Episode 211: Ryan Walsh (of Hallelujah the Hills)

You’re bound to raise some fan suspicion when the first track off your new album A Band Is Something To Figure Out has a title like “What do the People Want,” particularly when the thing is released on the 10th anniversary of your band’s existence. Hallelujah the Hills frontman Ryan Walsh admits that the album’s name was intended to raise some questions about rock music in general. And for full effect, Walsh adds, he first suggested it in the middle of practice, when a writer from the UK was in Boston getting material for an upcoming book on the group. But then, Hallelujah the Hills has always put on a good show. The band has released a half-dozen records in their decade-long existence, coming out of the gate with 2007’s Collective Psychosis Begone, which made them something of a media darling right at the apex of the 00s blog band boom. But while the group has maintained a steady fanbase (who’ve helped fund the last couple of records), Walsh has held down a day job for nearly all of its existence. These days, he’s also jammed book writing into his already-packed schedule. Walsh is adapting a 2015 Boston Magazine piece in a full-length book for Penguin, documenting Van Morrison’s late-60s self-imposed New England exile that gave rise to Astral Weeks, one of rock and roll’s most beloved masterpieces.

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