Hasty Page ready for Tulip Festival

PHOTOGRAPHER: Photo Provided

From left, Josh Morris, Zane Agnew and William Fredette of Hasty Page.

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Over the last few years, Hasty Page has played festivals from Virginia up to Schenectady.

But this one is different.

“We’ve been talking about trying to get on [the line-up] for years,” said Josh Morris, the drummer and lead vocalist of the genre blending band, which will be playing Tulip Festival on Saturday.

Though band members Morris, Zane Agnew and James Paolano are still in college, they’ve been playing together as Hasty Page for the better part of four years. Morris and Agnew are studying music industry at the College of Saint Rose and Paolano is studying music at Berklee School of Music in Valencia, Spain.
Surrounding themselves with music has helped the Glens Falls natives develop their sound.

“We’re all influenced by different genres [though] we all have a core influence in the same kind of musical ideas, but we take inspiration from everywhere and everything,” Morris said.

Because he’s studying abroad, Paolano has taken inspiration from across the globe, while Agnew and Morris have tuned into the local music scene.

“Zane and I, we’re here in Albany which has a great underground basement scene that’s in the realm of grungy alternative,” Morris said.

The band may still be young, its sound has already matured quite a bit. They dropped their first EP, called “The Coming of Age,” in 2016. It’s got a hopeful, yet pensive sound to it, as the band members consider how growing up has changed things through Indie-pop tones. “Distance,” their first full album came out the same year, and has a more serious tone, leaning toward alternative rock.

“We called it that because we were so far away from each other and it was hard to write music. It was a sad time because we weren’t able to just sit down and write music every day with each other,” Morris said.

This last year or so has been especially difficult when it comes to songwriting and performing. The band has made it work, though, asking William Fredette of the band El Modernist to stand in for Paolano for live shows like Tulip Festival.

On June 21, they’re releasing “Things to Do Before I Die,” which Morris said has been a long time coming and is the band’s most honest album yet.

During the songwriting and recording process, which actually started in 2017, Morris was focusing on the future.

“We’re getting to a place in our lives where we’re trying to figure out what we’re going to do for the rest of our lives,” Morris said, “There are some people that are dead set on what they want to do for the rest of their lives and then there’s some people, like in my case, I have absolutely no idea. I like to think that’s okay, but you have to figure it out at some point. It’s really just an overall feeling that we’re starting to latch onto.”

They worked with audio engineer Tony Cottone to record it in Saratoga Springs.

“We recorded the whole album in about a week. We were in there probably 12 hours a day. It was ridiculous,” Morris said. It’s a more mature album, both musically and lyrically, bringing in everything from piano to synth to electric guitar. “Vices” a single that the band released not too long ago, is reminiscent of The 1975 or Kings of Leon. So far the single has received thousands of plays on Spotify and been added to several playlists in the last month.

Hasty Page has also released a song called “Body Shots,” and, given fans a preview of select songs off the album during numerous live performances.
In the last few years, the band has played plenty of shows, including the Move Music Festival, The Hollow, The Linda, Celebrate Fairfax, Pearlpalooza, Jupiter Hall and Schenectady County’s Battle of the Bands.

However, Tulip Festival tops their list, especially in terms of attendance, with 80,000 people expected to attend throughout the weekend.

“This is the biggest festival that we’ve ever played and we’re super excited about it,” Morris said.

Hasty Page will perform at 3:30 p.m. on Saturday on the Local Stage at Albany’s Tulip Festival.

The band will also perform at a Tulip Festival afterparty at the Skyloft in Crossgates Mall on Saturday. The show, which features fellow Capital Region band Bendt, starts at 8 p.m.

Tickets are $8-12. For more information visit skyloftny.com.

Feast for the senses

Between the flowers, the food and the music, Albany’s Tulip Festival is slated to be a feast for the senses.

As per its 71-year-old tradition, the festival will kick off on Friday at noon with the Street Scrubbing, Tulip Festival Luncheon and the Tulip tours. It continues on Saturday with the Tulip Queen coronation and the Royal Tulip Ball, and on Sunday with the 21st Annual Mother of the Year Award.

This year’s festival also includes a scavenger hunt, which attendees can enter to win prizes for visiting certain booths and areas of the festival. The scavenger hunt can be picked up at the visitors center and the Spectrum News booth. There will be around 100 craft vendors, along with over 20 art vendors and 25 not-for-profit vendors and 40 food vendors.

And, of course, there will be plenty of live shows to be found across the festival grounds.

“We’re really excited about the Kongos,” said Ryan Murray, the public relations coordinator for the Office of Cultural Affairs.

Kongos will take to the main stage at 4:30 p.m. on Saturday. Other bands on the weekend’s lineup include, Sydney Worthley, El Modernist, CK & The Rising Tide, Andy “The Music Man” Morse, The Greeting Committee, Ruth Pelham of the Music Mobile, Wild Planes, The Tick Brothers, Mike Grutka, Girl Blue, Honey Slider, Moriah Formica, Bird Streets, Marshall Charloff & The Purple Xperience and Let’s Be Leonard.

For the full schedule and more information visit albanyevents.org.