The Edinburgh-based band discusses what has been on their mind recently, touching on the Beatles, UK alt-country, and what winning the Mercury Prize might mean to them.
‘I’ve always had an obsession with Batman: I love Batman.’ Rex speaks for the band Dear Heather, as they explain their influences. He lets down his halo of brunette coils, which fall over finely sculpted mutton chops and anchor beard. Next to him sits Will, post- apocalyptic psychedelic rancher, never too far from a pair of sunglasses. Melo is beside him, his sartorial style juxtaposed with his rather inflammatory Paul McCartney t-shirt. Matching him in elegant dandyism is Zac, the absent-at-present guitarist giving David Beckham in 2003 and Velma all at the same time. Dear Heather presents their characters with such self-assurance, negating any trend, it has been known to confuse critics, preferring to speak of artists in terms of fads, revivals and subgenres. Dear Heather are loyal only to their myriad eclecticism. It evokes a sound at once retro and untraceable, experimental and universally catchy, flamboyant yet rooted in garage rock grounding. Their chemistry is sugar for the pill. It’s at this point, I realise: Dear Heather is a boy band.
Secretly playing together for years, the band debuted in early 2024. Their impact over the course of the last several months, as a provincial band untethered to the icebreaker of any trend, would have been difficult to predict. With early buzz from the Scotsman, God Is in the TV and Discovery Music, the band have sold out shows in London, Edinburgh and Glasgow, with venues including Sneaky Pete’s and King Tut’s. Shows such as this have garnered descriptions from the Scotsman as equally “fun, theatrical and chaotic”. I ask them about their growing reputation for spectacle. “A huge thing about that is that everyone is sick and tired of that whole bit. Oh, another band that’s too cool for school, nobody understands you… when we got the chance to do our biggest show yet, we made it circus themed and got pole dancers.”
For Dear Heather, it’s all about authenticity. And as Rex tells me, for that, ‘we need pyrotechnics.’ Inevitably, their glam presentation irks some: in response to the God Is In the TV gig review – ‘I hope moustache and dungarees combo sported by the drummer is meant to be ironic’ – Will assures me that the fans came to his defence, one commenting that Will was ‘dripping in sleaze.’
I say Dear Heather are a boy band because their appeal is not only based on the different personalities of its members, each with a unique identity and given equal shine, but also artistically. When you listen to Dear Heather, you aren’t listening to a band – you’re listening to an individual singer-songwriter, backed by the full band, with the role of songwriter recast between each track. ‘With us, one of the band members comes forward and offers a song, and because of the individual misunderstanding of each other’s songs, we get a finished product that sounds nothing like the original intention. Even if we were to try to copy a sound, we couldn’t do it. We’d end up with something original.’ The boy band angle is where the Fab Four comparisons come in, as Melo explains while wearing a – to put it lightly – pro-Lennon t-shirt. ‘The thing about the Beatles is that, like us, they were four divas, all competing with each other, trying to best each other, but they were still best mates.‘ Dear Heather have much the same approach.
The Edinburgh-based outfit recently played a show with Brown Horse, currently on a UK tour. The equine band are at the forefront, alongside acts like Westside Cowboy and Divorce, of the new wave of UK alt-country and Americana. It might just be the next big thing in indie, taking the cowboy mythology that some bands started to explore in the post- Brexit new wave and applying traditional singer-songwriter techniques to subversive instrumental backing. Dear Heather, who would be equally at home sandwiched on a playlist between Willie Nelson, the Beach Boys and the Jam, seem to fit the bill – despite not fitting anywhere entirely neatly. ‘Brown Horse could be put into the Wednesday, MJ Lenderman, Pinegrove thing, where you just take some American and put a whole band with a steel lap guitar behind them and call it alt-country. Our songs,’ Rex enthuses, ‘offer an alternative to country rather than being alt-country”. Melo summarises: “the sound is different, but it’s the same feeling.’ The band might sound iconoclastic, but really they are part of the long-running country tradition of getting in an old pickup and taking it to a new destination. The current destination looks to be defined by a newly-acquired £18 organ, inspired by the baroque dreaminess of Procol Harum, the ethereal alt-country of Mazzy Star, and the mutual love they all share for the Doors.
Dear Heather have accrued tens of thousands of streams with their debut EP, Get My Good Side, a release their producer summarised as ‘good vibes, eccentric performances, stupid lyrics’, the dream for their debut album is nothing short of the Mercury Prize. ‘The thing about the Mercury Prize is that anyone can win it. You don’t have to be number one in the charts; you just have to make amazing music.‘ Ahead of recording the debut, the band will press their demo version of the album to be sold in physical format at their upcoming tour, with proceeds going towards studio time ‘for the Mercury Prize-winning album’. The tour is set to commence in November, with the band playing in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Cardiff, Manchester and London.
Every part of the band is mythologised, like they’ve already written out the plot points in their biopic. Their story is a fiercely independent one. ‘We want to be our own label,’ Will explains, ‘we make our own vinyl records, sell them on tour, and make enough money to spend two weeks in the studio to record the album. That way we can make an album off our own back without a label taking a cut. For the purpose of being able to make more music, we want to make the record buyer feel like part of the Dear Heather club.’ Many bands talk about the inequities of the music industry but tackling that in a DIY way is crucial to the Dear Heather message: you don’t need to sign up, sign on or sign off to make music with your friends.
Out of the two years the band has existed, 2025 will continue to be the biggest by far. Having played their most ambitious show to a crowd of hundreds alongside bands including National Playboys and Puppy Teeth in March, they will play their first headline since at the Mash House on May 23. The band members are especially excited about this one, speaking at length on their multi-part, progressive suite of tunes that will close the set. In line with the theatrical nature of a Dear Heather gig, it will be a mock funeral/trial investigation for the death of the eponymous Heather. ‘This gig is our attempt to uncover the truth. A while ago, Heather kind of… disappeared. Most rumours are pointing to murder, and the finger is being pointed at us. We’re the Suge Knight of the situation, also done terribly wrong by the media.’ As our conversation draws to a close, Rex is now done with Batman. He is thinking about the average Dear Heather fan. ‘Ugly people don’t exist. It’s just that a unique proportion of Dear Heather fans happen to be sexy.’ This certainly says something about the ineffable appeal of the group.
Dear Heather will headline the Mash House in Edinburgh on Friday 23 May, supported by Cupid Stunts.
