussed their new album, "Get Lost!," out on Oct. 10. House Warmer was initially formed while Turner and Austin were in middle school, after a falling out with a mutual friend left them as a duo."Ever since then, we've just been, like, inseparable," said Turner, "like riding together. That's always how it's been.""I met Eli after he complimented my shirt," McCoullough--who joined the group after the release of their second album--chimed in. All three of them laughed as Turner attempted to recall the moment."I think it was a One Piece shirt." McCoullough said."Dude, I don't even watch One Piece!" Turner replied.The chemistry between the three of them is apparent. As Austin put it, they're just "three bros that love each other.""A lot," Eli added. The band has released two singles for "Get Lost!," with two more on the way. "Two Tractors" is an upbeat indie rock song. "If there's one song from this album that people will want to dance to," said Turner, "I felt like that would be one that a lot of people really like." "Hold My Heart," released shortly after, is a slower, more acoustic, synth-driven song. On choosing singles, Turner said the band "wanted to showcase the entire sound of the album," and "Hold My Heart" was perfect for that."Also, it kind of blew up on TikTok," Austin laughed. When asked about the album in full, the band described it as a "departure" from their usual indie-folk sound and more similar to what you might hear at their live shows. "This is probably my most inspired songwriting I've ever done," Turner noted, as the band cited MJ Lenderman, Wilco, Slaughter Beach, Dog and Weezer, among others, as inspirations for the music.McCoullough described the writing process for Get Lost! as "very different from our other albums."According to Austin, the group had "around 50 songs in the stockpile. Like, these songs need to be recorded, these songs are already done, these need to be redone. And then that needed to all be on an album."McCoullough added, "That was kind of an interesting part of making the album, trying to figure out the puzzle pieces of how these songs fit together, even though they were made at drastically different times.""But we ended up saying, screw it," Eli continued. "Let's record the bangers and our favorite pieces of music, and then just do an album like that."The making of "Get Lost!" was not always simple, however. Turner and Austin are both seniors at Dobyns Bennett, and McCoullough is a sophomore at MTSU in Murfreesboro. "We are kind of forced to spend a lot of time away from each other," Turner said. "A lot of the songwriting happens in separate spaces, like we will write the beginnings or sometimes even a full song, and then the collaboration won't happen until later." "We got better this album with coming together and rewriting or restructuring songs to make them more unique, though" Austin argued. "It kind of used to be like, I'd write a song, or you'd write a song. Now we're like, let's fix this.""My favorite moments in writing this album have been when we all get together and try to write a song from scratch," Turner agreed. Austin credits the group's friendship for their ability to come together despite the physical distance between them. "It's grown our relationship. We love music and we love each other, and we're not gonna just abandon ship because somebody moves away.""Get Lost!" will be out Oct. 10th, preceded by two more singles, "In/Out" and "Train," releasing in the coming weeks.