(((O))) Interview: Belonging

Belonging make music that is both raw and hypnotic and takes in a myriad of punk, screamo, post-hardcore, sludge, doom and psych influences to create an impressive noise. This merging of sounds comes alive in the bands debut album Hollow Cells which has just been re-released on vinyl. To commemorate this release, Gavin Brown caught up with all three members of Belonging (Bryce August – guitars/vocals, Jeremy Hansen – bass/synth and Shane Heilman – drums) to hear all about Belonging, Hollow Cells and more.

E&D: Your debut album Hollow Cells is being re-released on vinyl, are you excited with this new version of the album?

Bryce: Hollow Cells came out in 2021, so it was incredible to revisit it and pass it along to Carl Saff. He is an absolute legend and really brought out everything we were trying to achieve with the record. For lack of a better term, the album sounds more cohesive. Louder, bigger, more bad ass. Also the vinyl looks incredible and we are so pumped to have them out in the world.

Jeremy: I actually just got the limited gold copies in the mail from Kevin and they look incredible and sound amazing. So sick to be able to get this record on my record player.

E&D: The new version of Hollow Cells is coming out on Dipterid Records. How has the experience of working with them been?

Shane: Incredible, Kevin has been super supportive and just an all-around rad dude. We actually have a text thread with the four of us where we just joke around and talk about weird stuff.

Jeremy: He’s a homie.

Bryce: Yeah, Kevin is one of those rare people who really believes in the bands on his roster and in the DIY ethos. He makes shit happen.

E&D: How did the album come to be remastered for the vinyl release in the first place?

Bryce: We were actually scouting for someone to put out our next record — a split we’re doing with our friends, Inny — and a friend of a friend passed us along to Kevin who was so stoked on Hollow Cells that he asked if we’d like to do a vinyl release. The rest, as they say, is history. (Oh and Dipterid is also putting out that split as well.)

E&D: Have you been happy with how the album been received so far?

Jeremy: Absolutely. We had a lot of positive reviews when we self-released digitally but the remaster and vinyl release has brought us to a whole new level.

Bryce: Truly floored and humbled by the response it has gotten so far. It’s a record that we really put ourselves into but it also was the first defining moment of our band. We’ve progressed sonically since that record was first released and honestly I think the remaster shows that we had already started from such a strong base and hints at the direction we’ve been moving since.

E&D: What does the title of Hollow Cells relate to?

Bryce: A lot of the record was written and recorded during the Covid quarantine and in addition to a lot of the medical anxiety that was happening at the time, there was also just this palpable sense of alienation and loneliness. So the cells are the cells of our bodies, but also the cells where we reside. In that moment it was all feeling so empty. I remember driving down one of the main streets in Portland around that time and just feeling like I was in a ghost town, not another soul in sight. So that’s where a lot of the emotion of this record comes from, and that’s where it felt like we were, in hollow cells.

E&D: What are the biggest influences on the sound and outlook of Hollow Cells?

Bryce: Like I said before, a lot of it was wrapped up in the anxiety of the pandemic quarantine and also the state of the political landscape at the time. Both Shane and I had moved to Portland not long before we formed the band so thematically there was a lot of that alienation and uncertainty that I think we were trying to work through as well. Sonically I think we tried to push ourselves out of our comfort zone a lot, find ways to play with dynamics and the flow of songwriting.

Shane: Originally our idea was to start a straight up emo band, but as the songs started to coalesce we were having so much fun letting the songs get heavy that a lot of them ended up closer to post-hardcore or noise rock.

Bryce: Personally I can say that during the writing of Hollow Cells I was heavy into bands that had a little bit of psychedelic edge to punk/hardcore like No Age, Lungfish, Wipers, Unwound, Hum, Sunny Day Real Estate and Drive Like Jehu, so you can probably spot some of those influences if you listen real carefully.

Jeremy: Yeah, when I joined the band I was really trying to bring in some of that old-school emo vibe, too — Giant’s Chair, Moss Icon, Indian Summer and stuff like that.

E&D: What subjects do the songs on Hollow Cells deal with?

Bryce: I hate to keep coming back to this word but I feel like there’s a lot of anxiety on this record. Anxiety about the future, anxiety about the present, nervous energy and the search for a solution. Songs like ‘Birdcatcher’, ‘Time’ and ‘Ceiling’ really try to posit how one person can stand up to the daily flood of horrors in the doomscroll generation, staying close to your friends, building community, chasing after your own whimsical obsessions without letting the constant attention economy grind you down.

E&D: Is the bands base of the Pacific Northwest an influence on the band?

Shane: It’s funny because we all grew up in North Dakota and Minnesota, so I think our base influences come from those scenes where we grew up, but of course it takes on its own angle now that we’re here in the PNW.

Bryce: For sure, in addition to the legacy of incredible music produced by the PNW, the sheer variety of natural beauty here is a constant source of inspiration. Waitup probably deals with that most directly, but I think especially during the depths of quarantine, going out into nature was a real anodyne for the stress we were all feeling.

E&D: Who are your favourite ever bands to come out of Portland and the Pacific Northwest?

Jeremy: Portland: Wipers, Danava – PNW: Sunny Day Real Estate, Big Business.

Bryce: Portland: Wipers, Dead Moon, Heatmiser/Elliott Smith, Agalloch – PNW: Sunny Day Real Estate, Minus the Bear, Nirvana, Built to Spill, Unwound.

Shane: You guys took all the good ones, is Dashboard Confessional from the PNW?

E&D: Can you tell us about the creation of Hollow Cells and was it a smooth process?

Shane: I’m not sure if smooth is the right word for it. We had basically written about half the record around the time the quarantine hit and we had a ton of shows booked that all got canceled as bars and venues shut down so we didn’t have the opportunity to road test some of the songs as much as maybe we would like.

Jeremy: Yeah, I was starting to build out what is now Lo Rent Studios so there was a lot of trying out different configurations of recording gear and amps and guitars and whatnot. It was really fun though, I think all the pressure was off because we were suddenly not playing shows, suddenly free from a lot of obligations, so we had a lot of time to just screw around, test out different things and experiment.

E&D: Have you had any thoughts about any new potential new music from Belonging?

Shane: Definitely. We have a split coming out before the end of the year and are already a few songs into writing the next LP. The music on the split is heavier, noisier, Bleach-era Nirvana and Jesus Lizard were for sure on rotation when we wrote those songs. As far as the next LP, who can say, the world is our oyster.

Bryce: Concept album, definitely.

Jeremy: Probably going to be about space. Definitely going to be about space and like, aliens and stuff.

E&D: What are the origins of Belonging as a band?

Bryce: Shane and I are both from North Dakota originally and knew each other from being in the same general musical circle during our 20s. Fun fact, we were actually in the same band just not at the same time like 15 years ago. We happened to move to Portland around the same time in 2017 and met up for a drink. I happened to have a practice space that I had just moved into with our friend and fellow Midwestern-PDX transplant, Jacy McIntosh from Themes, and it turned out that it was across the parking lot from where Shane worked so we just started fucking around after work. We played maybe 5 or 10 shows as a two-piece until we met Jeremy after opening for June of 44 in 2019. We jokingly told him that he had to be from North Dakota to be in our band and he immediately quipped back that he grew up in southern Minnesota so we felt like the circle was complete there.

E&D: What was the first style of music that you really felt you belonged to?

Jeremy: Midwest hardcore/emo.

Bryce: I guess you’d call it pop punk now, all the bands in my home town were really into Dillinger 4, Hot Water Music and Lawrence Arms, so that kind of catchy, just-smart-enough-to-be-stupid kind of punk.

Shane: Emo/screamo- Not the early (real) stuff, the watered down Warped Tour stuff.

E&D: Have you got any live dates coming up that you can tell us about?

Jeremy: We’re hoping to play more this fall and will definitely have a release show for our split with Inny.

E&D: What have been your favourite live Belonging show to date?

Bryce: Oh man so many good ones. We opened for June of 44 which was legendary, that Dischord not-punk stuff was such a huge influence on all of us when we were coming up. Once we played a festival in a town called Vader, WA a few years ago that was super fun and I got real drunk and sang Thin Lizzy at karaoke afterwards.

Jeremy: We also usually do a Halloween show at Lo Rent where we dress up as thematic wizards every year. Last year we were Workout Wizards with sweat bands and spandex and the year before we were Western Wizards with cowboy hats and shit.

E&D: Do you feel that you have captured the live intensity of a Belonging live show on Hollow Cells?

Shane: That’s a tricky question. I think Hollow Cells rips and is loud as hell so in that sense yes, but also I just love live music and I don’t know that you can ever really capture the vibe of a live show on a record, nor would you want to.

Jeremy: Live shows are messy and sweaty, chaotic and immediate, that’s where that belongs, I don’t know that I would trust a band that could do what they do live in the studio.

E&D: What else have Belonging got planned for the rest of 2025?

Shane: We’re deep in writing mode right now for the next record. Aside from that, Jeremy has a pool that he set up in his yard so we’ve been doing some hard chillin’ in that bad boy, might even eat a chicken wing or two.

E&D: What albums have been the most influential to you as a musician and as a person?

Jeremy: Sunny Day Real Estate – LP2 was hugely influential for me, Owls – S/T broke my brain.

Bryce: The Pogues – If I Should Fall from Grace with God, Fugazi – 13 Songs, The Replacements – Let it Be, Refused – The Shape of Punk to Come

Shane: The Mars Volta – De-Loused in the Comatorium is the best album of all time.