The Oh Hellos' EP

Digital cover

## Chronology

***The Oh Hellos' EP***

*Through the Deep, Dark Valley*

Vinyl/CD edition cover

***The Oh Hellos*** is the eponymous debut extended play by indie folk rock band The Oh Hellos. Written and recorded solely by Tyler and Maggie Heath, it was released on December 1, 2011 on their Bandcamp. This EP garnered prominence in the indie folk scene as "Hello My Old Heart" gained popularity both on the internet and in being used on NBC's Parenthood. After its initial release, it became available to stream on services on Spotify and was released as both a CD and a 7-inch vinyl record.

## Background and Production

The initial inspiration for creating this record comes from Tyler and Maggie Heath's family background being deeply rooted in music. Their mother, the daughter of a band director, passed on this love of music down and made feeling entrenched in music normal to them. As siblings, Tyler and Maggie participated in choir and band as children, which made working together as adults familiar to them. As Tyler fell in love with rearrangements of music from video game soundtracks in his high school days, he began to take on music and composition more in his education as well as play in local coffee shops. From this, he recorded songs over the course of several weeks and turned them into his first albums in 2009 and 2010.

During their breaks between semesters as Tyler and Maggie were both in college, the two decided to collaborate on creating a song as a birthday gift for their mother. While this process was mostly light and silly for the two, it felt satisfying to create something musically and thought it would be rewarding to potentially create more music as a small hobby to partake in during the summer of 2011. After dubbing themselves as The Oh Hellos, they began to write and produce their first EP together as a duo, with the first song completed being "Hello My Old Heart."

For this EP, they pulled from their own tastes of Celtic and classical music given to them by their family - especially their grandfather, the aforementioned music director. The duo stated that the band takes from numerous Irish and folk influences, from "Mumford & Sons and The Civil Wars to Los Campesinos! and The Pogues, bending and blending styles and genres into a unique mixture of eclectic folk rock." They attempted to make this both an energetic and yet introspective and emotional work, where the record "begins by confronting the difficulties of love and freedom and ends by embracing them." The artwork for the digital version was created by Maggie herself.

## Release and Reception

After completing "Hello My Old Heart" in August 2011, they released it as a single on Bandcamp and shared it to users on the forum r/ListenToThis, where it garnered 36 upvotes and several comments of appreciation and encouragement for the duo to continue their work. When asked when more music would come, they said that they hoped to put out the rest of the EP by mid-September. However, they did not want to guarantee an exact date outright and end up rushing the project. This post became a central moment for the duo given their own fears and anxieties of putting this project out into the world to see if listeners would embrace it. Knowing that their own vision was appreciated by listeners out there, they felt excited and compelled to finish the rest of the EP. Soon after, on December 1, 2011, the duo released their debut EP in full on their Bandcamp.

After they continued to pursue music as their project and released their first full-length record, *Through the Deep, Dark Valley*, "Hello My Old Heart" gained notoriety and blew up on radio stations in Colorado in early 2013, primarily in the Denver area. This unexpected event became the catalyst for the band to continue their work as their music was now catapulted into the minds of listeners. This gave them the exposure and audience that would allow them to build a fanbase and gain more success than they felt they might not have had otherwise.

Years after its initial release, the EP was released on physical media such as CD and a 7-inch vinyl record with updated cover art for both. The updated cover art features flowery textures and shapes with the words "The Oh Hellos' EP" hidden within the grooves and curves of the artwork. Shades of the original cover art can still be found on the disks for each physical release, mainly the ghostly-shaped figures on the digital cover.

As of December 2022, the EP collectively has 129 million plays across all four tracks on Spotify, with "Hello My Old Heart" making up the bulk of the plays at over 102 million listens and being their most popular song in terms of Spotify plays across their entire discography thus far.

## References

1. ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 “Maggie and Tyler Heath: The Oh Hellos”. The BlackSheep Podcast: Presented by HM Magazine. Retrieved 21 June 2021.
2. ↑ Music | Tyler Heath. https://tylerheath.net/
3. ↑ Happy Birthday! | Tyler Heath, Maggie Heath. https://tylerheath.net/album/happy-birthday
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 The Oh Hellos EP. (2011, December 1). The Oh Hellos. https://music.theohhellos.com/album/the-oh-hellos
5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 [travelinghaberdasher] (2011, August 13). The Oh Hello's - Hello My Old Heart [eclectic folk rock, 2011]. https://www.reddit.com/r/listentothis/comments/ji3b1/the\_oh\_hellos\_hello\_my\_old\_heart\_eclectic\_folk/
6. ↑ The Oh Hellos. (2016, December 7) “Our ENTIRE CATALOG is now on #vinyl! Available through our website, @Bandcamp, and merch tables on tour!. Twitter. https://twitter.com/theohhellos/status/806567576474001408
7. ↑ The Oh Hellos' EP. The Oh Hellos. https://open.spotify.com/album/6azrYHZKUQ78E6YlyXzy5k?si=FakiItjaTWWM6S87-v-pNg&dl\_branch=1