Tom Henry: "All It Takes Is a Few Steps Back To See What’s Happening at Large and Realize That This Stuff Is the Truth"

The phrase the "LA sound" has meant a lot of things over the past six decades. Some people associate it with all sorts of things, but to me it will always be the sound of The Beach Boys, Phil Spector, Jan & Dean, The Byrds, Love, and Kim Fowley. After a few decades of sedated trends, Los Angeles hasn't felt more alive and diversified than it does right now (see the sights of Uni Boys, Dorothy Fuzz, Billy Tibbals, Alley Girl, Quad Super Six, Tim Presley, etc.). And somehow, a red-headed young man named Tom Henry born in the burbs of Chicago, knows this sound inside out. While he's only spent a couple years living and playing in LA, he captures the city's analog warmth with an overdose of spirit on his debut LP Songs to Sing and Dance To. From the mind-bending opener "Close Your Eyes" to the sunset-streaked "The Mountains" Henry bends AM pop and pure rock 'n' roll impulses into something personal and present. But all too rarely, something comes along that hits a nerve. Scholarly pop-mania. Someday, Tom Henry will be a star, but only if both the mainstream and underground accepts him. We caught up with Henry to talk all about the making of the album, returning home to Chicago, and what it means to write music for a world that still needs something to believe in.

The following interview takes bits and pieces from conversations that occurred in both June and October '25.

Hot Sounds: I know you had a pretty lengthy summer tour you had to cut short. How has life been back since moving back home to Chicago and searching for a peace of mind?

Tom Henry: I haven't watched the leaves change color in years. I've found a certain kind of solace in the Midwest. It's not flashy or trendy like Los Angeles or New York, but it's real. Those leaves fall, winter makes way and everything becomes rather sparse, gloomy and desolate like the pain inside. Makes me wanna listen to Syd Barret or something... it's great. Plus, some of the best indie music in the world right now comes out of Chicago, so I'm sure I have a place here. I've only toured for a small fraction of my fraction of a life but I'm always sad to take breaks from playing live. It's inspiring to see what the music does. A fan in Vancouver named Parker gifted me a crochet doll they made of me wearing a little tuxedo, just like the album cover. That was pretty awesome. Many gifts of drawings and posters. I hang them up on my wall above piles of guitars and fanzines, the wall of big-star-star-dom. I can't wait to play again. I practice every day. Practice makes power-pop perfection. 

HS: Do you prefer Chicago to LA?

TH: I like Chicago. It reminds me of Paris but everyone likes hot dogs here. 

HS: I understand you went back to LA this past October for a few days to record bits to your follow-up record to Songs to Sing and Dance To. What can you tell me about these new songs?

TH: Yeah my second LP should be coming out next fall! It's still being written and recorded. I'm working hard to express where my heart is. I'm excited about these new tunes, similar to Songs to Sing and Dance To, but a whole lot better. I'm channeling all my feelings into my art. Some of my best lyricism yet, such as the name dropping of Elmer Fudd. Nothing but joy comes from such expressions. Cannot wait for everyone to hear. Sitting at the piano at my grandmother's house, making some strange-morpha-too-type-beat tunes. I recorded about half of the soft folksy songs in Oakland with David Glasebrook back in October. I'm hoping to track the rest of the rockers onto tape before the year ends or not soon after. Expect a hand-crafted-love-letter-eulogy to the radio, when the radio explodes, I will give you What's Left of the Dial. 

HS: For our latest compilation, Snap! Crackle! Pop! Where The Action Is Vol. 1, you also contributed a demo of your new song "What You Do." Where did this track come from and what do you remember about writing it?

TH: Good songs write themselves! In all honesty, with "What You Do," which will have a much better hi-fi version on the new record, I was just trying to write like Lennon/Lenin (you pick). Aren't we all?

HS: Where did you grow up and what was your childhood like? Were you always around music? 

TH: I feel blessed to have had such an enriching childhood in a loving family. I grew up in the Chicago suburbs that border the city in one of those mid-century cookie cutter homes (see Richard Hell's Spurts comp cover to see the exact architecture style). My dad is an animator of a studio in the city that made cartoon TV commercials, notably Lucky Charms and Trix Rabbit characters. I grew up in a jingle jangle, cartoon world. Being a little kid in a creative environment, I always felt inspired to run around telling stories, drawing and singing my own songs. My earliest memories with music include strumming the guitar with my dad (that same '70s Alvarez I hold on the cover of this album in my tux) and listening to the red and blue Beatles albums on our CD player, as well as the Jack Johnson Curious George album. I also really liked the Wiggles, and I caught them live in probably '06 which was pretty awesome. Murray was my favorite, obviously. Cause he's the red one and plays guitar. 

HS: How did you get into playing music? What kind of records and fanzines would we find if we would travel back in time in your teenage room?

TH: I started developing my taste for music in high school. During lunchtime I would have KEXP videos playing on my laptop while I munched on home-packed Uncrustables and Doritos. I owe a lot of the discoveries I made around then to the Amoeba "What's in My Bag" YouTube videos. I would find an artist or celeb that I admire who has an episode and see what they are inspired by. Around that time I somehow discovered Big Star's "Thirteen" and my world was forever changed. Other stuff I liked as a teen was more mainstream indie pop and some rock stuff too. I loved Toro Y Moi, Car Seat Headrest, Mac Demarco too. When I met Mac at our show in Vancouver during my last tour, I told him I don't think any of us would have been there if it wasn't for what he did. I was also a theatre kid in high school, but I wasn't as much into musicals as I was plays. Acting is something I'd like to get into again, hopefully soon now that school is done. 

HS: What insight can you share about your debut album Songs to Sing And Dance To and was there a particular moment that tied all these songs together? 

TH: This record has been in the works for quite some time, actually. Some of the oldest tracks I wrote during my first and second years of college. It wasn't until last fall when I met Kai [Slater] online after discovering Turtle Rock and instantly loving his recording style, I knew I wanted to work with him. I was also taking my first feature film writing class at the time, and so I was learning to creatively think about everything in a more holistic way. I'm the kind of artist who has an idea of the title, cover image and tracklist order before the songs are even finished. I'm sure that's a bit unusual, perhaps it's an OCD thing. Because of that I had a pretty good idea of how these tunes would come together, everything except for how exactly it would sound, of course. I knew how the tunes sounded in my head, but when you actualize them, it can always turn into something new and beautiful. What we got is something I'm really proud of and a summation of my life over these past couple of years. 

HS: Where, when and how was it recorded and what are some favorite memories you have putting it together with Kai?

TH: The album was recorded mostly in Chicago last summer. We had about a week and a half of time in Kai's studio at Treehouse Records, but my bandmates arrived to Chicago throughout the week, and by the time Ben [Jordan] got to the city, we only had one night until Kai had to leave for his West Coast Lifeguard tour, so we took a bunch of Adderall and pulled an all nighter, tracking most of Ben's basslines for tracks we'd already recorded, and then laid down the instrumental tracks for "Art House," "I Miss You" and "Closer Than Before" live as a band that same night. When Kai got back from his tour at the end of the month, he and I tracked the instrumentals. It was around that time when he broke his foot in an awkward jump but for a few days we didn't even know it was broken. I stayed by his side that whole time taking care of him. His roommates were gone on their TV Buddha tour, so I stayed in Eli [Schmitt's] room and made sure Kai was okay. That's when we had a lot of time to bond, watching Star Wars, the Criterion Channel and drinking Strawberries and Cream flavored Dr. Pepper sodas while we got creative with those harmonies and tracked them all in his living room. I spent the rest of the summer and autumn mixing and mastering those recordings we did on cassette in California with Jonny [Bell] at Jazzcats and we got a final tape master, for a more hi-fidelity sound. 

HS: How did you come up with the title of the album? 

TH: I think Songs to Sing and Dance To just came to me one day. I'm a big pin wearer on suit lapels and last year I got my first button press to make my own designs. I really liked the simplicity of this one Jonathan Richman pin I saw online that says "Make Johnathan Richman important in your life" so in addition to ripping off that slogan with my own name, I came up with one that says "Tom Henry makes songs to sing and dance to" and soon after that it became the name to my record. I can't remember which came first but I like how in this case it doesn't matter cause the title is telling it like it is, just a record with songs to sing and dance (and maybe cry) to. 

HS: How would you say this album compares to the previous EPs or the writing with your little sister in your duo Strawberry Blonde?

TH: This project differs from my previous works and Strawberry Blonde project, because for once I tried to really hone in on making something that I would really like to listen to myself, and compile all my best songs into one project. The other stuff has always been about getting ideas out, but this one is full of ideas I've been precious about for years because I wanted to do them the right way and experiment with methods of analog recording. Somehow I got really lucky this time, and it turned out to be exactly that. We even re-recorded "Closer Than Before," which originally appeared on Strawberry Blonde II with a lot of the same arrangements, though it was recorded digitally. I love that song of mine, and wanted to honor its influences with a brighter tape sound and more jangle, and that's what we got. I still have plans to continue my project with Erica [Henry], in fact I'd like to take our band in more of a pop direction, which I'm sure my sister likes anyways. 

HS: Diving into some of the album's highlights, what's the opening cut "Close Your Eyes" all about? 

TH: "Close Your Eyes" is sort of a dream-like opportunistic ballad that was honestly me trying to mymic Kai's Sharp Pins style of lyric writing, along with taking some clear inspiration from Alex Chilton's "(Every Time I) Close My Eyes" from the Bach's Bottom album [written by Jon Tiven], as well as Arthur Russell's "Close My Eyes" which opens his Love is Overtaking Me comp that I'd been obsessed with since I found it the fall prior. It's less about anything I've ever said to a lover, but more what I'd want someone to say to me. In a world of chaos, at the end of the day we all want someone to come close and whisper that everything's gonna be alright... or I want that at least. So I've found that message to be a recurring lyric in my songs, because it's a reassuring and validating theme and all my favorite songs say that to me as well.  

HS: How exactly did "Art House" come about? 

TH: It was originally written for Strawberry Blonde III, which we're still working on. I can't remember how this rocker came to be in my head, I most likely just woke up humming it one morning, like I do with a lot of my tunes. Lyrically, I wanted to make it an ode to going to the movies, especially going on a date to see an indie film. I remember going on a date to see Blue Velvet at the art house during my first romance of college, and we held hands through most of the movie. Laura Dern made me tear up. Maybe that's what I was thinking about when I wrote it. 

HS: What can you tell me about "I Miss You"? 

TH: "I Miss You," perhaps unsurprisingly, is a true narrative story, one of the few tracks that isn't a fantasy. Before I moved to LA, I would come up from Orange County to see the Sunday Mourners play shows almost every weekend. At one particular show, I met someone and we hit it off. We exchanged info, and I got a message a few days later where she said "I miss u" which I found kind of strange since we'd only just met. But I missed her too? So I thought, hey I should write a song about that. I was really into Radio City at the time, listening to it daily, and so I tried to instrumentally get a Strat tone three piece style instrumental that mirrors that era of Big Star. 

HS: How did "Look To My Side" come together?

TH: "Look to My Side" is a really simple song about commitment and attentiveness. It's what I would hope for from a lover, and what they should expect from me. For some reason we chose to instrumentally have this one be the most wild and noisy, though structurally it's very Beatles inspired, when we got Peter [Cimbalo] behind the drum kit we went for a more Raspberries Starting Over sort of sound. Vocally, I was inspired by all those early Beatle hits, as well as the worlds of echo found on Kai's hit "Lorelei." I wanted to get the harmonica solo going into the guitar solo to sound like "I'm a Loser," it's a favorite to play live cause I get to use the harp, which was a staple of my music in early college too when I was doing more folky stuff. 

HS: How about "How I've Missed The Sun"? 

TH: That came from a series of disappointments, romantically. I got let down too many times and I wanted to have that be an emotional anchor of my album. Contrary to popular belief, sometimes the clouds come out in California. I mean this metaphorically and literally, especially towards the end of winter. Last winter after a particularly rainy week, the sun finally peaked out and my boss at my school desk-job proclaimed, "Oh, the sun! How I've missed you!" in my head, immediately took note, "That's a song!" I thought. I guess I owe that title to my boss! 

HS: What's the story behind "The Mountains"? 

TH: "The Mountains" is one that I heard in my head when I was biking in the city of Orange on my 1973 cherry red Schwinn bicycle named Lula (short for Cholula) which was formerly owned by Max [Pugh] from the Sunday Mourners, and many other rock 'n' rollers if I had to guess. I rode her, Lula the bike, down the street one breezy evening, and I saw sunlight setting over the snow filled mountain peaks of Southern California right as that magical bassline popped into my head out of nowhere. The rest is history. 

HS: Are there any tracks you're particularly most proud of?

TH: I think I'm most proud of "Close Your Eyes" cause it's catchy. I like catchy songs. If one of my songs gets stuck in my own head, I know it's probably a keeper. For this record, all of the songs passed that test, but this one is special because it's fresh with the album and feels like trademark Tom, if I do say so myself. 

HS: While this record is very '60s British Invasion-inspired, it's really a great encapsulation of American rock 'n' roll music, melding both the past and the present. I hear bits of Los Angeles along with the surroundings of the Midwest and South (e.g. 20/20, Shoes, Tommy Hoehn, The Scruffs). I think that's what I admire most about it. What's your opinion on rock 'n' roll in 2025? Would you agree that there's a pop revolution sweeping the states? 

TH: There's certainly a pop revolution sweeping the nation, world and universe right now. Everyday I thank the Lord above that I was born after the invention of rock and roll. I know sometimes it feels like we're the odd ones out belonging to these small crowds in each smaller town, but all it takes is a few steps back to see what's happening at large and realize that this stuff is the truth. That's what excites me about everything that's happening musically right now in the underground. Perhaps it's not as underground as we think. Anyone who doubts this, take a look around, search your feelings and check back in with me later. 

HS: Songs to Sing and Dance To was our favorite record of 2025. What are your thoughts looking back on the record and what have you learned most from it all?

TH: I'm thrilled and honored that my LP is your #1-top-of-the-pops pick for record-of-the-year. I don't really listen to my own music much, cause it makes me kinda sad, but I still think you should if you want to. My take, that record is mostly me trying to wear the same hats as the bands I've loved since high school. I did play the CD for my Grandma a little while ago. When "But I Loved Her" came on, she was like "Did you have someone in mind when you wrote this?" and I looked at her and softly replied "...with this one I did," she smiled back and said, "That's what I thought."

HS: Are there any final words or thoughts you'd like to share with our readers? 

TH: Readers, I don't know who needs to hear this, but just know that Tom Henry loves you and there's no need to give up or give in. If you're reading this, you're already informed on the most hip and happening stuff, so there's really no need to be discouraged. Even though the world is a mess, we have so much power in sharing light and love through art with our friends.

Songs To Sing And Dance To is out now on Royal Oakie Records.