Press photo by Luke Rogers
SECOND LEG OF HEADLINE TOUR KICKS OFF NEXT MONTH + SUPPORT DATES WITH JUICE BEGIN TOMORROW — ALL TOUR INFO HERE
Today, The Hails announce the expanded version of their debut album, What’s Your Motive (Deluxe), with the release of their official live video for “Stay.” Originally released in September of 2023, the band’s album is an orbit of grief and reconciliation over growing pains, both individually and with each other. Further waxing their penchant for well-polished experimentation and all-consuming storytelling the deluxe album features two new tracks, fan-favorite “Stay,” and a remix of “Fiona” with Magic City Hippies. What’s Your Motive (Deluxe) will be released on February 1 — pre-order.
Bridging What’s Your Motive to its deluxe version, The Hails gathered at Fraser Studios in New York to film a live session of their most streamed song to date, “Stay.” A staple of the band’s catalog since formation, it felt right to include this beloved track on the deluxe, a capstone on an era for the group. The live session directed by Steph Rinzler of Prophet Media, captures the ever-evolving warmth that “Stay” has found as fans have latched onto it over the years — Watch.
Beginning tomorrow, The Hails are hopping on a handful of tour dates supporting Juice. And then at the top of February, the second leg of the band’s headline What’s Your Motive Tour kicks off — seeing The Hails supported by California garage rock band Foxtide and Georgia indie-pop outfit Hotel Fiction. Most recently announced, The Hails will team up with their longtime friends in flipturn for a couple Florida shows in April, and then make their Governors Ball debut in June. All tour info can be found here.
Regardless of whichever omnipresent puller-of-strings you subscribe to, it’s undeniable that some force was always working to ensure the inevitability of The Hails. From two of the band members both calling the same third floor apartment home at different parts of their then separate childhoods — the very building they’d later meet their bassist in — to a fateful University of Florida dining hall encounter years later that set things in motion. There has always been a strange air about the sequence of events meant to unite Robbie Kingsley, Franco Solari, Dylan McCue, Andre Escobar and Zach Levy, that begs the question, is anything ever truly up to chance?
Despite first playing in an insular Miami high school music scene, the band officially formed at UF, finding their moniker in the college’s alma mater — “All hail, Florida, hail.” The Hails banded together through a slew of long nights and wild house shows in their living room — the only option in the basement-less state of Florida. Ironically, from the tattered carpeting and the beer bottle lined shelves of their shitty college house arose a distinct, refined sound that is now synonymous with the band’s name.
With shimmering early singles like “Younger” and “Stay,” and their EPs He Seems Upset (2020) and Alive in Strange Ways (2021), The Hails came to represent an edgy sort of sleekness that can only be attributed to the cities they cut their teeth in — Gainesville and Miami. Mirrored in the band’s sound, there’s an underlying grit that comes from Gainesville’s affinity toward DIY; where the band played countless shows at the infamous High Dive over the years and hijacked the community spirit of an entire college town. But within everything the band does, you can hear Miami’s quality of perfectly riding the line between the cutting edge and the neon-laced nostalgia of yesteryears. Fusing their varying cultures, upbringings and influences, comes a sound that’s unmistakably singular.
Firing the starting pistol of their current chapter, The Hails began rolling out singles from their debut album in October 2022. Recent highlights of the road include holding court at festivals like III Points, WonderStruck and Okeechobee, interspersed between sold-out shows across the state of Florida, and tour support for WILLIS, The Happy Fits, The Beaches and the moss. Now with their debut album What’s Your Motive out in the world, The Hails will bring their new music to the road on their first ever headline tour.
The keys to that third-floor apartment have traded hands to another family, and a new wave of orange-and-blue-clad underclassmen shuffle into the dining hall to grab their heat-lamp-warmed meals. But even in the same settings, no string of occurrences will ever happen again to create a band quite like The Hails.
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