Newly-signed to InVogue Records, Will Deely and his band Heavy Things will play a hometown show at the A&R Music Bar in Columbus on Saturday, March 18.

Deely recruited members Alex Giles, Chris Heidel, and Casey Costello to form Heavy Things in December 2016 and hasn’t looked back since. They’re debut album for the label will be released tomorrow (March 17, 2017).

I caught up with Will ahead of their show this Saturday to chat about where he’s at right now and where it all might lead.

Heavy Things debut album “Goner” on InVogue Records

What has been the biggest difference between your solo career and forming Heavy Things? Is there an added dynamic to your songs?

“The transition from my solo project to Heavy Things was actually pretty seamless and there really aren’t much differences honestly.  I wrote and recorded the album with the intention of it being a Will Deely album to begin with.  The rest of the guys in the band were already playing as my live band when I decided I wanted to go in a full band direction so we basically just slapped a new name on the project and just kept doing what we were doing.  I wrote most of the record by myself, but at the time I would bounce the ideas off the rest of the guys to see what they think and get their feedback.  I wrote Wait with our drummer Alex, and Chris recorded some guitar on the record as well. So even when it was my ‘solo project,’ it was still very collaborative.”

How did you come to the attention of InVogue Records?

“Nick at InVogue and I have a ton of mutual friends.  I recorded at Capital House Studio, which he manages and I’m close friends with some of the other InVogue artists.  When I finished the album in September I sent it over to Chase Huglin, another artist on InVogue and a very, very close friend of mine, just to see what he thought and he kind of went behind my back and showed it to the InVogue guys… haha.  They listened to it and were interested and reached out to me a short time after then.”

How has signing with InVogue Records impacted your career? Has it been a positive experience for you and the band?

Heavy Things

“Signing with InVogue has been a great experience so far.  InVogue has a further reach and can and has pushed the music to many people that wouldn’t normally hear it.  We’ve gained a lot of new fans from all over because of it.  We’re InVogues 100th release so at this point they definitely know a thing or two more about releasing an album than we do… haha.”

How would you describe the sound of Heavy Things and is it the direction that you want to go in, compared to your solo work?

“The Heavy Things sound is becoming a very hotly debated subject in YouTube comments… haha. All jokes aside though, it’s hard to really put a concrete label on the exact sound this album is because we never really step too far in any direction.  I personally am influenced by many different styles of rock/guitar driven music so there’s a few pop punky songs, emo songs, some people say there’s even a country twang to a couple of the songs.  Going forward, I’m not really sure what the next step is as far as sound.  I’ve been so focused on releasing this record that I haven’t really picked up the guitar to try and write anything new.”

With “Goner” being released on March 17, how extensively will the band be touring in support of the album? Any plans to tour in Europe?

“We’re trying to support it the best we can.  We have a Midwest run coming up at the end of the month.  I’ll be flying out and doing a west coast acoustic tour with Shane from Silverstein’s side project and JT Woodruff from Hawthorne Heights.  Currently working on some Canadian dates for the summer and some other cool opportunities that aren’t really ready to be announced yet.  As far as Europe, I don’t really see us getting over there unless some really cool support slot became available to us.  We’re such a new project that we’re trying to break in to markets that are closer to home first before going overseas.  We would definitely love to go someday, however.”

What’s next for Will Deely and Heavy Things?

“Pushing, ‘Goner’ far and wide to try and get it in as many people’s ears as possible!  I’m really proud of this record and I’m so excited to finally get it released.”

Heavy Things – Goner