MANCHESTER, NH – When you imagine a rock star—the Platonic form of a rock star—you might see sleeves of tattoos and piercings in places that aren’t always intuitive.
You might envision eccentric clothing—leather pants and bolo hats, bright flowing scarves or frayed denim vests.
You might imagine a person who is mysterious and aloof, heavy-lidded from the influence of sundry substances.
And Manchester’s Chris Howe—whose band Waterbury will release a new album titled “Nowhere I’d Rather Be/I’d Rather Be Nowhere” on Feb. 5—checks none of those rock star boxes.
The 48-year-old Queen City native and Manchester West alumnus is ordinary in appearance, average height and build with short hair and a trimmed beard, wearing exactly what you might expect a middle-aged man fitting his profile to be wearing: blue jeans and a pullover[1].
But Chris Howe doesn’t want to be a rock star in the ordinary and archetypical sense, and he doesn’t care to measure his success by his fame or record sales. “I don’t self-promote. Success, for me, is writing and then listening to a record,” he said. “I just love to do it.”
Image and labels aside, Howe simply loves music. In his home on Manchester’s West Side, he houses thousands of vinyl albums and has set up a recording studio for his various musical projects, which currently includes The Wood Floors—a band he has kept together with drummer Eric Scheiner since the early-2000s—and Waterbury, a trio that includes drummer Paul Battaglia and guitarist Jimmy Jude, whose self-titled debut album was released on Jan. 1.
A day without music is as unthinkable to Howe as a day without air. “I need a new song,” he said. “I need it as a release. It’s always been my comfort zone and my safety valve.”
Yet in his younger years—in the early 1990s—Howe admits to having his eyes on the rock star prize while playing in a rock trio called Laughingstock with Scheiner and bassist Brian Richards—another Manchester West graduate.
Laughingstock played some of the most prestigious venues in the Northeast, including CBGB’s, Mama Kin’s and The Living Room, and released two self-produced albums—“Knocking Off a Piece” and “Dumbfounded”—before parting ways in 1996.
“I wanted to be a rock star,” said Howe. “In hindsight, to do it again would be great. I would change some things and make myself more adaptable to fitting the band’s sound.”
After Laughingstock, Howe and Scheiner formed The Wood Floors in 2003 as a side project, and now, 68 releases later, they’re still forging forward with a new album titled “In Countless Ways” to be released on Feb. 3.
The Wood Floors’ sound is eclectic with a discernible ’90s indie, garage-vibe, and their lyrics are smart—sincere with a dash of the sardonic—and the sound is stripped down to the bare essentials.
However, Howe said that he doesn’t particularly care for the “sterile” sound produced in studio recordings. “It is technically very good, but it lacks any spontaneity,” he said. “I like the warts. I don’t mind that element of rawness. If the demo sounds better to me, then why would I want to mess with it?”
This emphasis on “spontaneity”, in tandem with Howe’s unique and somewhat-bohemian writing process, explains the band’s prodigious output.
Howe “writes in batches” and doesn’t necessarily question where the songs come from or why they’ve arrived at a particular moment. “When I pick up a guitar, it either happens or it doesn’t,” he said. “When it happens, it’s amazing to me. I created something that didn’t exist yesterday.”
Currently, Howe is “ecstatic” to be playing with Waterbury and releasing new music. Waterbury is a “true collaboration” where each of the three band members write songs, said Howe.
“We feel like we’re 20 years old again, and we’re all almost 50,” Howe said. “We feel like it’s the first time we’re making music. But maturity helps. Adult responsibilities and time constraints help. We’re not insecure anymore. We’re doing it for fun.”
Meanwhile, Waterbury is itching to play out again and relive—or reinvent—a rock star vibe. “We’re dying to play,” Howe said.
But don’t expect Waterbury to headline at Madison Square Garden, round up any groupies, or toss any televisions nine stories from a hotel window onto a sidewalk. “I don’t have any aspirations in terms of record sales,” Howe said. “I just love doing it.”
[1] I was Chris’s sartorial twin at our interview, albeit in different muted shades. Perhaps this stemmed from the fact that Chris and I are only a year apart in age. Or perhaps it stems from the fact that I am also not a rock star, but we both share the same affinity for the music of the rock star Billy Squier.
Listen to Waterbury here
Listen to The Wood Floors here