No one would mistake Missoula, Mont., for a high-profile indie-music hotbed, but the breathtakingly beautiful outdoor paradise can be a tough place to leave. The members of TopHouse did so reluctantly, knowing they went as far as they could go in a town that had sustained them since college.
The sonically nuanced neo-folk quartet has its roots in the music program at the University of Montana, where violinist William Cook first met guitarist/mandolinist Jesse Davis in 2016. Cook and Davis initially performed as a duo on the streets of Missoula, but things really started to gel with the addition of keyboardist Andy LaFave and vocalist Joe Larson. Relocating to Nashville in 2019, TopHouse got down to work, recording singles and making the most of its growing social-media presence.
Right now, the band is nearing 300,000 Instagram followers and playing packed shows all over the U.S. An in-house operation as far as production goes, TopHouse is set to release Practice on February 14. It’s the second of two EPs and the sequel to last year’s Theory. Interestingly, “Waste,” the new single from Practice, predates the band.
“The song was written almost a decade ago, when I was going through a time of intense loneliness and shame,” says LaFave. “It sounds like a breakup song, but I was thinking more about my struggles with alcohol than anything. I’m six years sober now, but the song stuck with me and the other TopHouse guys, so we decided to revisit it and see what happened.”
We’re proud to premiere TopHouse’s “Waste.”
—Hobart Rowland
See TopHouse live.
