The Soft Hills profile picture

The Soft Hills

About Me

"Think of them as Seattle's chilled-out answer to The Shins" ~Indie-Music.com


The Soft Hills are the musical adventure of singer/songwriter Garrett Hobba, bassist/guitarist Drew Dresman, drummer/pianist Caleb Heinrich, keyboardist/guitarist/harpist Brittan Drake, and guitarist/bassist Brett Massa. A Seattle-based band with as much affinity for sweet melodies as experimentation, their songs draw from a wide range of influences from folk to indie rock to psychedelic, drawing on literary and philosophical themes as well as music, and incorporating experiences from dreams and the extraterrestrial. Their unique blend of acoustic instruments, layered vocals, and guitar textures bring to mind alt-rock heavy hitters such as Sigur Rós, The Flaming Lips, and Mojave 3.

The Soft Hills' Painted World EP is available at Everday Music and Sonic Boom Records in Seattle and at CD Baby!

View The Soft Hills's EPK

My Interests

Music:

Member Since: 7/2/2007
Band Website: www.thesofthills.com
Band Members: Drew Dresman:
bass | guitar | vocals | melodihorn

Caleb Heinrich:
percussion | piano | glockenspiel | vocals

Garrett Hobba:
guitar | vocals | piano

Brittan Drake:
rhodes piano | guitar | bass | harp

Brett Massa:
guitar | bass | vocals
Influences: Mojave 3, Jeremy Enigk, Sparklehorse, The Flaming Lips, Nick Drake, Erik Satie, Sigur Rós, King Crimson, Pink Floyd, The Shins, Simon & Garfunkel, Broken Social Scene, Neil Young, Brian Wilson, Belle & Sebastian, Vashti Bunyan, Mogwai, Radiohead, Joni Mitchell, My Morning Jacket, The Sea & Cake, Band of Horses, Iron & Wine, Crosby Stills & Nash, The Album Leaf... and chrysanthemums
Sounds Like:

ABOVE designed & illustrated by Wadih

designed & illustrated by Amanda Moore
Record Label: unsigned
Type of Label: Unsigned

My Blog

90.3 KEXP

The KEXP show was awesome! Sharlese did a marvelous job with the interview and improvising while we spent precious moments of time tuning our guitars. Just kidding... I was happy to hear that she like...
Posted by on Fri, 20 Feb 2009 12:03:00 GMT

soft blogs & video

Blogs:http://www.hotavocados.com/blog/2009/03/the-soft-hills -pearly-gate-mus.htmlhttp://www.flickr.com/photos/kexp/sets/ 72157615686318459/****************************http://www.sav ethemoonradio.com/in...
Posted by on Thu, 02 Apr 2009 15:18:00 GMT

Recordings for full-length album have begun!

We've begun recording the new full-length album with Chris Proff over at Little Room Studio (www.myspace.com/littleroomstudio)! Well be taking our time with this project much in the same way that a g...
Posted by on Sun, 08 Feb 2009 03:14:00 GMT

Album Reviews!

Recording their Painted World EP in an elementary school, West Coast ambient popsters The Soft Hills lent an innocent naiveté to their airy folk tunes, using toy instruments that they found at the sch...
Posted by on Mon, 09 Mar 2009 18:14:00 GMT

Eden's Hour Radio

Erin Skipper from KRUU  recently interviewed me for her radio show and wrote about the band in her new blog at Eden's Hour Radio:http://www.edenshour.blogspot.com/and another article about the Seattle...
Posted by on Fri, 27 Feb 2009 23:14:00 GMT

The Soft Hills Music Bio

The Soft Hills are the musical adventure of singer/songwriter Garrett Hobba, bassist/guitarist Drew Dresman, drummer/pianist Caleb Heinrich, keyboardist/guitarist/harpist Brittan Drake, and guitarist/...
Posted by on Sat, 06 Dec 2008 21:47:00 GMT

visuals and reflections on childhood wonder

Drew has been cooking up some visual images and projecting them during our performance. He took images he shot, such as burning embers floating into night sky and ripples on the water, and placed them...
Posted by on Mon, 29 Sep 2008 10:24:00 GMT

Painted World EP!

Hello Friends,The final mixes are finally all finished for our Painted World EP.Matt Brown (http://www. myspace. com/thebreweryrecordingco) did an awesome job mixing all 5 songs, including a remix of ...
Posted by on Thu, 07 Aug 2008 12:21:00 GMT