The Evolution of a Band Name

People have a hard time knowing what to call us (other than the usual disses and insults).

Partially, this is our fault, because the band name has been evolving over time. Partially, it’s due to the fact that many people have a really hard time with the surname “Hales.” Considering it’s a five-letter, one-syllable surname, it’s not clear why. Maybe people just know a lot more folks with the last names “Hale” and “Hayes,” and couldn’t Daniel just help make their lives a lot simpler by changing his last name to one of those? Then there are those who think the “s” only applies if they see him more than once in a day--or if there is more than one person with the last name “Hale” in the band.

First off: if you are one of these people, rest assured: 98% of the time we’re amused by your mangling of our ridiculous band name and think no less of you.

The 2% of the time that we resent you is when you are someone announcing the band name over a Public Address system while holding a piece of paper that has the band name correctly written on it. (And maybe if you’re about to speak into a PA system and aren’t sure the name of the band that just played--or is about to play--and aren’t holding a piece of paper that spells it out, would it hurt to ask? Especially if you already made the same mistake on previous occasions?)

Second: if you do get it wrong, we like it best when you get it really, really wrong, like this guy at Pothole Pictures (skip to the end): Who dubbed us “Dan Hales and the Hot Frost Leave-Heaves.” We also like “Frost Heaven,” and reserve the right to use this moniker at some point.

And now, for the benefit of bored linguists and/or future Hot Frost Leaf scholars, a brief history of a band name’s evolution (dates are approximate).

2005 – 2010:

Daniel Hales and The Frost Heaves

The “band” began as Daniel’s solo-ish side-project… a place for songs that hadn’t found a home with his then-main band, The Ambiguities. Because he was the only permanent member of this new “band,” it seemed fitting to go with the typical formula of: Main Dude’s Name and his Backing Band (Bob Dylan and The Band, Sid Lamprey and The Parasites, etc.). The first album was recorded with a slew of transcendent guest studio musicians… the first wave of auxiliary Frost Heaves. The Reverend Christopher J. Wilkey played drums on “Loose Thread” and “When The Sun.” But more about this ecclesiastical personage later.

2011 – 2015:

Daniel Hales, and the Frost Heaves.

/ Daniel hales, and the frost heaves.

Over time and evolving lineups, things flipped: Frost Heaves became Daniel’s main band, and The Ambiguities, after a few very different full-band permutations, has became his solo-ish side-project. In particular, when James Frederick Lowe joined the Heave-hood and began contributing his brilliantine basslines and string arrangements, we became much more a band. And as another recovering English major, James shared Daniel’s appreciation for wordplay, linguistic tomfooleries, and fine distinctions. It only seemed right that the band name reflect this shift. By making the band name a grammatically complete, punctuated sentence (two independent clauses separated by a comma and a coordinating conjunction), we liked to think we kicked the tiniest of holes in the fourth wall of the whole concept of “band names.” We also thought it worth pointing out the wordplay embedded in the name that you may have missed: Daniel is “haling” (Is he haling a cab? Is he falling on you like hailstones?) Meanwhile, as Daniel does whatever it is he does, the frost is heaving. (Probably the frost had one too many jagerbombs last night.) Common questions/reactions were: “Is the H supposed to be lower case?” “Your punctuation is hurting my brain.” “I don’t even understand how to correctly use an apostrophe, so how can I make sense of… this?”

2015ish:

The Frost Heaves String Duo

For a brief period in the year we have now come to refer to as 2015, the band consisted of only two Daniels. Or a Daniel and a Dan, if you prefer. Dan Mickus: lovechild of Peter Buck, Johnny Marr, and Andres Segovia, and the aforementioned rapscallion, Daniel Hales. This duo of Dannys played the songs that made the young girls cry on various guitars, in various tunings, using only twelve to eighteen strings, and one to two voices, at any given time.

2016:

The frost heaves and hales.

The return of original Heave Homiez Bro Lowe and Rev Wilkey marked the dawning of the Frost Heaves Golden Age. A bold new era of hot, frosty, frothy, and heavenly heaving called for a new name. And with the band now truly a band of brothers, it was time the sentence, like the fables, be reconstructed. The band would be first clause (article, noun, verb), with hales a further modifying verb, and only one coordinating conjunction--and no longer a comma to stand betwixt them. But the end punctuation remained, as it must (but may, one day, grow up to be an ellipsis), and the pun grew more complicated with the lexicographic discovery that an additional (somewhat antiquated meaning) of “hale” is “to haul.” And so like the frost we heave and haul the pavement to allow the sacred songs trapped beneath it to emerge through the cracks! Huzzah!

Additional variants:

Selah Hales

Sometimes when Daniel strums and sings alone at shows, he will palindromatically refer to himself as Selah Hales. The Hebrew word Selah has no definitive definition. Some say it’s a musical notation meaning “pause and consider.” Some say it’s more like a: “Hell Yeah!” Being somewhere between seems like a good place to be.

The Ambiguities and Umbral

are alternate musical universes populated by DJ Selah and various collaborators. The Ambiguities (version 4.0) is trip flop indy danse pop fueled by three-souled dragon, and Umbral began as an informal Berlin collective which relocated to western Massachusetts to continue producing pyschdrone collage rockets.

When in doubt!!!!

Just call us: The Frost Heaves

Or: the frost heaves.

Or: Frost Heaves

Or: The Heaves

Or: Heavez

Or: Hot Frost Leaves

But never: Donald Hayghes; And the Frost Heals?