Gabe Hascall reflects on 'Thousands of Thorns'

Catching up with Gabe Hascall; photographed by Antonio Bond

Local legend Gabe Hascall has returned to his hometown of Austin, TX. Known in the circuits for work in The Impossibles, Slowreader and so forth — Hascall returns from his time spent in the PNW with a new album for ATH Records titled Thousands of Thorns. Focusing on the floral moments of discovery and blooming realizations amid the barbs and briars in the brush that dot our winding paths — Hascall presents a cathartic record that immerses the listener in the artist’s conscious stream of continuous perceptions.

The Thousands of Thorns cycle begins with "Covering Up", musing about the collected thoughts that play about amid our business of being busy. The title track is a rhythmic testament to rocky roads traversed that channels Hascall's inner monologue and dialogue ballads that swim into the thought stream meditative tributaries of the tablua rasa mind on "the screen is blank", joyous merry-go-round bursts of introspection like "Plural Sounds", before veering into the candid slip-stream of "Outlawed".

Gabe Hascall's poetic notes on consciousness continue into the pensive pools of "Shadowy Forces", following the reflective truth trail of "Facts on the Ground", right before expanding the existential scope to our own humbling place in the galaxy via "Under the Sky". The art of Hascall's unique lyrical approach is conveying and adapting streams of consciousness into verse as witnessed on full display with "Too Transfixed", to the heart-felt expressions of "It's Easy", to the wide-eyed reckoning and realizations of "My Best Life", leaving us with "Better Than Bitter" that instills a sense of hope somewhere between our collective solitude and the gratitude that flows between us as a global collective of people. This is the album to sum up spring 2020 with a chance to embrace a potentially beautiful summer (and what dreams and new chances that may arrive in the solstices hereafter).

A chat with Gabe Hascall; photographed by Antonio Bond.

We had a chance to remotely explore the new album Thousands of Thorns in-depth with Gabe Hascall in the following interview:

Describe how you have found your own influential traces from The Impossibles, Slowreader to your new album Thousands of Thorns.

I learned a lot watching Rory write songs in The Impossibles and I got to experience what it feels like to be in a band that’s popular. It was awesome. We’ll play more together at some point. For sure.

The Slowreader album has a lot of my very first songs. I was able to shake a lot of stuff loose right around that time and I started to develop a lot of confidence in my songwriting.

Everything since then it’s just been me in a room working on songs until they’re done. If there’s any clear evolution between me back then and now it’s happened in spite of me.

Insights on the pains and breakthroughs during the making of Thousands of Thorns.

I took a long time between recording the songs and mixing the album. We were fixing up our house in Portland so we could sell it and move to Austin and there was a lot of work to do. I probably didn’t do any work on this record for six months during that time.

This album is definitely the best stuff I’ve ever done. Mostly I finally feel like I’m at a place where my recordings sound the way I want them to. I don’t know why but I feel like I need to do everything by myself and I’ve done a lot of trial and error recording. I still don’t really know what I’m doing but I think it sounds good now. I’m excited for the future. It feels like there’s so much to discover.

When it comes to songwriting I kind of just put my head down and do the work and it always unfolds. I don’t really get writers block. Committing to the act itself feels like the biggest obstacle.

The ballad(s) of Gabe Hascall; photographed by Antonio Bond.

Notes on how you have observed your own creative evolution as an artist.

I feel very proud to be where I am right now, writing the way I do. It means a lot because I’ve put in so much time. It’s easy because I love it but I’ve worked really hard to fine-tune these songs. I still struggle with being too close to it all to be objective. It causes me to not like the way things sound sometimes. However, I know that it’s going to sound the way it sounds no matter what. It’s almost out of my control.

Notes of discovery and intrigue from the current confined states of solitary shelter in place.

I’ve been getting up at 4 AM every morning to work on music. I usually get up early no matter what. I feel very privileged and fortunate to be able to use this time to work on things that comfort me. The scale of everything is mind boggling and I go back and forth between consuming information and shutting it all out. Obviously, shutting everything out is a luxury. 

I’ve been watching a lot of movies. I get my money’s worth with the Criterion Channel. It keeps me in a pretty creative place.

Gabe Hascall is back; press photo courtesy of Antonio Bond/ATH Records.

Hopes for our future and the world of humanity and the arts after this chaos has lifted.

Things are not great right now. 

It’s hard to believe this is real life. I feel grateful to be able to experience this along side the rest of humanity. It makes me feel like a part of something greater than myself. I’m trying to just be the best version of myself right now. I need to be the person my family needs me to be. We’re all just trying our best and marching forward towards an uncertain future. It’s a lot.

Gabe Hascall’s album Thousands of Thorns is available now via ATH Records.