The Home Team are always on the move. Be that on tour, or in the studio, something is always going on.

And it’s because of that fact that a release like ‘It Lives, It Changes’ is able to exist, which is available to pick up on vinyl right now from right here. With roots going back further than you may think, the band have taken some of their favourite creations from the last few years and given them a complete once over. There are hip-hop beats, 80s synths, lounge classics and RnB croons aplenty, a chance for the band to truly showcase their deep set love of music that sits beneath their riffs.

The result is as much a celebration of everything that The Home Team are as it is a solidification of how sensational their songwriting goes. As they continue to go from strength to strength, with more and more people joining the party by the day, it’s moment like that that serves a thick layer of cement for why they are such a scene-wide phenomenon.

To find out a bit more about the origins of the project, Rock Sound had a quick catch-up with vocalist Brian Butcher.

Rock Sound: Well, this is a lovely surprise! Where did this project start to come to life for you?

Brian: We’ve actually wanted to do it for years, and funny enough, we made this a long time ago, too. We only finished it recently, but we started this process when we were recording ‘Worthy’. Honestly, we had ideas for some of these songs even longer before that. Funny story, when we signed to Thriller and said we would love to do a reimagined version of ‘Slow Bloom’ because we were so connected to that album at that point, and Bob Becker said, ‘That’s cool. That’s really nice. But can we put out some new music on the label first?’ So yeah, we’ve wanted to do it for a very long time, and I’m really happy that we finally got to.

RS: It’s as much a chance for you to celebrate what these two eras have been, but also show them off to people who may not be as familiar, depending on when they started loving the band.

Brian: Yeah, the fact that there are so many people new to both of these albums is one of the reasons we wanted to make it a pretty even split of songs. It gave us a lot of empowerment. Like, we can do ‘Slowbloom’ songs, because these are still very important to our journey right now. A lot of them are still very popular, even though ‘Crucible…’ ended up being the more popular album overall. “Slow Bloom’ was a first of its kind, and so I’m glad that we’re able to look back on those songs and reimagine them in this way, just because that was such an exciting time for us.

RS: Another aspect of this is that you have reimagined them in ways you can tell have a huge influence on you, but haven’t been able to express before. What was it like bringing those things to the table and having so much fun with them?

Brian: Yeah, we definitely didn’t want to do an acoustic album. Given the style of our music, it just felt like there was so much more to be had instead of just stripping it down. Now there are two, like two or three-ish acoustic forward songs on it, but that’s because that’s genuinely the vibe that we thought matched the song. ‘Overtime’ and ‘Move It or Lose It’ are the two that I think of. It just seemed like so much more fun to try different styles, and the other factor was that we saw how many instances there were of people taking my vocals and putting them over beats. There’s a ‘Worthy’/ Ginuwine mashup that got popular, and it sounded awesome. Like, that’s got to be something that we do. But I didn’t want to take the raw vocal from the original song. I wanted to do it in a new package, because that’s what it deserves. To make sure that they matched the vibe of what we were doing.

RS: Another aspect of that is how you have been able to bring in a whole load of friends to help you along the way. From Lophille to Intervals, there is a real eclectic mix of people helping you bring the vision to life. What does it mean to have them be a part of this with you?

Brian: I think a lot of them just felt really obvious to us. So, the mission statement for ‘Love & Co’, for example, was 80s. Just 80s synth style, and a buddy of ours named Jordy has like this synth wave project [Arcade Dreams] that he’s been working on for years, and we’ve known him for a very long time. He’s an old friend from Seattle. We don’t know anything about the genre, but Jordy certainly does.

And then when we were talking about a guitar solo, we were like, ‘Okay, we could bring somebody else in, but the problem is that Aaron [Marshall] is not only so good, but he’s also so good for this style’. Like he would crush this song. And as soon as he sent it back to us, we’re like, ‘Oh, this was absolutely the correct choice’. I don’t think anybody’s gonna be upset that another Intervals solo ends up on here, either.

And then, for ‘Slow Bloom’,  Meg is a friend from a band called Instant Crush in Seattle, and she is fantastic. That band is so good, and we really believe in them, and we think that they’re going to do it for real. They’re a little out of genre for us, which we like. And we figured that if there was going to be an opportunity to give somebody like that a chance to be on a Home Team song, then this was probably going to be the best bet.

There are also a couple of melodies in that song that I heard on a cover of it from a girl named Charlie. It was so good, and she did so many spins on my melodies. Every time I went back to write the reimagined version, I kept accidentally singing them. So I messaged her, and said, Hey, can I like pay you and credit you for this’.

And Lophille, he’s such an integral part of our sound, and he’s worked with us so much. Literally, next week we’re meeting up with him to record this next album that we’re doing, and he’s just a wizard. Every time he touches something, it turns to gold, and it’s a no-brainer that we’re going to have him on this.

This album allowed us to collaborate in ways we wouldn’t otherwise, which I really appreciated. And it’s just a lower-pressure album in general, so much so that we could say we’re going to have our friends.

RS: What would you say that this as a stopgap project has taught you that you maybe wouldn’t have been able to have picked up at any other time?

Brian: So, one of the reasons I’m really proud of this specific album is that I produced it. And that was a weird question to pose with the group. It’s not that anybody doesn’t have faith in me and my ability to do that; it’s just that the only track record I’ve ever had of producing something up until the last couple of years was whatever additional production I was doing on my own music. So, for example, ‘Slow Bloom’, I did quite a bit of producing, but where does that line get drawn? Because Sky definitely produced that record. Then I worked with a local Seattle band called palettes and produced that, but beyond that, I had to prove I could do it. And the thing that put me in that position was simply that we didn’t know who else was going to do it, so I just started putting stuff together on my laptop. I was like, ‘I’m not waiting around to make these decisions, I’m just going to do it myself’. Then I realised I do have a brain for this stuff, and it’s a lot of fun and something I enjoy. I don’t know how much external producing I would do. It makes more sense for me to produce my own music, because I’m so close to it. I don’t know how many Home Team releases will say ‘Produced by Brian Butcher’, which is totally fine. There’s no ego about any of this. I like making my own media, and I consider that a really handy set of skills going forward. I think it benefits any band. To have one person who has a mind for bringing things to the final stage of what they’re meant to be.

RS: With this little project now out in the world, what are you excited about getting stuck into now? What are the things in the calendar that are giving you the tingles?

Brian: This whole next album cycle we’re working on. And that’s because we don’t intend on making the same album over and over again. We definitely want to change and evolve without alienating people. We don’t want to get too crazy and all of a sudden switch up the sound so much that nobody likes it anymore. But we really want the mission statement for this next album cycle to be specifically that this is only something that The Home Team could make. And so I’m hoping we achieve that.

The other thing I’m really excited for is the touring on this album, because we just did a tour with Bilmuri, and it was very inspiring. Their show was really good. It was very well put together, with a lot of money invested, and every aspect of it was just. This is one of the best shows I’ve ever seen’. It got me fired up to do things that maybe I would have waited another album cycle to do. I won’t spoil what those things are, but we are going to swing hard at whatever we do next year, touring-wise.

You can pick up ‘It Lives, It Changes’ on vinyl right now from the band’s new dedicated EU store.

You can check out their new EU merch store as well right here.