The Hails to headline Uptown Theater on May 16th

The Hails. // Photo by Ian Ritter.

With their debut album set to come out later this year, The Hails are embarking on their Fun Run tour, headlining shows in between their gigs with other artists. This Florida-based band is making its way to the Uptown next week to headline in the Encore Room. 

We were able to chat with their lead singer Robbie Kingsley on their twenty-hour drive from Miami to Austin where he spoke about their upcoming album, how they found their sound, and everything in between. 

The Pitch: How has this tour been so far? 

Kingsley: It’s been amazing, we have our fifth show in Austin tomorrow and that will be our first time in Texas so we’re really excited to get to that part of the country. 

Your debut album is set to come out soon, what has that process been like? What kind of sound can people expect from this album? 

The process has been smooth at times and a little disjointed at other points. There are little decisions along the way that can seem larger than they actually are. We’ve narrowed down the tracklist and it will be ready for everyone to hear later this year. 

The sound is modern but there are so many influences from the 60s and 90s. There’s even a little modern kind of gospel sound to it at times. 

You have this sort of indie, alternative rock, r&b sound–how did you find that sound after forming the band was that something that was decided before you decided to form your band or did you find it after? 

Well, we all met in college and you do a lot of changing in college and your tastes change. We sort of took the stuff that we had all grown up listening to and merged it with what we were starting to listen to in college. There’s a lot of instinct in our music and we’re all very intentional people. We want to be direct with our music and try out different palettes. 

You’re five guys going to college at the University of Florida, how does it come up that you want to form a band?

It was kind of funny because some of the guys has been in bands growing up and none of them had worked out and I hadn’t ever been in one so we sort of started from nothing in 2015/2016. I was the only one who really wanted to lead the band and do live shows but not everyone was on the same page. We just kept going at it and it all eventually just found us instead of us searching for it. 

Your music just seems like the type that someone needs to hear live but has there been a song that you’ve really enjoyed performing live more than others? 

I love the upbeat, faster, kind of jams so I think Stay is always really fun. It has this riff at the end that is cool to play live. We usually close our sets with that and it’s always a great moment in the night. I also really love the British Indie type of bands so our song Sugar is also one of my favorites to play live. 

To catch this band when they’re in town next week head over and grab your tickets here.