Aloud

Aloud was formed in May 2002 in Boston, Massachusetts, by lead vocalists/guitarists and primary songwriters, Jen de la Osa and Henry Beguiristain, who met as teenagers in the Miami-based band Rain.[5] Aloud evolved out of an earlier version of the group named Feedback, which included bassist Roy Fontaine. Rob Acevedo, who drummed for Rain, was recruited to play drums for the fledgling band on an indefinite, but temporary basis.[6] The four spent the summer working on a home-recorded four song demo titled Don't Trust the Radio, which was released on July 31, 2002, and was briefly sold at shows in the Boston area.[7] In early 2003, Aloud recorded another four song demo titled Pretty Little Picture. Rob Acevedo would be replaced by Eric Anderson on drums before Ross Lohr was taken on near the end of 2003 as a permanent member.

With the addition of Lohr, Aloud recorded The Sooner It Comes, a six-song EP, with producer Ian Hughes in early 2004. Aloud expanded their touring area to a greater portion of New England and New York City.[8] That same year, Aloud met Hugh Wyman of the Boston band Baby Strange. Wyman became a frequent collaborator and adviser. He would eventually produce Aloud's debut album Leave Your Light On in 2005.

The band made its first real mark after releasing their debut album Leave Your Light On on May 2, 2006, to positive press and national airplay on college radio.[9][10][11][12] Aloud toured the record around the Northeast United States till the end of 2006 while concurrently working on material for their next record.

In April 2007, Aloud made it to the semi-final round of the 29th annual WBCN Rock & Roll Rumble, beating out 15 other groups for the wildcard slot.[13] Jen de la Osa was nominated for Best Female Vocalist by the Boston Phoenix that month.[14]

De la Osa and Beguiristain spent the rest of 2007 writing material for a second album, eventually choosing to record it that Fall at Fireplace Studios in New York City with Sony mix engineer Caleb Shreve (under the pseudonym Chuck Brody). Between recording sessions, Aloud made their first appearance at the CMJ Music Marathon that October.[15]

Fan The Fury, was released on March 25, 2008. Fan The Fury contained more overt political themes than any of Aloud's previous work, and was praised as a more mature offering than Leave Your Light On.[16] A national tour to support the album followed. Hard Up In The 2000s, a film documenting the Spring leg of the tour, was released on September 12, 2008.[17]

In October 2008, it was revealed Aloud was developing a multimedia live performance of Fan The Fury titled I Just Want To Witness..., named after a lyric in the songs "Witness" and "Justice & Forgiveness".[18] The show integrated Aloud's live performance of Fan The Fury in its entirety with corresponding films, and was developed with filmmaker Johnathan Carr. Films were contributed by Johnathan Carr himself as well as directors Erin Bowser, Mike Pecci, Chris March, and animators Kristin Osiecki and Timothy Scholl. I Just Want To Witness... debuted in Boston on November 18, 2008. While this has been the only full performance of I Just Want To Witness..., Aloud later performed the majority of the show in New York in 2009.[19]

Music from Fan The Fury was heavily featured in Bad Habit Productions' presentation of The Laramie Project.[20]

The latter half 2008 saw significant changes to Aloud's core lineup. Bassist Roy Fontaine parted ways with the group in September 2008. Subsequently, Aloud toured as a three-piece during the Fall 2008 leg of the Fan The Fury tour.[21] After the tour, former Baby Strange bassist Tim Hare filled in on bass for live shows for the remainder of the year.

Ross Lohr left the group shortly after Fontaine's departure. His final performance with the group was January 29, 2009 in Allston, MA. He still appeared in the music video for the song "Julie". Elaborating in an interview a year later, Henry and Jen stated Lohr left the band amicably "the day after we filmed the 'Julie' video" because he no longer enjoyed performing with the band and wished to dedicate more of his time to philanthropy.[22]

Aloud performed the third and fourth legs of the Fan The Fury tour with a rotating cast of live members: Jonathan Schmidt (from the band Morningwood), Rob Lynch (ex-Harris), Travis Richter (from the bands The Motion Sick, Naked On Roller Skates, and Kingsley Flood), Jesse James Salucci (The Lights Out) and Tommy Mazalewski alternated on drums. Tim Hare, Ryan Majoris, and Matthew Girard (from the band The Motion Sick and Golden Bloom) alternated on bass.

Bassist Charles Murphy began performing with the group in October 2009, joining as a full-fledged member of the band shortly thereafter.

The free EP Live 2009 was released at the end of 2009, capping off Aloud's Fan The Fury era. The EP contained performances from one of the final shows of that tour at Howler's Coyote Cafe in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on November 18, 2009.[23] The live show was recorded, engineered, and mixed by Bengt Alexander. The EP was released to the public as a free digital download on December 31, 2009.[24]

From April 2009 to July 2010, Henry and Jen worked with producer Daniel Nicholas Daskivich on completing the third Aloud release, Exile.[25] Teasing their work on the album in interviews, the band indicated Exile would be sonically different from previous Aloud releases.[26]

The recording process initially began as "therapy", but quickly stretched on over the course of a year. Aloud's touring members and friends appeared as guests on several tracks, with Daskivich tackling the majority of the drumming on Exile. The group worked on the record song by song, often building instrumentation around an acoustic guitar. As a result, the record featured material that was sparser and far more experimental than previous albums.

The songs loosely drew upon de la Osa and Beguiristain's respective experiences as US-born children of Cuban exiles. Further inspiration was taken from Reinaldo Arenas’ memoir, Before Night Falls.[27] Aloud launched their first crowdfunding campaign on the Kickstarter platform to pay for manufacturing of the record and defray costs associated with the tour in support of the album.

Exile was released on October 12, 2010, garnering some of the band’s strongest reviews, often focusing on Aloud’s expanded musical versatility.[28] The subsequent US coast-to-coast US tour ran from October 2010 through January 2011, beginning at the 2010 CMJ Music Marathon. A second coast-to-coast leg included Aloud’s SXSW debut, and ran from mid-February through March 2011.

Aloud released a non-album single, “The Cash and the Pearls”, after the second leg of the tour. The recording reunited de la Osa and Beguiristain with Ross Lohr in the studio. Aloud celebrated the single's release with a tour of the south and midwest, followed by a month-long residency in Boston.[29]

De la Osa and Beguiristain were approached earlier in the year by the Berklee College of Music to participate in BANDED, a documentary intended to become a part of the school's PULSE curriculum. The months-long project followed them and four other groups from the Boston area to document the life of a song, from its genesis to completion in the recording studio.[30] The project culminated with the recording of "You Will Know" at Mad Oak Studios with head engineer Benny Grotto. Grotto encouraged Aloud to record the song as live as possible in the studio.[31] The band found the experience enjoyable and booked a second session with Grotto at Mad Oak to record "Such a Long Time" in the same manner.

De la Osa and Beguiristain spent January and February 2012 writing new material for a follow-up to Exile. They resumed their tour schedule in March and began road-testing material which would eventually make up It’s Got To Be Now. In March they performed at Boston to Austin, a SXSW party produced by DigBoston and sponsored by Converse. There, they shared the stage with other Boston-based acts OldJack, Lake Street Dive, Bad Rabbits, The Wandas, and Moe Pope & Quills.[32]

Aloud recording It's Got To Be Now at Mad Oak Studios. The majority of the album was recorded live in this configuration.

To mark their tenth anniversary as a band, the Boston Phoenix released a 10th anniversary EP collecting songs which “define the band’s evolution over the past decade”.[33] A retrospective film directed by Stephen LoVerme, titled Aloud: I Can’t Believe That Worked, began production. Though the film was indefinitely shelved, a trailer was included with the release of the Boston Phoenix EP.[34] The group was nominated in the Boston Phoenix's Best Music Poll for Best Indie/Powerpop Act.[35]

Frank Hegyi joined as Aloud's permanent drummer in June 2012. Aloud continued touring throughout the summer and fall, debuting and refining songs. “You Will Know” was formally released as a 7-inch vinyl single in September, with “Such A Long Time” as its b-side.

Aloud returned to Mad Oak Studios with co-producer Benny Grotto in December 2012. In the same fashion as “Such A Long Time”, their performances were recorded live in the studio. To maintain the live element, percussionist Andy Wong was invited to record miscellaneous percussion with the band. Vocals were recorded at Serious Business in New York under the supervision of co-producer Charles Newman. Additional overdubs were tracked at Mad Oak Studios with Grotto in January 2013. In sum, the album took six days total to record.[36] “This is what we’ve set out to make here,” the band wrote to fans at the time, “an album that sounds like a band playing music in a room together.”[31]

It’s Got To Be Now’s first single, “A Little Bit Low”, was released in December 2013. The release of “A Little Bit Low” launched a Kickstarter campaign to help bring the album to completion.[37] It’s Got To Be Now was released on April 1, 2014, to positive reception.[38] The band toured on the record throughout the east coast, releasing four singles through the life of the album.

In February 2015, Aloud recorded a Converse Rubber Tracks session at Q Division Studios with Benny Grotto. The session yielded basic tracks for the songs “Empty House” and “Falling Out of Love”.

Frank Hegyi departed the band in May 2015. His final appearance with the band was on an episode of The Steve Katsos Show. According to Beguiristain, Hegyi simply felt it was time for him to step away from the band. “Having [Frank] around was pretty vital to us feeling good about being band at a time when we needed it,” he wrote in a post on Aloud's website. “We owe him for that, and we’re very grateful he decided to stick around as long as he did.”[39]

Chuck Ferreira became Aloud's drummer after Hegyi's departure. The band maintained an active tour schedule while working on new music for their next record. In October, they returned to the CMJ Music Marathon.[40] In January 2016, the band released a live video for the song "In Spite of Language" for NPR Music's Tiny Desk Contest.[41]

In April 2016, Aloud announced they would collaborate on a virtual reality music video with director Skye Von, producer Tanya Leal-Soto, and Charles Newman. FOOL VR, as the collective was dubbed, partnered with the New York Institute of Technology, Evolving Technologies Corporation, and others to create a 360-degree video for the Aloud song "Falling Out of Love". A crowdfunding campaign was launched in April 2016 to help fund the production. Aloud toured and held events in New England, New York, and the west coast that spring to promote the project and demonstrate the technology using Mobile phones and Google Cardboard. Falling Out of Love: The VR Experience won Indiegogo and Independent film project's 2016 Fellowship.[42] Falling Out of Love: The VR Experience is currently in post-production.

A 360° music video for "The Wicked Kind", another FOOL VR project directed by Skye Von, debuted September 2016 as an official selection of the Kaleidoscope 2016 Summer Showcase.[43] The video toured with the showcase through North America, Europe, and Asia.

Aloud began work on their fifth studio album at the rebuilt Mad Oak Studios in Allston in August 2016, with Benny Grotto producing again. The band posted realtime updates from the studio via their Instagram account. Their next album is set to feature a sound more heavily rooted in Memphis soul. The record is currently being mixed by Guy Massey, known for his work with The Libertines, Ray Davies, and The Beatles.

In February 2017, Aloud released the charity single “Agua Mala”, recorded in conjunction with NYC-based group Cold Blood Club. All proceeds from sales of the single and the release show at the Knitting Factory were sent to the United Way of Genesee County's Flint Water Fund to aid their work in the Flint water crisis.[44] "Almost three years later," de la Osa remarked at the time, "and nothing significant has improved. Flint is still without clean drinking water and [there's] very little accountability. This shit makes you want to scream."[45]

Shortly after the release of “Agua Mala”, Aloud announced they were permanently relocating the band from Boston to Los Angeles. Their Boston-area send-off was on March 4, 2017, at the Plough and Stars, performing with Peter Buzzelle. "Boston is the only place which, for better or for worse, has ever truly felt like home to me," Beguiristain wrote in a blog post, however adding that Boston had "become a tough place to live in, let alone maintain a functioning, working band."[46]

A coast-to-coast US tour in support of the “Empty House”/”Falling Out of Love” double A-side vinyl single kicked off April 24, 2017 in New York. For the tour, Aloud partnered with the San Francisco-based Acid VR to document the tour with a Ricoh Theta 360° camera. A 360° video of Aloud rehearsing “Empty House” was released ahead of the Empty House tour. A 360° video for an acoustic version of “Falling Out of Love” performed at the Griffith Park Zoo was released at the tour's conclusion.[47]

A music video for "Falling Out of Love" was released on February 14, 2018, to coincide with the song's full release.[48]

• Henry Beguiristain: vocals, guitar, piano/keys (2002–present)
• Jen de la Osa: vocals, guitar, piano/keys (2002–present)
• Charles Murphy: bass, mouth sounds (2009–present)
• Chris Jago: drums, percussion (2017–present)
• Alanah Ntzouras Maguire: saxophone (2017–present)

• Andy Bergman: saxophone (2016–present)
• Maxwell Butler: keys (2012–present)
• Chuck Ferreira: drums, percussion (2018–present)
• Eric Ortiz: trumpet (2016–present)

• Vanessa Acosta: trumpet (2017–2022)
• Chuck Ferreira: drums, percussion (2015–2017)
• Roy Fontaine: bass, backing vocals (2002–2008)
• Frank Hegyi: drums, percussion (2012–2015)
• Ross Lohr: drums, percussion (2003–2009)