Interview: Heartracer thread chest-pounding synths into star-struck fabric

Chris Cosby was a freshman in college when he was diagnosed with Tachycardia, a condition characterized with rapid changes in heartbeat (often up to 100 times per minute). The semester was coming to a close, and he’d been “staying up late to cram for a final,” he recalls. “I noticed I was having trouble falling asleep for a few nights straight after that because my heart would start beating fast.” In the following years, he’s witnessed fewer health concerns impacting his day-to-day, turning his attention to healthy eating and exercise, even though he remains a staunch “night owl.”

“My case is pretty mild to what it could be,” he tells B-Sides & Badlands over email. “Getting enough sleep is just so important. I feel awful for insomniacs; that would be the worst.”

Up to that point in his life, Cosby had experienced little health crises, and while the diagnosis wasn’t earth-shattering as much as it could have been, it did shift something deep inside of his psyche. “I would say the diagnoses definitely brought me back to earth in a sense. Maybe it made me a bit more thankful to wake up and have something to live for, and it gave me a reason to appreciate the little things more often.”

His current creative endeavor, a synth-pop band called Heartracer, forged eight years ago in his Richmond, Virginia home studio, draws its moniker directly from his condition. Rounded out with his brother Chip (guitar), and musicians Wes Tatum (bass, keyboards), and Bryan Reyes (drums, percussion), the quartet tether their camaraderie and drive with icy, ’80s-slathered synths, sliding into the cosmos in glorious fashion as you might find on a throwback radio station. The songwriting came more alive, too, perhaps even mimicking a heartbeat’s quickened pace. “It’s possible that I started writing faster music. Apparently our heartbeat does play some role in the speed at which we hear music,” considers Cosby, “someone told me that anyway. I do think from our debut record, ‘In Flight,’ until now, you see a solid progression in terms of songwriting and production.”

That’s not more evident than with their new song “Darling,” a sharp, gleaming roller-disco banger. In its original form, the song contained a slower tempo with “almost had an orchestral feel. In fact, I was thinking I would love to record and release another version with nothing but strings and vocals behind it. Peter Gabriel has done that with some of his songs, and I think it would work great for this one.”

But there’s something magical, healing, and exhilarating about its current state, a transportive recording that washes over the senses and completely tingles the body. “Baby, if our days are numbered / Just leave me on the floor,” the frontman walls into static synths that ping off infectious, mind-altering electricity. “That lyric is about wanting commitment with someone so badly that you’d rather not have them at all then only for a little while. Like leave me here to wallow in my misery down here on the floor and just leave me be,” he explains. “I know when many people decide to get a pet one of the questions running through the mind is ‘do I want to spend 14-15 years loving this creature only to possibly outlive it?’ It’s a morbid thought but also truthful and powerfully vulnerable.”

It’s been four years since Heartracer last released a body of work, 2016’s Eat Your Heart Out EP. Given an ever-shifting industry, they’ve leaned into bite-sized single releases, including 2019’s “Belong.” Now, they stand at the cusp of renewed energy and hope for the future, as they eye potential for their next offerings. Below, Chris Cosby dissects our culture’s infatuation with nostalgia, ’80s euphoria, and toughest lessons learned.

Your work is undeniably influenced by 1980s pop music, as if it is directly ripped out of another time. Do you find that if we’re too busy looking back we will forget to be present?

I think that understanding the past and what got us to where we are is important. Of course, it’s important to also think ahead, but I think having that foundation and understanding of the past is important. It’s really all we have to look at if we want to inform ourselves in a deeper manner as to why music is where it is where it is. Plus, there is so much great music to look back on that it’s tough to not be inspired by it. Will we be doing cover albums? Definitely not. But can we use the past as a launchpad to write something new and hopefully push music into an exciting new direction, I can only hope.

As the resurgence in ’80s synth-pop continues, I’m proud that we were doing it before it really became a trend, and I think one thing that makes our music resonate with people is that we are great at seeing the trends and what is relevant but also what is classic and will never go out of style. In many ways, we are getting to the core of what made that decade of music so great, and it wasn’t just the crazy hair and synthesizers. It was the great pop songwriting. If it was just the glitz and glamour and synthesizers, the music from that era wouldn’t be as relevant as it is today.

Is there an inescapable pull for you to dress up such profound lyrics with pounding neon synths?

My first foray into the music world was as a solo singer songwriter. I wrote an Americana album entitled ‘Southern Youth.’ When I made that record, I loved the songs, but I felt very boxed in considering what sounds I could use. Considering that I’m primarily a keyboard player, I found that using the same Rhodes and Hammond B3 sounds in every song just got boring. As much as I love music such as Neil Young, Ryan Adams, and Paul Simon for their amazing songwriting, I noticed a lot of my favorite artists were the ones that really explored music in not just a lyrical way but also in a sonic way.

I became profoundly influenced by artists like Tangerine Dream, Brian Eno, Hammock, Ulrich Schnauss, and Jon Hopkins. From there I found the synth-wave movement, which at the time was very underground and mainly comprised of a few artists such as College, Kavinsky, Miami Nights 1984, and Mitch Murder. There was a band in that genre that stood out to me, however, and that was Moscow-based Tesla Boy and specifically their album ‘Modern Thrills.’ What I liked about that record is it had a lot of retro synth sounds but also had a classic pop songwriting structure that didn’t really exist in that scene yet. In a similar way, we are combining classic pop songwriting with synth driven sonic textures. This may be more common now with artists such as The Weeknd, Walk The Moon, and Empire of the Sun, but when we started back in 2012, it was not.

Still there are many aspects of our sound that separate us, such as our use of guitar and the amount of vocal harmony. Also, I would add that even though those particular elements help define our sound, we believe it’s also a key reason that we have sailed slightly under the radar for quite some time is because in so many ways our music taps into several genres but doesn’t quite fit one specific niche. This makes blogs and people hesitant to interview you because they have trouble defining what you are and what you should be. As an artist, though, I feel we have no other option than to stay true to ourselves. Niches and trends die, but good songs are timeless.

You spoke in a 2015 interview about nostalgia as a foundation in your work – also noting that you often need that emotion to really strike you. How has that continued to be important for you, and has it changed over the last five years?

In that interview, I was referring more to the context of our EP ‘Summer Gold,’ and what we ended up with was sort of a retro, sun-fueled, convertible top-down sexy sound. While making the music on that EP, there’s a continuous image in my mind of me sitting in front of the TV as a child watching the ‘Karate Kid’ scene on the beach with Bananarama playing in the background. That one scene influenced the sound of that EP in many ways. Usually, when I’m asked about songwriting and I refer to emotion, it’s because in many ways, I think and write music in an almost cinematic way. We want our music to not just affect people in a physical or mental way but also in an emotional way. One of my goals with any song we write is to check all three of those boxes. Typically, for myself, I don’t read music in a classical sense. I also don’t write the majority of my lyrics down. Because of this, a lot of the material is based on memory, and I actually like this because if I can’t remember it then it probably wasn’t good enough.

I think it’s very easy to become monotonous as an artist and begin to repeat yourself. I think much of this happens because bands begin to write songs where they do what they think people expect. There’s definitely a selfishness to writing good music in that you have to really think, ‘What do I want to create?’ Rather than, ‘What does our audience want from us?’ When we start at square one with the writing process our most primary goal is and always will be to write a good song. People often say we sound ’80s, or retro, and honestly much of that is unintentional on our part. We just want to make music that we enjoy and would want to listen to ourselves. There’s no doubt that our music has a nostalgic quality, but I also think there is a reason people want nostalgia from specifically that decade, and that’s because much of the music was really damn good. The marriage between man and machine was fresh then and balanced. Now, in 2020, it seems the human element is becoming less and less, and that’s unfortunate because what replaces it will be shallow and void of any real soul.

By and large, we, as human beings, are creatures of nostalgia – from vintage rock bands reuniting to TV reboots. Why are we so infatuated with the past?

The origin of the word nostalgia means to return home. I think it’s easy to confuse that with having to be in the past, when, in fact, it could be a place of comfort in the present. It’s the feeling you get when you’re sick and your mom makes you chicken noodle soup and puts a blanket over you, or you are in the embrace of someone you love. It’s almost an unidentifiable form of comfort that we crave but don’t know how to strive for it. It might feel like it’s attributed to a memory, but similarly with deja vu, I think our mind is tricking us to thinking it’s in the past. As far as vintage rock bands reuniting, I think that’s more because they want to make money or possibly just because they love playing. The TV reboots happen because by and large I think the majority of people writing currently just aren’t as good as they were.

And that’s not to say they are fools because we have been blessed with so many geniuses in the past that it’s hard to compete. It’s much easier to take someone else’s idea, put a modern spin on it, and market it to a bunch of fourteen-year-olds that don’t even know it’s a remake. Also, it’s sad to say, but I think over the last thirty years people’s priorities have changed. They care less about William Shakespeare and more about posting videos on TikTok. Because of this I think there is less of a craving for truly intellectual work. It doesn’t sell as much. As far looking back being dangerous, I think it can be but not if you take it as it’s worth. In a Quincy Jone’s interview, I remember he was quoted saying he believed modern music was struggling for the same reasons. Without a great knowledge of what or who laid the foundation before you, it’s hard to know how to push forward and progress. We have a song coming out at the end of summer called ‘Reverence,’ and it touches on the subject of having a deep respect for the past and those that came before you.

In your body of work so far, what is most evident is your plucky spirit. Did growing up in Richmond really instill that within you early on in your life?

Richmond’s a pretty tough city, so I’m sure it had some role to play, but honestly, I’d probably have to give credit to my mother for that. My brother and I call her ‘Clubber Lang,’ because she’s a confident woman with a very punk rock attitude. Attitude is important. I’ve always felt drawn to music that has something to say and has some gall and angst. I’ve never been a huge fan of ‘happy go lucky’ type music because for me playing and listening to music has always been such a cathartic experience. Maybe we’d have more music in commercials if we did. Chip grew up listening to the Misfits and Motley Crue so maybe that wore off on me, as well.

It’s been four years since a body of work (2016’s Eat Your Heart Out EP). Thematically and sonically, what direction does it signal for the next record?

Since then, we’ve just been releasing singles because when it comes time for our full-length, we want to have the proper support for it. In only a few months, some of our singles have reached over 100k plays (shout out to Stimmungsmacher playlist). We are definitely eager to release a full-length, but at the same time, the way music is released these days, it just doesn’t make much sense for us at the moment. We have a ton of music in the pipeline, though, and we are only getting tighter and more unified as a band. Wes is the newest addition to the group, and he’s a great singer, as well, so when we are all singing together, we can create some amazing group sounding vocals. Our next single, which will be out this spring, is entitled ‘Sound of Fear,’ and it’s another song we are super proud of and can’t wait to perform live. It’s a unique song in that it has a very disco-dream like vibe, and then the chorus is really rocking and massive sounding. Playing between those different genres in one song is really fun, and it’s something that’s tough to pull off, but we do it pretty effortlessly on this track.

In seven years, since the 2013 release of your debut, In Flight, what have been some of the toughest lessons you’ve learned – personally and professionally?

We all know the music industry is probably the toughest industry in the world to break into. One of the toughest lessons I’ve learned, personally and professionally, I’d say is that there are really only a few people in the world that truly have your best interests at heart. Those people are the ones on stage with me and my family. Not everyone wants to see you succeed but that’s OK because those people push me even harder to create the best music I can every day. Our next single ‘Sound of Fear’ says a lot about the fear of rejection that every artist and person will contend with at some point in their lives.

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