Click Image to Download!

At first, Heavy Gus didn’t realize they were making an album. In fact, they didn’t even realize they were a band.

“When we got into the studio, I don’t think we really had any ambitions beyond recording a song or two just for the fun of it,” says songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Stelth Ulvang. “Only later that night when we heard the mixes did we realize how special it was, that this might be a thread we all needed to follow together.”

That sort of organic, intuitive approach has defined Heavy Gus from the start, and now it forms the bedrock of the trio’s captivating full-length debut, Notions. Recorded in Nashville, the collection is raw and intoxicating, bristling with live-wire electricity as it blurs the lines between grungy garage band fare, hazy desert surf, and dreamy, sun-soaked indie rock. The songs are lean and spare, fueled by distorted guitars and a driving rhythm section, and the performances are loose and muscular to match, captured spontaneously in the moment with little room for second-guessing or overthinking. And while all three bandmates came to Heavy Gus from very different worlds—Ulvang from The Lumineers, drummer Ryan Dobrowski from Blind Pilot, and singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Dorota Szuta from an unlikely combination of marine science (which found her studying seafloors everywhere from the Sea of Cortez to Antarctica) and music (which saw her playing with the likes of Laura Gibson and Gill Landry among others)—they fit together like puzzle pieces here, bound by the kind of love and trust that can only grow from years of deep kinship. The result is a record all about distance and connection from a band built on intimacy and personal chemistry, a mesmerizing debut that calls to mind everything from Meat Puppets and The Breeders to Yo La Tengo and Acetone in its artful balance of hope and fatalism, loneliness and desire, strength and vulnerability.

“Stelth and I are married, so there’s obviously a very tight bond there,” says Szuta, “but Ryan’s been such a close friend to both of us that it just felt completely natural to record these songs with him. We knew we could all be completely honest and present with each other, and that’s an incredibly liberating feeling.”

While the trio’s personal and professional connections stretch back years, Heavy Gus didn’t actually begin recording together until 2019, when the stars aligned for an impromptu studio session at Nashville’s famed Creative Workshop.

“It’s pretty rare that we’re all in the same place at the same time,” explains Ulvang, “but Dorota and Ryan were both traveling with us on a Lumineers tour [Ryan’s fiancé, Lauren, plays violin in the band], and when we found ourselves with an off day in Nashville, it felt like a golden opportunity to go have some fun together without any pressure or expectations.”

At the time, Ulvang and Szuta had just relocated to the small, high desert town of Bishop, California, where Szuta had taken a new job studying freshwater biology. The natural beauty of the landscape was stunning, but there was also something undeniably lonesome about it, something lost and isolating.

“I didn’t really know anyone yet, and Stelth was away on tour quite a bit in the early days, so I found myself alone a lot,” Szuta recalls. “One night I made myself a big pot of lentils, started a fire in the wood stove, grabbed a guitar, and just started writing stream of consciousness-style.”

The resulting tune, “Dinner for Breakfast,” would go on to become the first track Heavy Gus would record in Nashville, setting a blueprint not only for the band’s approach in the studio, but also for their entire sonic identity.

“We listened to a mix backstage at The Lumineers’ show that night and the sound just bowled us over,” says Szuta. “We’d recorded another song of Stelth’s that day, too, and it all felt so right and so natural that we knew we needed to keep going.”

When the COVID-19 pandemic arrived and put touring on hold indefinitely, Ulvang and Szuta set out on a 2,000-mile socially distanced road trip to keep the project alive, driving from California to Colorado (where they picked up Dobrowski) and then on to Tennessee for another round of recording. The journey was at times harrowing—the van had no air conditioning, which reduced the three to spritzing each other with water from a spray bottle to avoid overheating, and the rapid spread of the virus forced them to camp outdoors every night to minimize their risk—but the trio’s commitment never wavered, even if they still weren’t exactly sure what they were getting themselves into.

“We had the windows down the whole way there, which meant we didn’t get to talk too much about our plans in advance,” says Ulvang. “It was mind numbingly hot, and when we arrived, we just dove straight into recording.”

Working once again with co-producer Parker Cason (Margo Price, Marlon Williams) at the Creative Workshop, the band knocked out eight more songs in just four days, creating at a breakneck pace that matched the frenetic energy of the music. Though they brought in local pal Tyler Osmond (Wild Child, Rayland Baxter) to help flesh things out on bass, the band deliberately kept the Nashville gloss to a minimum on the sessions, embracing the grit and sincerity of live recording and the open, dusty feel of the desert at every turn.

“We all come from folkier backgrounds,” says Szuta, “so there was something really freeing about the opportunity to get big and loud and messy with these songs.”

“We weren’t overly precious with anything,” adds Dobrowski. “We followed our instincts and played what felt good instead of analyzing everything to death, and as a result, it really felt like we captured a moment, which was refreshing.”

That creative rejuvenation is plain to hear on Notions, which opens “Dinner for Breakfast.” Slow and moody, the track is a droning, bittersweet, reverb-drenched reflection on longing and separation, one that, like much of the album to come, ultimately finds a reason to hold on in even the darkest of moments. The ecstatic “Weird Sad Symbol” revels in resilience and survival, while the psychedelic-tinged “Do We Have To Talk” reaches out for the comfort of a physical connection, and the tender “Scattered” meditates on the challenges that come with change.

“I like to write from a very truthful place,” says Szuta, whose keen eye with a microscope is often reflected in her lyrical attention to detail and nuance. “No matter how happy you are or how healthy your relationship is, some days you find yourself in a deep, sad pocket. And I think it’s important to embrace and explore those moments for what they are.”

For all their explorations of darkness and doubt, Heavy Gus still find opportunities to embrace hope and light on the album, too. The airy “Breathe” plays like a love letter to Bishop with a series of off-kilter vignettes of small town life; the infectious “Still To Be” finds beauty everywhere it looks; and the delicate “Trees” imagines the kind of natural utopia that could blossom in a post-human world.

“This is an album of extremes,” reflects Ulvang. “There are these picturesque, pastoral moments of peace and contentment and then these utterly bleak, apocalyptic moments of existential crisis; these big, lofty ideas and these tiny, personal artifacts.”

And ultimately, that’s what Notions is all about: the conceptual and the tangible, the infinite and the intimate, the unyielding mystery of life itself. If Heavy Gus didn’t realize they were making an album, it’s only because they were too busy living and breathing it.