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The first time they played Calgary in March 2008, the four stylish wise-guys in noise-rock quartet HEALTH (all caps, always all caps) left jaws on the floor and a sea of newfound fans in their wake, all sporting T-shirts with the group’s signature posi-core mantra, “We Will Love Each Other.” As such, one can’t help but wonder: Does a similar phenomenon follow HEALTH in other cities, and do the band members ever feel like the masterminds behind a cult?
“We sold way more T-shirts that night than we usually do, actually,” says bassist and screamer John Famiglietti with a laugh. He certainly doesn’t harbour any cult-leader ambitions, though. “We’d never want our fans to kill anyone or do anything bad. We’d never even want to exert control over people.”
If anything, HEALTH is full of capitalists, not cultists, and the last year has seen the band expanding its brand all around. On top of expanding its ever-popular HEALTH//FASHION clothing line to include specialized wares from local L.A. designers (including jewelry), the band members are also developing a Monkees-style online TV show, entitled HEALTHVision.
“We’re planning to develop our own brand of neo-realist style, as none of us have really acted — except for BJ, who did some theatre I think,” Famiglietti says. “We really want to do a cop scene similar to The Wire, and the first episode has been written as kind of an icebreaker to introduce the four of us. So far it seems like we can make a show that looks pretty damn good for pretty cheap.”
The fun doesn’t end there, either. HEALTH’s latest album, Get Color, released in September, came complete with a Willy Wonka-inspired golden ticket sweepstakes. The prizes, just now being awarded, range from locks of hair from both the band and drummer BJ Miller’s cat, a vaguely described historical-themed phone call and an all-expenses-paid trip to spend a day with HEALTH at the Six Flags theme park in the band’s hometown of Los Angeles.
“I put some of my hair in the mail yesterday,” Famiglietti says gleefully. “We haven’t awarded all of the prizes yet, though, because a lot of them seem like they’ll be more difficult than we’d originally imagined. Plus, we’ve been putting them off because we’ve been on tour. There’s a guy from Brooklyn coming up in March to spend the day with us at Six Flags, but I’m disappointed that no one has claimed the cat’s hair yet. Maybe they got the CD, didn’t know what the piece of paper was and just threw it out.”
Lastly but far from leastly, the band has two musical releases currently in the works. First up is HEALTH//DISCO 2, a sequel to the band’s 2008 remix album set to include old-school house, “wild stuff from the U.K.” and Montreal’s CFCF (“You can’t really categorize him,” Famiglietta quips. “He’s an island.”). They’ll follow that with their third original full-length album.
“The HEALTH//DISCO process is mostly done via email, so we’re also working on our third album right now, just trying to get a lot of things done so they can all come out at the same time,” Famiglietta says. “So far it’s sounding a bit more electronic, but also has some huge bass that we’ve never had before; almost like hip hop bass. We’ve been expanding our palette a lot, continuing to streamline the sound and the songs, and are always into trying new things.”
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