Tophouse is made up of four guys; Joe (vocals), Jesse (guitar and mandolin), William (violin), and Andy (Piano). The band creates a mixture of bluegrass, folk, and pop music with hints of rock and roll. Their song Number One went viral on the popular social media apps TikTok and Instagram.
The song comes off their most recent EP titled, Campfire Stories. The EP has a total of six songs and combined the record has amassed 639,377 streams on Spotify alone.
The band just wrapped up their Campfire Stories Tour but they are always playing in different cities spreading their unique sound to the crowds.
Courtesy of Tophouse
BC: Individually what are your backgrounds with music?
William: “A lot of my experience with music came from my parents. Neither of them was professional in music but I always was sung to bed every night and that sort of stuff. There was an older lady that ran the music department at a school I went to and told me, ‘Kid you would be a good violin player.’” William recounts. “My parents got me a violin and I sucked at playing for four years but to make a long story short I learned how to improvise which made it a lot more interesting. I played in a couple of bands with Joe in Highschool. I got into classical music and through college, I sucked at playing less and that’s where I met Jesse.”
Joe: “I was homeschooled so I was naturally put into piano lessons when I was six and did guitar lessons from the time I was seven. I have to give ninety percent of the reason I do music today because of her. As William said, in Highschool, I joined a band with William and Andy. I just grew to love being in a band. I don’t think it was until my sophomore year of High School that I realized I wanted to do this seriously.” Joe says.
Jesse: “The first interaction I had with music was in Elementary School and it was when middle schools and high schools would come and show off some of their band and orchestra instruments. I remember one of the guys played The Pink Panther theme song on Clarinet and I became enamored.” Jesse tells me. “On the way home I told my dad I wanted to play Clarinet and he said, ‘Clarinet? No, you don’t, you want to play guitar.’” Jesse laughs, “So we went to Walmart and bought like a fifty-dollar guitar and we all struggled to tune it for three days and then it sat in the corner of my room for a year untouched. One day I dusted it off and picked it up again and started playing more from there. I played at little things throughout High School with my friend but it wasn’t until a Music Theory class that I took my junior year of High School that I started really enjoying it. That took me to college and that’s where I met William.”
BC: When did Tophouse form?
Jesse: “Early Tophouse, we’ll call it Tophouse 0.5.” Jesse laughs. “It was William and myself doing street performances during college. There was a lady that had an outlet right outside of her house, above the door. We would have to get on a car to reach it.” Jesse explains. “in 2016 Joe came to the University of Montana and that would be Tophouse.”
Joe: “We were the original Tophouse, the three of us.”
Jesse: “There was a time when one of my buddies was the lead singer. All we did was practice except for one show that we did at a fraternity. We were powered by a guy riding a bicycle.” Jesse remembers. “Cut to 2019 and we moved to Nashville after touring around Montana and six months later Andy moved and he decided to come play with us.”
BC: Were there any minor or major changes within the band or your music when you moved to Nashville?
Joe: “Short answer, not really. My main reason for moving was just so the music would be my sole focus. When we moved here we wrote songs the same way but maybe just a little more focused.”
Jesse: “I feel like we were Tennessee Beach Bums. We moved into an Airbnb and didn’t know anybody when we got here so for the first three or fourth months we made YouTube videos.”
BC: Since music was something you guys were all into at a young age was there anything else you were thinking about pursuing?
William: “I’ve always been obsessed with computers. My other job is coding. I think I crashed a computer when I was like two years old and then I wasn’t allowed on the computer for two weeks.” William says. “It just increased my fascination with them though. I’ve always been interested in learning how to make video videos, applications, or learning how to hack.”
Joe: “For a year or two I did geophysical engineering for college and then switched to a business major. I kind of made that switch with music in mind but I’ve been intrigued with the business world ever since. My other job is marketing.” Joe explains.
Jesse: “Early on in High School I was interested in architecture and housing design. I was suppose If music wasn't around for me I would be doing that. I also lived in Barcelona for nine weeks doing a coding project. If Tophouse didn’t exist I think I would be in Berlin or Thailand being a computer nerd.”
BC: Your song Number One has gone viral on TikTok, how does that make you guys feel?
Joe: “It’s really wild.”
Jesse: “You never really think when you are writing a song that more people than your mom and friends are going to listen to it.” Jesse jokes. “I’m guessing as of now it’s probably on past twenty thousand reels. That is roughly the population of the cities we’re from back in Montana. It’s surreal.”
Joe: “I wish Andy were here to kind of speak on this too. He is sort of the reason it went viral. Since he joined the band he's taken over the social media part. He’s really savvy with it. We had been plugging away for six years when it was just three of us and I think we built a pretty solid fan base. But, when Andy joined he got on social media for us and catapulted it into a whole other thing which has been really fun.”
BC: What do goals in terms of success look like for you?
Jesse: “I don’t know if there will ever be a ‘we made it feeling….performing at Red Rocks?”
Joe: “I try to think in terms of being grateful for where we’re at. Last month we got to play ten shows, in ten different cities that we had never been to. We sold out a couple of them. We weren’t selling out ten thousand capacity rooms but I feel like every night was another level.” Joe says. “In broad brush strokes to me, making it would be not having a day job.”
BC: What’s one song you would want a first-time listener to hear by you guys?
Joe: “I’m torn between The Mountain Song and Sirens (Live) specifically. Those two have a lot of Tophouse sound in them.”
Jesse: “I would say Sirens (Live) if it was the first and last song you are ever going to hear by this band called Tophouse.” He laughs.
William: “That’s hard, like Joe I’m torn. I love The Mountain Song, it makes me happy that it did so well because it was very experimental when we were creating it and it ended up touching all these people. That (song) is usually where I direct people. I’m going to throw Where Are You? on the list.” He continues. “It stood the test of time, it still makes rooms go silent. We have released forty songs and that one is still solid.
BC: What do you want your audience to take away from your music?
Jesse: “I want them to take away whatever they want to take away from it.” Jesse says. “It can be a subjective experience and other times it’s a direct story being relayed but everyone is affected in a slightly different way.”
Joe: “The biggest praise of our music that I ever heard is that someone considers how a song relates to their life or a positive message and the song lifts them up. ‘I was having a bad day and heard your song and now I’m having a good day’ It’s such a cool message to get.
Jesse: “There’s a song of ours called, In The Wake and not too long ago I received a message from a lady on Instagram and she asked me what the song was about because she and her family gravitated toward it. I had never told anybody what the song was really about, I told her I would be happy to tell her but maybe she would rather not know because the song had an effect on her. She wrote back and said, ‘maybe you’re right’.
BC: How has your music changed over the years?
Joe: “That question in general is so applicable because the fact that it has changed for us is cool I remember a song I wrote in college that, now looking back was about a relationship or something and now I’m like ‘wow, I’m not anywhere near where I thought I would be at that point.’ My life is so different now. That song though might have been about one incident but five years later it grew with me.” Joe continues. “I also feel like they (the songs) have evolved because they’ve been presented to a bigger audience. I wrote The Mountain Song about proposing to my wife but since then I’ve heard other stories about the song and the meaning of it makes it broader for me now. It’s done something for more people than just me.”
William: “Expanding on what Joe said, I always thought what we do is meaningful but to have people validate that by liking Instagram reels with our song and stuff, it gives me confidence. We would have kept going in the same direction no matter what but now we know people like how we sound and that’s great. It really influences, for me the new songs we’re writing.”
BC: Being in Music City, you guys are surrounded by huge talent, is there anyone you guys really want to collaborate with?
Joe: “I could give a never-ending list of people I would want to work with,” Joe says. “There’s so much good music in this city, I feel like everything adds flavor. For me, I’ve never really had a strong desire to go and co-write with someone. Writing music has been so personal to me, like writing a journal industry.” Joe continues. “I guess musically, we had a guy who played bass on The Ballad of Michael Light and that was really cool. He was in another group that we really looked up to. Lyrically, not really, or at least not yet. It would have to be really natural.”
Jesse: “We even do writing on our own, individually and then we bring it together if it’s something we feel confident about.”
BC: Can you share with us what fans can be expecting?
Jesse: “It’s all pretty much in baby stages currently so there isn’t too much to say but we have a handful of songs that we’re playing around with. We’re looking forward to hopping back into creative mode after we were on the road.”
Follow Tophouse on their socials below, so you know when they let out new music and announce new shows. You can stream Tophouses’ music on Spotify HERE.
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