Dance

Rebirth of a Band 

Seamlessly blending vintage photographs, stock footage, and brief bits of animation along with current video of perky party people and dutiful dancers (try to spot the Winterpills cameos), Price “shot around this huge gothic abandoned building down the street (from their house in Hadley, about 3 1/2 miles northeast of Northampton). … I’ve had a recurring narrative in my head for years of a huge party going on inside a building that I cannot get into — a dream of exclusion. 

“This combined with the idea of all of humanity forgetting how to dance together, being splintered, and disconnected and too injured to dance. My mother was a dancer and I have to assume this factored in as well.” 

For anyone wondering, the lone end credit in capital letters — “Video by WOODYBROOK LANE JR.” — is Price’s pseudonym, named after the street where he grew up in Croton-on-Hudson, New York. 

Since his father was a screenwriter, Price shares, “My first ambition in life was to make films … a path I obviously didn’t fully take, but I keep that dream alive by making lots of little films and music videos. I’m feeling more ambitious about that outlet recently.” 

Along with helping bring back Winterpills, Price also is a dad, celebrating with Reed the birth of their son in 2019. The new album signals a rebirth of the band, too. 

“The band knew there would be a hiatus for this kiddo to happen; it just was extended far beyond our desires,” Price states. While “writing always drags on forever,” he maintains this time it “combined with parenting exhaustion, eldercare exhaustion, world-care exhaustion. But in picking from the pile, I just sent around a mess of songs to the band, and we all picked what we liked. We are democratic to a fault. My son weighed in, too.”

Getting back into the studio and producing with trusted colleague Dave Chalfant (“a member of the extended family” who worked on Winterpills’ first two albums), “It took a concerted push by everyone; but once the wheel started rolling downhill, there was no stopping it,” Price offers. “We basically just decided there were plenty of songs and we started doing weekly rehearsals at several different spaces, before finally settling on Max’s living room as the most conducive and cozy.” 

Recorded at the Institute for the Musical Arts in Goshen, Massachusetts, This Is How We Dance has 12 songs that will enrapt the listening audience, propelled by thought-provoking lyrics, sweet harmonies, irresistible melodies, Crommett’s pulsating electric riffs, and the rhythmic bursts of Germer and Hower. 

It only took one pop-up show at Darlings in Easthampton (what Price calls “a beloved local tiny bar”) to get the seal of approval from a small crowd of lucky folks. Winterpills performed the entire album “just to see if anyone noticed. They did,” he adds. 

While Price and Reed added to their family (she’s a stepmom to “Philip’s two amazing adult daughters”) during the extended break, he managed “to squeak out three solo albums during that time, so it wasn’t totally a vacuum.” Their bandmates kept busy, too. 

Juggling solo projects and working with artists like Mark Mulcahy, Crommett is a master guitar blaster who mans another Western Mass band called Spanish For Hitchhiking with Germer, Hower, and Chalfant. (The latter two were also members of the Nields.) Germer has side gigs with the Fawns and Gentle Hen while Hower has recorded with Valley of Weights, his college band.