Recording in the tiny rural Oregon town of Enterprise, The Pine Hearts worked closely with Americana artist Bart Budwig to produce their album, Lost Love Songs, which arrived on February 18th, 2022. The core trio of Joey Capoccia on guitar, Derek McSwain on mandolin, and Dean Shakked on bass was joined by banjo player and erstwhile Pine Heart Lob Strilla and fiddler Bevin Foley (of Trout Steak Revival) to make a full ensemble for the recording.
It’s not many artists that can say that they’ve written songs in Antarctica, but for Joey Capoccia, the South Pole was just another place to stop and look for inspiration. Working as a carpenter for the National Science Foundation, Capoccia holed up in the South Pole Station’s greenhouse to write the song “Wouldn’t You Know” on the new album.
Traveling and songwriting are two constants in his life, with other songs written while playing with friends on Kauai, or traveling through California’s wine country, or rolling around in Nashville.
He comments:
It’s probably true of a lot of songwriters, that you need to be in a tiny quiet place to write a song. So, while traveling, you end up in these tiny nooks or crannies you find, a closet, a beach, wherever you can go to get away from people and hash the songs out.
The Pine Hearts bring together the punk DIY songwriting aesthetic of Olympia, Washington with a wild strain of Pacific Northwest Americana and bluegrass. It’s music made by three friends “for a rainbound Northwest community looking for reasons to dance”.
The new collection takes in natural themes, the idea of looking for something that’s just over the horizon, and of course, the idea of relationships lost and found.
