Interview: No Longer “Strangers” with Hall Johnson
Local band Hall Johnson discusses growing up in the Dallas suburbs, the Austin music scene, and maturing as musicians.
Written by Dhiren Wijesinghe
Photographed by David Koeller
Trevor, Brandon, and Milo (front to back) share a laugh on the roof of House Johnson.
Just a few blocks from UT-Austin’s campus, the five members of Hall Johnson live together in “House Johnson,” their home and recording studio. The bandmates, who started out as high-school friends from the Dallas suburbs, have grown out of their shell into a relevant name in the Austin music scene. Hall Johnson is also a strong supporter of the local community, having held many benefit shows at House Johnson before the pandemic hit.
Afterglow sat down with two members of the band, bassist Trevor Stovall and singer Milo Cortese, to talk about their journey as musicians, and what makes Hall Johnson who they are.
Afterglow: To start off, do you want to tell our readers who you are and how you met as a band?
Trevor: We started Hall Johnson back in like 2016 when we were juniors in high school. It started just as best friends hanging out. We got the name from the road that runs through our hometown. It was two farmers, like Francis Hall and "something" Johnson and they combined their names. We thought it'd be cute to, you know, name that as our band.
Milo: Honestly, we were all kind of at a loss to what to name it. One day we were literally at a taco place and "Hall Johnson" is right there and Trevor looked out and was like, "what about Hall Johnson?" We all kind of laughed and were like, "you know what? Yeah, let's do it."
Trevor: We didn't really know how to play our instruments at the time. I mean, at least I didn't. Milo was like the only one who had written any sort of songs and had that background. I kind of knew how to play the guitar.
Why did y'all move from Dallas to Austin?
Trevor: We moved to Austin because, after high school, we were faced with the choice essentially of, "Well, we want to do the band, but we also need to go to college." And we can't really throw all of our eggs in one basket — or I guess we could have — but we didn't really want to, so Austin was kind of the place that let us still do music while being able to study. So we all live in the house together and stuff like that. It was just the perfect in-between.
What's it like living in a house with all your bandmates?
Milo: You'd be really surprised. We don't really have drama or beef or anything like that. We all get along, especially me and Trevor and Brandon, because we spent so much time together since we met freshman year of high school. So throughout high school we spent everyday together and then through college we started living together. Honestly, especially after touring and stuff, we're just so used to being around each other. Any sort of disagreement or fight or tension just kind of gets swept under the rug, if that makes sense. It's like a marriage.
That's funny. I know you used to have a lot of charity shows before COVID at your house, which you have dubbed "House Johnson." What pushed you to want to do charity events and shows at House Johnson?
Trevor: We've always wanted to do house shows, always wanted to live in a house together and put on shows. When we moved to Austin, it let us do that. And there's no better way, at least in my opinion, to get a fan base than by creating your own shows. Doing charity and benefit shows has always been a really big priority for us, because even though we're obviously not the biggest band in the world, we still want to use the platform that we do have to create change.
Milo: It's just one of those things like, why wouldn't we? Especially because we already have people coming around the house. We could just take the money for ourselves or whatever, but it's like, we're already making money off of playing venue shows. It just makes more sense to help out with something that's bigger than us … I honestly wish during COVID, especially with the Black Lives Matter movement and George Floyd protests, I really wish we could have had the opportunity to even do more.
I've noticed that you guys have a lot of local band friends. What's the Austin music scene like compared to the Dallas music scene.
Trevor: It's a lot younger in my opinion. Younger as in more active. I love Dallas. Dallas has done so much for us and really gave us room to grow. But, Austin has the name, it's the live music capital of the world or whatever. You have UT here, so you have a bunch of people who are in the same age group as you and have similar interests, and are seeing the world through the same set of lenses as you are … We've made a lot of great friends through here. We have great, wonderful neighbors who are also involved in music.
Milo: Dallas treated us really well. The big difference, and kind of one of the reasons we wanted to get out of Dallas, is the Dallas music scene can be more competitive than it is here in Austin. There's not much camaraderie compared to competitiveness.
Where do you guys usually draw your inspiration from?
Milo: I write music to talk about my own experiences. I'm writing for myself. For me, it's very, very therapeutic. If you listen to our two early records, even Daytrip to some extent, they're about my high school girlfriends. But if you look at the stuff we're releasing now, it's more about mental health and society. "Salt'' is about the church down the street and how I didn't grow up as an evangelical Christian (like) all the people I was around. It's about how I felt kind of excluded growing up.
Between the two of you, what's your favorite song to play?
Both: "Strangers."
Milo: There we go. "Strangers" — it's our newest single coming out. We've worked on it for a long time, and I wrote the first verse and the second verse a year apart. The first verse kind of addresses coming out of high school and dealing with a relationship and with mental health stuff, and kind of just seeing that growth in a year. What I really like about the song is you can see that growth, or at least I can see it. I hope people who listen to it can understand and relate to it as well.
Do you guys have a release date set for "Strangers?"
Milo: Right now it's Nov. 2, for the last band camp Friday. That's the goal.
Before we go, do you want to tell our readers what the future for Hall Johnson is?
Trevor: For our future, we're currently writing our first record, which is exciting. We're always going to be involved. It doesn't matter if we kind of go silent over these next couple of months while working on this record ... So, just know that we're all in this together, and some days are darker than others. Music is a great escape. So keep listening to music, support your record stores, and support venues!
Milo: Lots of venues are going out of business right now! So if you can spare a few bucks or go get a drink, as long as you're COVID safe, go support these venues.
Interview has been minimally edited for clarity and length.
