Her's
Artist
You’d be pushed to find spirits more kindred than Norway’s Audun Laading and Barrow-born Stephen Fitzpatrick. The perfect pairing of companionship and creative alchemy. Stephen, frantic about potentially missing his next lecture, found comfort in the towering stature of stranger Audun in their university canteen. Told Audun of life after meeting his best bud: “Our band works because it was born out of friendship, friendship didn’t come from the band.”
As Liverpool’s premier crank-pop duo, Her’s birthed a catalogue of tracks that caused an epidemic case of the jives. 2017s collection ‘Songs of Her’s’ was followed by 2018s full-length debut ‘Invitation to Her’s’, both meeting with critical acclaim from the likes of The Guardian, the BBC, NME, Fader, Paste, DIY, BuzzFeed, The Observer, Dork, and The Line of Best Fit.
Echoing the gauzy slacker sound of Mac DeMarco with guitars that chime like The Smiths lounging about the French Rivera, they channel the surreal and the sublime through a twist of technicolour tropicalia. A wistful tenderness inhabits the architecture of their perfect oddball pop. As supersonic spectral wave visionaries, they concocted sonic interpretations of the stories, characters and images living rent free inside of their heads. Dripping in a Twin-Peaks-disconnect from reality, their off-kilter world is one glazed with voyeuristic humour, littered with romantic outliers and coated in the fog of despondent nostalgia. A Twilight Zone inspired smorgasbord of indie classics.
There was seemingly no ceiling to their inexorable rise. Having sold out a US tour to the point where venues were having to be upgraded to accommodate fan demand on 27 March 2019 around 1am, Her’s were killed in a head-on collision with a car that was driving in the wrong direction up Interstate 10 in Arizona. An outpouring of grief, tributes and reports flowed until suddenly, all was still. The news cycle moved on but the band’s label and management Heist or Hit did not. Determined no one would ever forget the incredible catalogue of their flagship band, rarely a day goes by when Heist isn’t actively celebrating the boys, protecting their legacy, interacting with the fanbase and working for their families. Holding tight to the community that surrounded Her’s and refusing to let it fragment was deemed the only way to maintain the joy Stephen and Audun poured into this world.
The band’s legacy and cultural reach continues to grow day-by-day with in excess of half a billion streams on Spotify alone and ‘What Once Was’ a Tik Tok juggernaut. In tribute, Glastonbury Festival played both albums out across site, Idols covered ‘Harvey’ at the 6 Music Festival, and unofficial third member Pierce Brosnan (who the band permanently had on stage in the form of a cardboard cut-out) paid his respects. The fact that so many new fans are discovering the band in retrospect is bittersweet. However, as legacies go, being able to positively impact the world on a daily basis is remarkably special. Her's were always unique, witty and kind. We can now safely categorise them as a phenomenon.
