HeadSoup plays from the gut

By Diana Costello
The Journal News • April 1, 2008


Music doesn’t have to be complicated to be good.

That’s the philosophy Nik Rael brings to his songwriting, whether he’s going at it solo with an acoustic guitar or he’s rocking out on bass with a band behind him.
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For in the end, he’s all about writing songs that resonate with listeners.

"When it comes to writing good songs, you should be able to just pick up a guitar or sit at a piano and play it. Or just sing it. And it should be great," says Rael, the creative force behind the band HeadSoup, whose members are from throughout the Lower Hudson Valley.

"As a band leader, you deal with a lot of guitar players who want to play a thousand notes instead of just playing 20 well," he adds. "The true greats can play as many or as few notes as they want, but it should sound like they’re talking to you."

Last week, HeadSoup drummer Steve Petrone joined Rael for an acoustic performance in the Listening Room, an online concert series produced by LoHud.com.

Together the duo showcased tunes, from a heartfelt story about betrayal to a country track about chasing an impossible dream to a spiritual tale about giving thanks, even for life’s tribulations.

The connective tissue running through each of these songs was that they sprung from the gut.

"Raw emotion is what gets me started," Rael says. "And then it evolves from there."

The music has a hint of The Black Crowes, especially in Rael’s voice. The similarity is particularly pronounced on the HeadSoup album "Worlds Fade Away," which is packed with soulful rock ’n’ roll and was produced by Van Morrison guitarist John Platania.

The Black Crowes comparison is one Rael has heard before. He’s even felt the similarities while listening to the band on the radio one day and thinking "Hey, I know those chords!" as if he were hearing his own song, "Worlds Fade Away."

Yet despite the likeness, the comparison is really just a happy coincidence. HeadSoup’s more poignant influences include The Beatles, The Allman Brothers Band, Louis Armstrong and Bob Dylan.

The band also counts The Rolling Stones as a major inspiration, though the name HeadSoup has nothing to do with the 1973 Rolling Stones album "Goats Head Soup."

Rather, the name HeadSoup came out of a college buddy’s "hard-luck story" about how his father was a fisherman and the family would have to eat fish-head soup when times got rough. It was his favorite story to tell, and everyone would pre-empt the tale by saying "Yeah, yeah. Fish head soup. We know."

So when Rael’s college band landed its first gig and was forced to come up with a name, this college buddy threw out "Fish Head Soup." They ran with it, but eventually dropped the ’Fish’ because too many other bands at that time had some sort of fish fetish. (Fishbone, School of Fish, Phish.)

Today the band is spreading its name -and its music -across the globe.

Connecting with listeners through MySpace.com has been an especially rewarding experience, being able to hear that the music has helped people through some difficult times.

"For a guy like me, I just channel it into my encouragement bank account," Rael says. "Because you need a lot of that."

Reach Diana Costello at dcostell@lohud.com or 914-694-3528.