Review Fix Exclusive: Spero’s Jesse Hofstee Talks ‘Pride’ EP

Review Fix chats with Spero guitarist Jesse Hofstee, who discusses the band’s new EP, “Pride.”

The self-taught guitarist also discusses the band’s origin and hopes for the future. A mix of rock, folk, and blues, their sound is certainly eclectic, but approachable, thanks to solid musicianship and plenty of emotion.

Review Fix: How did the band get together?

Jesse Hofstee: Jesse (me) and Hillary had mutual friends in high school and decided to jam and it immediately turned into something more. We just clicked musically, we liked the same styles of music and both truly loved playing music. After jamming a whole summer for 8 hour days, I asked some friends , Nick (bass) and Ryan (drums) if they wanted to form a band. I had played in bands with them in high school and once we got together to play things just took off. We all brought our own style but have the same passion and goals so things work out really well.

Review Fix: What do you think you guys have to do to attain the type of success you feel you deserve?

Hofstee: I think so far this has been a learning process and will continue to be. I think we just need to keep writing more and more. From our start we have grown so much as musicians and songwriters so I think the key is just to keep making better music until the right person hears it and has the same belief in our music that we do. Along with making connections and playing shows I feel we just need to keep working at it and see where the future takes us.

Review Fix: How is the band different?

Hofstee: I think we stand out as a band because we don’t limit ourselves to one genre. We try to pull in folk, blues, and rock to create a new sound. Our influences are constantly changing and we aren’t scared to try different styles. Also having three self taught musicians with a classically trained pianist helps keep things interesting as well.

Review Fix: What was the creative process like for the EP?

Hofstee: Hillary and I on our own or together usually write the core of the songs as far as progressions and lyrics, then we bring it to the band and the song usually evolves into something different than we thought. We like having the whole band have input in the songs. We demoed out some songs on our own to listen back and add new things until we felt we were ready to go into the studio.

Review Fix: What have you learned about yourself as a musician through this work?

Hofstee: We definitely learn things every time we record. We feel that we are strongest when we play live shows because we love the energy and passion of playing live, so we are still working on trying to pull that energy and passion into our songs. I think if we can find the right studio we might try to record the next project live so we can feed off of each other and try to get more of our live energy recorded.

Review Fix: What do you think makes it special?

Hofstee: I think the differences between each song makes “Pride” special, we have more natural folk rock songs, some heavy blues and other stuff in between. The messages in the songs seemed to go together just by chance but musically we were trying to give each song its own sound.

Review Fix: What track do you think has the best story behind it?

Hofstee: I think “Better Man” lyrically is a great track, written by Hillary. There isn’t a specific story it tells, it’s more of a song asking the listener to look at themselves and be the best person they can. I felt the lyrics were beautiful when I heard them which is why we decided to add minimal guitar and just let the listener get caught up in the feeling and message. Hillary and I recorded it together live in one take and the energy in the room was really powerful to me. I hope listeners can get the same feeling from it that I did.

Review Fix: How was “They Say” written?

Hofstee: “They Say,” I wrote on my acoustic guitar at home. I spent some time alone revising it and when I brought it to the band it fell together pretty fast. The main challenge was making the verses interesting since it just stays on one chord for the most part, so we added the thumping rhythm and light piano melody. We wanted the chorus to have a lot of power so we had some friends add double bass and viola to the track. Hillary’s dad, Charlie, also came in and put the trumpet on that track as well as in the song “Pride”. The extra instruments really filled in song and created the epic feeling we wanted. We then added the outro piano and viola to let the EP fade out softly.

Review Fix: How do you believe this EP will affect your career moving forward?

Hofstee: I think this shows our progression as musicians, and has more of our own sound than our last release. We are going to push the EP as far as we can and I believe people out there will like the honest, natural sound of the tracks. I think as well as releasing songs we are proud of, we have learned a lot and will be even more ready when the next group of songs are ready for the studio.

Review Fix: What’s next?

Hofstee: We are starting to plan a West Coast tour for the summer and are going to try to make it out to Austin for SXSW next year. We just really want to travel more and get our music out to new people as well as grow as artists and people. We truly believe in the music we are making and are going to push it as far as we can.