It was a quarter to midnight as The Heartstring Stranglers' revamped lineup started rolling through its set at a recent Dallas house party—though, technically, the chamber-folk band wasn't playing inside the house at all. Instead, the stage for the Denton band's acoustic performance was a narrow, dingy alleyway next to the house.
Back-lit by the headlights of a Volvo, the band strummed, plucked and sawed along in the shadows as frontman Freddie Schulze kicked up clouds of dust from the alley floor. The noirish alleyway seemed the perfect setting as he belted out a string of songs about sex, death and European history, the lyrics of which are far different from the songs penned at the band's less-than-serious inception.
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According to Schulze, the band started out as a side project. He and vocalist/violinist Nazli Prisk started writing a handful of macabre, campy songs together. "Then we wrote a really good song, a serious one," he says. "And we just started writing more like it." After Robby Kraft and Ryan Williams joined, the band started writing and recording the material for its self-titled debut.
But the thing about being in a two-university city like Denton is that every few months, as each semester ends, there's going to be another graduation. And when that city is filled with bands and musicians, as students graduate and move back home or move on to other things, minor shake-ups or major break-ups are just a matter of time.
"It's even worse when someone's in a couple of bands," bassist Williams says. Williams should know: In addition to his duties with HSS, he currently plays with The Baptist Generals, Handbrake, The Boxcar Bandits and Dust Congress (just to name a few). "I've been in so many bands that I've seen it happen often. Actually, it should be expected."
Whether it's expected or not, bands are left to decide whether to replace those who are leaving or break up and start something new. Last August, HSS had just wrapped up work on its album. During HSS's CD release party at Rubber Gloves Rehearsal Studios, Schulze announced to the audience that the show would be Prisk's last performance with the band. Having just graduated from the University of North Texas, Prisk decided to leave the band and move to South Korea. The show was doubling as her going-away party.
"Things were tense at first," Schulze says when Prisk first mentioned leaving the band. "Some bands can adapt to a cast of new musicians—others just can't."
But, right away, HSS started writing new material and brought in cellist Miryam Prodanovic. Though with some level of discomfort, HSS still performs songs Prisk wrote with the band.
"I'm a limp-wristed socialist," Schulze says. "I think that everyone owns the songs."
