Whiskey Hill shows where they’ve been and where they’re headed on Paloma

Whiskey Hill. // photo courtesy the artist

Country folk duo Whiskey Hill formed in 2023, the result of friends Patricia Murphy (violin/vocals) and Jonathan Tucker (guitar/vocals) coming together over a shared love of music and performance. Not an unusual story, by any stretch, but the music they make ends up being the very embodiment of that musical kinship. The harmonies and instrumentation pair perfectly with one another, rising and falling as though Murphy and Tucker have been playing for decades, rather than less than two years.

On their debut full-length, Paloma, Whiskey Hill does everything from quiet duets to big, full-band performances, demonstrating abilities which go far beyond what you might expect from a pair of voices and acoustic instruments. It’s a quietly impressive release, ably showcasing both where the band started and where they might be headed. We spoke with Whiskey Hill’s Patricia Murphy and Jonathan Tucker about the release of Paloma and the band’s future ahead of their shows this weekend at O’Malley’s Pub in Weston.

The Pitch: How’d the two of you meet?

Jonathan Tucker: The first time I met Tricia was probably at the Oklahoma Renaissance Festival in Muskogee.

Patricia Murphy: Yeah, we crossed paths several times through the Renaissance faire circuit, and have quite a few mutual friends; but we didn’t really get to know each other until a few years ago.

Jon: I went down there to see the Musical Blades (a group I was auditioning for), and I saw her act, Embra. They were a fantastic group and I always thought she was an impressive musician. We ran into each other a few times after the fact; I helped run sound for Embra a few times as well as her other band, Donnybrook.

Patricia: After the Musical Blades retired, Jon was working on an idea for a new act with some of the other guys from the Musical Blades and they were looking for a female character to join them. Although that idea didn’t take off at that time, Jon and I connected really well while we were all jamming and we decided to try performing as a cover band. However, that pretty quickly evolved into original music!

Who else joins you on this album?

Jon & Patricia: Miki P of The Swallowtails!

Jon: We wound up hiring Miki to produce the album, and she wound up playing bass and drums, as well as adding a bunch of beautiful harmony vocals.

Patricia: And she jumped in on bass, drums, and amazing vocal harmonies. She has been fantastic to work with.

Jon: She was an absolute delight to work with; truly a gifted producer, songwriter, performer, and musician.

Where’d you record Paloma and who did you work with?

Jon: We recorded the majority of Paloma in my basement studio, where I was the audio engineer. I shared mixing duties with Louie Pagán; he worked on instruments while I worked on the vocal mix. Miki even got in on some of the tracking engineering at my studio as well as hers. Finally, I mastered the album once everything was all good to go.

For “The Rain,” we had the opportunity to record at the UCM Center of Music Technology in Warrensburg. They have an incredible program there, of which I’m an alumni. Eric Honour was the engineer for that, along with his assistants; Cooper Heise, Tevin Johnson, and Isaac Kelly. We owe Cooper a debt because we forgot a bass guitar for that session and he scurried off and found one for us in like 15 minutes!

Patricia: Yup! Shout out to Cooper & his bass for saving the day!

There’s a dance-y element to many of the tracks on the album, even when it’s just guitar and voice. Do you aim to get an audience out their seats and on their feet?

Jon: I love that! That hadn’t even crossed my mind that that’s a part of it. I think we ALWAYS aim to get an audience out of their seats and have fun. The best audience is the audience who is willing to be a dork with us and recognize that being the dorky one who dances is the secret cool one.

Patricia: I’m so glad that our music comes across that way! One of our worries, both when writing and doing covers, is that we don’t want to play too many down or sad songs. So we made some conscious choices to make more groovy and upbeat songs. If our music leads people to movement and maybe even some dancing that’s even better!

“Serendipity” goes in a bigger sonic direction than the rest of Paloma. What led you to go full electric on that track?

Jon: That’s a great question. We wound up completing the track, which didn’t have electric guitar on it or any of the icing you hear on the final product. Tricia and I spent some time listening to it and agreeing that it just needed something. When we formed Whiskey Hill, we made the decision to never entirely commit to one single genre, and this was an opportunity to put our money where our mouth is.

Patricia: Yeah, “Serendipity” went through several iterations from writing to final product. When we finished the recording of that song and we listened back to it we both thought it was lacking something, especially when we compared it to the other songs we had completed at that point. Jon made the suggestion of adding some electric guitar, and we loved it, so we decided to go all in on a more pop-rock sound.

What does your regular gig in Weston allow you to develop as a musical act?

Jon: Every gig is an opportunity to see what makes the audience light up, and Weston is such a great place to do that because it truly has a built-in audience. I’m always taking note of which songs are keeping people engaged and which aren’t; especially with our originals. We’ll always make music for us, but it’s also important to let your audience be a good temperature check on how your direction is going.

Patricia: The people at Weston are just fantastic, you can tell they love hearing live music there and really get into it if they are feeling the band. It’s a great place to try new songs and play with the audience on ones we know they love.

When did you go from covers to originals and from a duo to a bigger band?

Patricia: We originally wanted to just be a cover band.

Jon: But then we got offered a gig for Messner Bee Farm’s grand re-opening like a month after we formed.

Patricia: But at a photoshoot for some promo material, Jon started riffing on the guitar and the ideas just started sparking. We very quickly fell into writing original music after that and now we try and write whenever we aren’t prepping for a gig.

Jon: Our practices evolved VERY fast into writing music rather than prepping covers. When we’re not prepping for gigs, it’s all we’re doing at this point. In fact, we already have an EP nearly recorded and mixed with another four original songs!

I think the duo/bigger band decisions just depend on the gig. We wound up hiring Ricky Johnson (Chance the Arm, One Two Trio) on drums and Michael Doss (Discord & Rhyme, Tordenkor) on bass for Homegrown Harmony and it was a blast. I think for our bigger marquee shows we’ll be incorporating full bands!

Whiskey Hill performs this Friday, July 25, and Saturday, July 26, at O’Malley’s Pub in Weston. Details on those shows here.