Midwestern three-piece Joyhouse were just about done recording their debut EP back in March when the world shut down. Recording vocals a week before the state of Indiana went on lockdown, the band which consists of Chris Kelsey(vocals, guitar), Ian Skeans(vocals, guitar) and Kiah Gerig(drums), thought they were a mere few weeks away from debuting their infectious hook-laden and guitar-heavy album to the masses.
Turned out that was not the case.
The extra few months of post-production gave Kelsey plenty of time to work on the engineering and mixing aspects of the EP while quarantining at home. This led to a pristine and fuzzed-out, six-track debut EP that brings the crunch of early 90s indie rock like Dinosaur Jr and Archers of Loaf, while locking into the sincerity and heart-on-sleeve emotion of Elliot Smith.
Over the last month or so the guys had been toying with the idea of making a video for one of the tracks, and so some scenes were shot at undisclosed secret locations amid Midwestern corn fields. The result is the 90s sitcom ode “Truman”, a mixture of both ABC Family corniness and 80s horror film gore and glee.
There’s indeed more than corn in Indiana(psst…there’s werewolves.)
So sit back, grab some popcorn and some silver bullets, and get nostalgic with Joyhouse’s “Truman”. Then head over to Joyhouse’s Bandcamp page and drop some money in the jar for the band’s excellent debut EP. It drops 8/28.