Welcome to Heat Check, a biweekly music column where AJC culture reporter DeAsia Paige explores the temperature of Georgia’s buzzing, expansive music scene. The column includes music news, trends and any Georgia-related music that DeAsia is listening to. If you’re a Georgia artist and have music you want to be considered for this column — or if you just want to talk music — feel free to send an email to deasia.paige@ajc.com.
Hey, Nothing is one of the most promising duos out of Georgia. The Athens-based pair, composed of Tyler Mabry and Harlow Phillips, blends emo, folk and rock into a sound that feels utterly diaristic. Last month, they dropped their latest project “Maine.” The 4-track EP centers themes of isolation and missed connections.
The 19-year-olds met while attending Hull Middle School in Duluth and became best friends. They dropped their debut “We’re Starting to Look Like Each Other” last fall and have amassed nearly 600,000 followers on Instagram and TikTok combined. But Hey, Nothing doesn’t get too caught up in their budding fan base. They’re primarily focused on making the most honest music that they can.
“We really hated each other at first,” Mabry said about the duo’s origins. “We were the only two kids that played music, really, so we kind of had to hang out with each other. That’s all we really wanted to do. When we started it, we had a couple bands in high school that were really bad. I’m not going to name them, but we started making music together a couple of years ago, and we’ve been building ever since.”
The AJC chatted with Hey, Nothing backstage at their show at the Masquerade Friday night. They talked about their new music and how much they’ve grown as artists and friends.
Q: What would you say each of you bring to the duo?
Mabry: Harlow’s always been just like the best vocalist and lyricist I’ve ever met. I’m just mooching off them, low-key. I think another thing is that we both bring these different (musical) influences.
Phillips: Tyler is so insane on the guitar. But yea, we both grew up really loving music, and we both love different music.
Q: What type of music did you all listen to growing up?
Phillips: I love the doo-wop music of the 50′s and 60′s. I really loved the movie “Mamma Mia!” and all the ABBA songs. I just really like disco and Sonny & Cher.
Mabry: I was really into emo music when I was in middle school and high school, but also a bunch of classical music, too. I’m just a fan of music in general. We definitely bring different tastes to our sound.
Credit: Stephen Payne
Credit: Stephen Payne
Q: How would you all describe the sound of Hey, Nothing?
Phillips: We sound good-looking
Mabry: We sound like we look good, but we also sound like we smell bad. I’m joking, but I think the best way to describe it is we sound like a combination of all of our influences. There’s definitely disco influence. There’s definitely emo influence.
Phillips: Whenever someone asks us, we’ll just name as many genres as we can. Like punk, emo, rock, disco, pop.
Q: What was the impetus for “Maine?”
Phillips: It was like we had one big therapy session. We went to Maine after we’d gone on tour, and so much was happening back home with our families. So much was happening at the same time. We were pretty much at the farthest place we could be from what was actually happening, and we were surrounded by all of this beautiful nature. I think we just got an opportunity to be vulnerable and talk about things that were happening and also write about it. It was the first time we had done something like that. It was really cathartic.
Mabry: And we were doing it together. It was almost like we were speaking to each other, but through lyrics. We didn’t even know what we were going to write when we went to Maine, but I think it was something that we needed to do.
Q: What were some things that inspired the project?
Mabry: We were graduating at that time. We knew we were doing music, and that worked out pretty well, but we didn’t know where we were going to move or how we were going to live. Then, some people we love were struggling with addiction, and it was all happening while we were on our first tour before going to Maine. (The EP) is just about the guilt of not being at home and helping the people you love get through their things, but also knowing that if you were there, there’s really nothing you could be doing.
Q: “Timeline” is a standout track for me because it expresses the deep desire of yearning for someone but in a very simple way. How did that song come together?
Mabry: We were thinking about the people in high school we saw in the hallways that we knew of but never actually got to spend time with. We were thinking about how different things would’ve been if we introduced ourselves and got to know them.
Credit: William Wark
Credit: William Wark
Q: How have you all built a social media following while still being new artists?
Phillips: Pure luck
Mabry: I think it’s just from us being vulnerable and honest in our music
Phillips: We always like to say that people can tell the difference between if you’re putting on something for the internet or if you’re being genuine.
Q: How have you all grown since being in a group together?
Phillips: We had so much to be grateful for in the beginning, but we just have a million more things now to be grateful for and just acknowledging that. We keep finding out things about ourselves and how to improve ourselves.
Mabry: I think being on the road definitely puts us to the test. You can get really tired and exhausted on the road, and that can make you angry sometimes. We’ve gotten really good at just like knowing when those moments are and how to make sure it’s not affecting anybody else.
Q: What can you share about your new album?
Mabry: It’s a little heavier. It’s more rock ‘n’ roll. It’s not finished, and we don’t have a release date yet. The overarching theme is about reflecting on how we treated our parents when we were younger and how our relationships with them have changed over time. We like our music to be chronological and representative of where we are.
Phillips: We both know what it means to grow with someone, watch them change and appreciate how they change
