Harvard of the South (band)

Harvard of the South (often stylized HARVARD of the SOUTH) is a four-piece rock band side project/supergroup which released its first recordings and played its first live concerts in 2014, but has its beginnings in collaborations between Longwave/Hurricane Bells singer/guitarist Steve Schiltz and Blue October which date back to 2011. Harvard of the South released their debut EP Miracle in October 2014. Their song Without was released as a free download via SoundCloud on May 8, 2017. The band's long-awaited full album was released December 11, 2020.^[1][2]

Band history[]

Blue October members Jeremy and Justin Furstenfeld became fans of the band Longwave upon seeing them perform in Austin, Texas during SXSW on the tour for their 2003 album The Strangest Things. In interviews at the time, they touted Longwave as being their favorite band, and Jeremy still refers to Longwave as his favorite band ever, and in 2018 Justin referred to Longwave as one of his top three favorite bands.^[3][4] They played The Strangest Things incessantly on the cd player in their tour van. During Blue October's History for Sale tour in 2004, they would play the entire The Strangest Things album over the PA during set changes at their shows, thus exposing countless Blue October fans to Longwave's music.

Blue October's manager reached out to Longwave with the idea of the two bands touring together.^[5] The tour plans came to fruition in 2009, with Longwave opening Blue October's Approaching Normal summer tour which also coincided with the release of Longwave's album Secrets Are Sinister.^[6] At the Boston date of this tour, Justin Furstenfeld joined Longwave on stage to sing the song "I Know It's Coming Someday", which is his favorite song from The Strangest Things. Following the tour, Longwave guitarist Shannon Ferguson became a father and announced he was taking a break from the band. The remaining members of Longwave decided to place the band on hiatus and work on other projects.

Longwave singer Steve Schiltz set to work on a solo project which he dubbed "Hurricane Bells". Hurricane Bells was invited to open Blue October's spring 2010 Reason to Live tour, however Schiltz did not have a live backing band. He was able to form a live band with help from the members of the other bands on the tour, which were Daniel Orvik of Stars of Track and Field, Ashen Keilyn of Scout, and Jeremy Furstenfeld and Ryan Delahoussaye of Blue October. During the tour, Steve would often join Blue October on stage to sing on the song "Into the Ocean".

At the end of the 2010 tour, Blue October guitarist C.B. Hudson quit the band. On Blue October's next album, Any Man in America, Steve Schiltz was asked to play guitar, which he did in exchange for Justin Furstenfeld providing harmonica on the new Hurricane Bells album, Down Comes The Rain, which included a cover of "Into the Ocean". Steve and Jeremy also began collaborating on songs which were outside of either Blue October or Hurricane Bells, by setting up their equipment in Jeremy's living room and jamming out song ideas. Julian Mandrake was hired to replace C.B. Hudson as Blue October's guitarist, but he parted ways with the band over creative differences during pre-production sessions for Blue October's 2013 album Sway. Again Steve Schiltz was invited to Texas to play on a Blue October album, and further collaboration occurred.

Between 2012 and 2013 Steve and Jeremy composed eleven songs, and recorded them at Jeremy's house, with the majority of their work occurring in 2012 while Justin was in rehab. Once the music was complete, Steve and Justin wrote lyrics to the music.^[7][2] Blue October's bassist Matt Noveskey was brought in to round out the group, and recording was completed in early 2014. Harvard of the South played their first concerts opening for Blue October in San Marcos, Texas March 21–22, 2014. The San Marcos concerts also featured Steve playing guitar with Blue October on their song "Bleed Out". Steve Schiltz mixed the Harvard of the South album in the summer of 2014, and Fred Kevorkian mastered the tracks. In October the first five songs were released as a limited edition EP, which was sold at concerts.

The group played ten more concerts opening for Blue October in November 2014, and played another seventeen shows opening for Blue October in April and May 2015. In May 2015 the group played a live set at Orb Studios in Austin, and released videos of the session on YouTube. A previously unreleased song, "Running" was among the songs played. On April 17, 2017 Harvard of the South announced they would be opening six dates on Blue October's Heart Go Bang Tour in May 2017. The band released their song WithOut via free download on May 8, 2017. Although the band had recorded a full album, it remained unreleased as the members of Blue October were busy producing and promoting their highly successful album I Hope You're Happy. In 2018 Longwave reunited, toured with Blue October in October of that year, and in 2019 released the album If We Ever Live Forever. Following the conclusion of the I Hope You're Happy tour, Blue October recorded the album This is What I Live For on which Steve Schiltz contributed as a songwriter, guitarist and guest vocalist. However their 2020 tour plans were thwarted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Finding themselves with a sudden plethora of down time, Jeremy Furstenfeld and Steve Schiltz revisited the Harvard of the South recordings. During the summer of 2020 they decided to re-record parts of some songs and remix and remaster the entire album to prepare it for a December 2020 release. The album was released December 11, 2020 and debuted at number 6 on the iTunes rock chart.

Members[]

• Steve Schiltz - vocals, guitar
• Justin Furstenfeld - vocals, guitar
• Jeremy Furstenfeld - drums
• Matt Noveskey - bass

Discography[]

• Miracle EP (2014)
• Harvard of the South LP (2020)

Songs[]

• “All Our Ashes”
• “Before We Start”
• “Clockers”
• “Control”
• “Descent”
• ”Face the Fears”
• ”Heart of Stone”
• ”Miracle”
• ”Running”
• ”Somedays”
• ”WithOut”

The songs “All Our Ashes”, ”Miracle”, “Descent”, “Clockers”, and ”Heart of Stone” were released in 2014 on the Miracle EP. The remaining songs, except “Clockers” were released on the full album.

References[]