In the wake of their debut album Stories Untold, Somewhere In Between sat down with Happy, delving deep into their story and their music
Deena Robertson and Austin Bisnow make up the beauty that is Somewhere In Between, a musical duo inspired by their love, the Canadian landscape and their incredible life story.
Their album Stories Untold is a 9-track masterpiece, and follows up from two EP releases earlier in the year.
Stories Untold takes you on a journey through poetic lyrics, delicate guitar melodies and vocal depth, inspiringly optimistic and tragically beautiful.
As Deena and Austin take us through the Somewhere In Between story, they encourage us to appreciate the complexities of life and the middle ground that we could find between us all.
Check out the interview below (and make sure to press play on the album first).
HAPPY: What are you both up to today?
DEENA: Currently eating way too many pumpkin seeds. On a side note, do you happen to know how many pumpkin seeds a person can eat? Asking for a friend.
HAPPY: Tell us a little about where you’re from. What do you love about it?
DEENA: I grew up on a farm in Canada with hippie parents. My nails were always dirty, we ate from the garden and spent many hours lost in a corn field. The older I get the more grateful I am for those days. It sowed the seeds of a long and deep relationship with nature. It’s my happy place.
AUSTIN: And I grew up in Washington DC with the back of our house on a park, but I didn’t actually appreciate nature until I fell in love with Deena.
HAPPY: Your band name is incredibly special. Can you share with us the story behind it?
DEENA: We had been trying to find a band name that felt like us and our music. Nothing was fitting. Then, one day in the car we were talking and Austin said “somewhere in between” in a sentence and we both just stopped and stared at each other. After the shivers of that moment faded we began to talk about what it meant to each of us.
Somewhere in between you and me is us, somewhere in between our opinions we find common ground, somewhere in between the beginning and end is the journey. It’s that middle ground of life and that felt like us.
HAPPY: “Mr & Mrs” is what started your journey in music together. What was it like to share that track with the world, especially in the face of Deena’s diagnosis?
DEENA: We wrote that song as our literal wedding vows, recorded it right before my surgery not knowing if my ability to speak would be permanently damaged.
We heard it for the first time right after I realized I still had a voice. Even writing this, I become emotional. It’s the first song, but really it was the first access to our coming together in music.
HAPPY: Can you tell us about what the production process was like for Stories Untold?
AUSTIN: Ok, ready for a geek out? Proceed with caution. We actually recorded the entire album in the barn where we got married, in rural Quebec, Canada, built in 1881, and the song which became the title track, “Stories Untold”, was one of those memorable, raw experiences.
We set up room mics to capture the magic that barn has to offer — this was a very different recording and production process than I was used to, and it was really fun and exciting for me.
We recorded it after sunset with the candles on. This felt fitting as the lyrics (in their entirety) originally came to me as I was drifting in and out of sleep one night.
I started by playing the guitar and singing the vocal at the same time, recording it all in one take. The guitar was recorded with one mic and the vocal with another, with some baffles I designed for the space to give a bit of isolation while still capturing the room as a whole.
Interestingly, the distortion on my vocal in the final chorus is exactly what was recorded — no additional processing. The creamy distortion is the sound of me really pushing into the compressor.
Being a new project, this album was all about testing what worked. Our mixing engineer Ben O’Neill recommended I try rerecording the guitar with a different mic, so we actually went back in and replaced it, but you can still hear the original guitar in the room, which sometimes makes for this weird, cool chorusy effect.
Then our recording engineer Jace Lasek, who’s a mad scientist in the studio, ran the guitar through an analogue cassette tape for added texture and warmth.
Deena layered her vocal and our friend Rebecca Foon recorded cello on it that I arranged. I added a mini Juno synthesizer which we ran through one of Jace’s vintage amps in the barn, which provided the low end and created an emotional and exciting ambiance, which you can actually see on our Instagram.
Then our friend Steph Schneider, another talented Montreal musician, played drums at Breakglass Studios in the city. He played really quietly with brushes but with a lot of intensity—he was sweating and vocalizing, almost like it was a James Brown recording.
We captured all of that and ran it through heavy preamp settings to create a nice harmonic distortion, giving the ending an aggressive feel. It sounds silly but I’ll never forget singing and recording this tune.
I was on the verge of tears multiple times when I sang it and when I played the Juno. I feel so honored that Deena put her trust in me to produce this album.
HAPPY: You both started some amazing initiatives during the pandemic. How did Live From Quarantine and the Get Well Soon Tour come about, and what was it like to work with so many great musicians?
AUSTIN: The generosity of the artists we collaborated with really blew us away. Everyone from The Lumineers and Woody Harrelson, to Bruno Mars and Pitbull. The way people come together in difficult times is truly inspiring.
Sometimes it feels like the media is trying to remind us how harsh the world is but there is still so much kindness that people show each and every day. And music is therapy.
HAPPY: Your sound is a beautiful blend of indie and classic folk. How did you come together to find such a harmonious style?
DEENA: We laugh that we still haven’t written a song together, because these songs kind of just come out of us. From songs written in dreams, to songs written through tears, they were journal entries and ways to work through and process all that life was throwing at us.
We never were trying to write songs, we were just feeling through music. And because of that, we never really know how it’s going to sound.
HAPPY: What’s it like getting to make music and play live with your partner?
AUSTIN: It’s a whole new world, 12 years into our love. There is a presence for the both of us that happens when we sing together.
The past and the future dissolve and we become truly in the moment. That is an intimacy that is really amazing. Also, we laugh a lot. Like a comical amount.
HAPPY: Looking ahead, what’s coming up?
DEENA: No idea. We hope our music and story can give people a safe place to fall and to fly. An access point into truth and feeling. The response of hope and letting go has already been so profound. The greatest gift is seeing people share how the music is making them feel.
We feel like our music is meant to be felt vs listened to if that makes sense. And, lots more recording. Music pours out of us in waves. There is a lot to feel in this crazy world!!!
HAPPY: What makes you both happy?
DEENA: Wow…so many things. Our dog Grizzly, good coffee, our friends and family, nature, popcorn with nutritional yeast, a long epsom salt bath, putting our phones away, dreaming together, and of course music and more music!!!!!!!!!!
