The Hugs

William Kennedy on 05/11/2023 For Eugene Weekly

True to Your Own Spirit, the 2022 release from Portland indie rockers The Hugs, could have been the band’s last. The Hugs lineup fell apart, and longtime band leader Danny Delegato went in a different direction with his songwriting. As a result, he thought the time had come for a name change.

On their first seven records, The Hugs were a melodic, somewhat psychedelic indie rock four-piece, similar to another British music-influenced Portland band, The Dandy Warhols. As a duo, Delegato now collaborates with Portland musician Ben Stager to explore a shared interest in ’90s electronic dance music and hip hop. Delegato is also fascinated by the mad scientist, collage-style music making approach of artists like Beck.

With that drastic change, Delegato and Stager weren’t sure The Hugs band name still fit. They stayed the course, though, and according to Delegato, the currently unnamed Hugs Spirit follow-up is expected later this year. The Hugs showcase their new work Friday, May 12, at Sam Bond’s Garage in Eugene.

Notably, classic Hugs songs aren’t entirely jettisoned from their set. Delegato still sings and plays guitar for the most part, and the Sam Bond’s set will feature work from throughout The Hugs catalog, he says. Some renditions of older Hugs songs will be performed acoustic.

For the most part, though, Delegato will be backed up by Stager’s accompaniment of electronic beats, loops and triggers — digital trigger-activated pre-recorded music.

And that lo-fi, groove-first approach to new Hugs song “Lost Cowboy Kid,” the lead single from the new project, isn’t a complete departure from older Hugs stuff, such as “Sad Slow Song” off the band’s last album.

Throughout it all, Delegato maintains his keen melodic ear and his rhythmic priorities — laid-back and slacker in tone, though infectious.

“We’re always experimenting with stuff and tinkering,” Delegato says in a phone interview with Eugene Weekly, referring to the new Hugs material.

For Delegato, the constant grind of maintaining a full-band lineup had sucked the joy out of being in a band. “Instead of having four-piece,” he says, he wanted to “just go back to producing music,” and by doing so, embrace new technologies.

“We’re trying to go into the future of music,” he says of his new work with Stager. “I’ve always written in different genres,” he says. No matter what, though, “I like the idea of writing really great pop songs and keeping it simple,” and that hasn’t changed.

As far as the influence of post hip-hop singer-songwriter Beck, Delegato says, “I like how he has an ethos of ‘Try anything once.’ We tried to do that on this new album. We threw out a lot of stuff, but a lot of stuff was mysteriously working. It’s all good timing.”
The Hugs perform with Eugene garage rock trio VCR 9 p.m. Friday, May 12, at Sam Bond’s; $5, 21-plus. - Eugene Weekly

THE HUGS You gotta love that the Hugs refer to themselves as a pop band. The foursome uses a ’60s garage sound as a jumping-off point without being gimmicky before mixing in a healthy dose of psychedelic and indie experimentation, resulting in sincere and unapologetically pop music that makes our ears happy.

Unsurprisingly, they’re based out of Portland, Oregon, the incubation chamber for the Dandy Warhols, the Shins and Portugal, the Man.

The Hugs fit right in on this list of highly accessible bands with strong personalities who are exports of the quirkiest town on the West Coast. KEITH LOWELL JENSEN

INFO: 8pm, Crepe Place, 1134 Soquel Ave., Santa Cruz. $10. - Good Times Santa Cruz

Over the past decade or so, the Hugs have carved out a niche in the Portland music scene as a DIY group with more polish than most indie-rock groups. In a place where roughness is celebrated, they "try to play as perfect as possible," says frontman Danny Delegato, so they've taken a fair bit of crap from snobby scenesters for being too polished and poised for commercial success.

"There was an article written about how we're the band hipsters love to hate," says Kauri Voss, the band's bassist. "There's a lot of shoegaze bands and the 'it's cool to be uncool' sort of stuff out here."

Some of the resentment may be tied up in the group's history. It seemed the sky was the limit when Delegato and a couple of his 18-year-old cohorts formed the Hugs and almost immediately created a buzz with their garage-rock, Britpop sound. They signed to vaunted label 1965 Records and reportedly entered the studio with White Stripes producer Liam Watson, but the 1965 debut never materialized and the buzz died. The Hugs kept going, though.

Some critics say that, over the years, the band became solely a vessel for Delegato's output as a singer-songwriter. But that changed when the band revamped its roster last November, adding guitarist Jack Burgess out of London, Voss from Chicago, and Detroit-based drummer Keagan O'Brien.

Speaking with Inlander by phone ahead of the Hugs' Saturday show at the Bartlett, the band says they've adopted a much more democratic approach to writing songs. To make the long-distance thing work, Delegato — the only remaining founding member — records demos and sends them to his bandmates, who come up with suggestions for changes and accompanying parts before they get in a studio together.

"I just try to write stuff that sounds good to me," he says. "It sounds really simple, but it seems to work. I just try to record with a certain style in mind, like I want to have a big pre-chorus or I try to write hooks that make sense, with verses and choruses that fit together in a song."

Everyone has to agree on which songs to play live, as well.

"I think it's very evident when you see a band and they're not into what they're playing," says Burgess. "If you want to keep that energy and enthusiasm about your songs, I think everybody in the band has to be on board with them."

Lately, everyone has been down to explore new sounds. The Hugs have sounded like a poppy four-piece rock band for its entire history, but they recently started messing around with synthesizers, drum machines and electronic programming thanks to their new drummer.

"I had a couple of beats when I first joined the band," O'Brien says. "One of the first demos I played for Danny, he just kind of latched onto it and wouldn't let it go. We started jamming around some of the hooks I had and then went back and wrote lyrics and really carved out what the songs would be."

The result is a new three-song EP, New Utopia, which includes the superb dream-pop track "Friends Can Break Your Heart." The EP is due for release on Valentine's Day.

"It's a big detour from what we normally do, which is like '90s garage-pop," Voss says.

"Now we're doing '90s garage-electronic," adds Delegato with a laugh.

They're still figuring out how to do justice to the new songs in the live setting, given the technical challenges of performing electronic-based music as a four-piece rock band. But that's more of a short-term concern, Delegato says. After the fun, experimental detour of New Utopia, the band is getting back down to business: This spring, the Hugs are headed into the studio to record the band's as-yet-untitled fifth full-length album.

"We just did this thing called the 20-song challenge, which was brutal," Voss says. "It's this exercise where you write 20 songs in 12 hours, and we got a lot of good bits and pieces out of that. Now we have two songs we could possibly look at again, and lots of little parts that sounded cool. We're going to lock ourselves in a room and hammer out the album thing this month."

Obviously, fans will have to wait and hear the new record, but one thing's for sure: It won't be rough around the edges. - Inlander

Photo Gallery - Vortex Magazine

With their swooshing swathes of rainbow rock, The Hugs are further proof that someone’s certainly putting something in the water in Portland, Oregon. Like The Lemonheads but with more primal yelping, the moment when their retro-referencing tunes seem to be veering too much in a pleasant, palatable garage-punk direction, their teeny weeny frontman Danny Delegato – the lovechild of Noel Fielding and one of The Monkees – lets go a grave-spinning, throat-slashing screech before indulging in some energetic and muscle-tearing mic-robatics. - NME (2008)

Can you talk to us more about your latest single “Fool”?
Yeah, this song has definitely been a labor of love. It was written as a rough demo way back in 2008 and we have had many different renditions so it’s really evolved naturally.
The song is in essence about the folly of still being in love after a breakup, from the initial longing to what turns into resentment and anger. - VENTS Magazine

I can think of no more appropriate date than Valentines Day for the release of New Utopia as, akin to the name of the band, the audience needs to be listening to the middle track of the single – Friends Can Break Your Heart (available on bandcamp) – whilst hugging someone or something to fully immerse themselves in the flowing frequencies which cover the room in sweetly scented soft-pink rose petals.

Even given the song title and lyrical content Friends Can Break Your Heart is a composition that plucks at the heart-strings in the romance laden dreamscape. - Emerging Indie Bands

The Hugs stopped by Subculture last week, in between making awesome videos and releasing a new EP, to treat listeners to a couple of acoustic tunes and some huggable chit chat.

Their pop meets indie rock esthetic makes the Hugs a band to definitely watch. Talented and charming, we here at Portland Radio Project predict big things!!!

Kauri, Danny, Jack and Keagan are releasing their new EP, “New Utopia”, on Valentine’s Day – get your copy here. And make sure to catch them live at Doug Fir on April 26. - Portland Radio Project

Portland based pop band The Hugs' new single "Friends Can Break Your Heart" precedes their soon to be released 3 song EP "New Utopia" due to drop on Valentine's Day, February 14th. Besides chocolate and a teddy bear on Valentine's Day, buy your bae "New Utopia"; you can pre-order it on Bandcamp HERE. Also, be sure to follow the band on their social media to stay up to date on all things "The Hugs". - DOPECAUSEWESAID

Under the floppy bangs and slouched teenage shoulders lies a group of kids on the cusp of something great. Much like the early forbearers of the jangly Brit-rock sound, the Hugs have a loose charm, a perfectly content sense of confidence that permeates throughout their sound, no matter how sloppy it might be at the time. Their music has the rough kinetic energy of Slanted and Enchanted-era Pavement, and the haphazard punk of (pre-crack and tabloids) the Libertines. - Portland Mercury

The Hugs are not creatures of habit, not one bit. As far as their music is concerned, their approach to writing songs and being creative seems different to that of most other bands. They enjoy shaking things up a bit, it has got to be challenging, before it can get good.

The Portland Oregon based 4-piece has been letting It's All Indie into their creative space, sharing some fascinating insight into how they go about setting themselves concrete challenges and create a 'competitive' environment for writing new song material in but still produce some important work together. It remains a team effort...

...New Utopia leaves you hungry for more and it looks as if the band may well release a new album this year.

The Hugs are an extremely fascinating and talented band. To say it will be interesting to see what they get up to next would be a huge understatement, it won't be boring, that is for sure. - Its All Indie

Power-pop rockers, The Hugs, have been releasing music for your listening pleasure since 2007. With garage rock backed by high energy and angst, The Hugs will bring you on a journey through the early 2000's Pacific Northwest. Frontman Danny Delegato identifies their latest album as having a 'trippy psychedelic post-pop opus filled with anthemic beats and rich harmonies'. - Do503 (12/2016)

Sometimes a band puts out a release that just captures life in a snapshot – the highs, the lows, the anguish, the pain, and of course all the good stuff that makes life worth living. Feelings of Life is one such record. The Hugs wrap you with open welcome arms into their soundscape. The Hugs are on the record label Mope Records, and members Danny Delegato, Skyler Weaver, Davey Appaloosa, and Calvin Berkenbile are serving up their fourth (and debatably best) full-length studio album. This trippy psychedelic post-pop opus is filled with anthemic beats and rich harmonies.

This album takes you on a journey that is warm, a little exploratory, familiar, and full of great tunes. Much like life, Feelings of Life encompasses many of the feelings felt on this shared journey. "Wherever You Go" has such a great feel to it, with huge open chords and a charming wide-eyed wonder. "Want You Now" has that haunting urgency that plagues us all at some point or another. Its saturated riffs and moody hooks don't just hint at that 'want,' but blast that feeling right home in a way that more than satisfies. "Fearless" is a great track that has that attack of abandon and lust for life. Like life, this album has a few low points, namely "Beautiful Hour" and "Lost Angel," but they aren't bad, they're good tracks to just reflect and think on life in general.

There's a cathartic feeling to the track "Deja Vu," and "Pointless Grudge" is in the same vein, a great statement on staying angry over stupid things in life. The album ends with "Colorful Clouds from Mars" which in a way kind of sums up life here on earth. We're full of color, a bit foreign from the other life, and like clouds only here for a moment and then gone."

-NW Music Scene - Northwest Music Scene (3/2016)

When I was a high schooler, the Hugs were the local band scenesters loved to shit on—probably because the group was so perfectly poised for mainstream success (and if there’s anything Portland’s cultural arbiters hate, it’s an artist aspiring to be meaningfully successful). They were young, talented, had a reasonable national following, and had secured opening slots for big groups like the Walkmen and the Dandy Warhols—huge feats for such a young band, whose members were still in high school. Shortly thereafter, the group was scooped up by esteemed British label 1965 Records, and had reportedly entered the studio with White Stripes producer Liam Watson—but then everything seemed to fall apart. The 1965 debut never materialized, and the band was essentially reduced to a solo vehicle for singer/songwriter Danny Delegato. Feelings of Life, the latest LP released under the Hugs tag, is a bizarre and indelible marriage of Revolver-era psychedelia and radio-friendly, Prius ad-pop. It doesn’t do a lot for their cred, but hopefully earns them the recognition they’ve long deserved. MORGAN TROPER - Portland Mercury (7/2016)

We had the opportunity to chat with The Hugs for an Artist Spotlight Interview! This pop-rock indie three-piece from Portland, Oregon features Danny Delegato - lead singer, guitar, Kauri Voss - bass, vocals and Keagan O'Brien - drums. Their sound features dynamic vocals and a garage indie drive that powers their tracks. They are tenaciously fun and need to be in your rotation. The Hugs are releasing a 5th studio album in Spring 2019! - Alt Revue

Since 2007, garage-pop quartet The Hugs have radiated nothing but sheer entrancing energy. Sometimes more on the rocking side, sometimes more on the power-pop side, The Hugs have never ceased to embed a sense of angst in their tracks despite their affectionate name. And now, on the day truly meant for love in a calendrical sense, The Hugs are sharing some new tunes with just as loving of an air.

Sure, the band have touched on romantic notes before, but this Valentine's Day release sees the band occupying more of a sweet realm with their new EP New Utopia, manifesting amorous undertones through a more tender, dreamy synth-pop that's just as indelible as songs the before it. It's the perfect triad of love-themed tracks from one of your favorite bands, and it couldn't have come on a better day. - The Deli Magazine

The Hugs are a four-piece rock ’n’ roll band from Portland, Oregon, who recorded their debut album in England. This makes sense because their music sounds British—not “Greensleeves” British, but rather the brand of British that became popular when groups like The Kinks and The Yardbirds invaded America in the mid-’60s with their ramshackle lyrics and bluesy riffs. The Hugs’s music, though, is also very Oregonian, owing an equal debt to home-state forerunners like “Louie Louie” auteurs The Kingsmen and the late-’70s pre-grunge grunge outfit the Wipers. - Interview Magazine (2009)

Though members of the Hugs were just graduating high school when they formed in 2007, they still managed to expertly cultivate an experienced sound. Seemingly inspired in equal parts by the Kinks' The Village Green Preservation Society and more modern Detroit bands such as the Go, we are given a perfect contemporary interpretation of the '60s British pop sound. The Hugs were snatched up last year by an English producer for their self-titled album, so we should all do ourselves a favor and see this band before they're exported to Europe to make it big. - Willamette Weekly

The Hugs are the band that you wish you were in during high school. Or college. Or right now for that matter. Visceral and earnest, their songs are further along than their playing, and that's a good thing. Everything from the Velvet Underground to the Kinks to early Pavement is here, all being written by chaps young enough to yet worry about declaring a major. Unless, of course, it's declaring which major label they want to sign to, in which case the lucky winner is London-based 1965 records. Not quite a household name yet, the label is the lovechild of James Endeacott, formerly of Rough Trade records, who had the foresight to sign another young and eager band called the Strokes a few years back. Can the Hugs embrace their future as garage rock's next big thing? I, for one, sure do hope so. AY - AY (Portland Mercury)

“There’s a band called the Hugs that I like a lot. They play folk rock. They’re a Portland band. I really like their songs."

(Note from the hugs: We're not joking. It's in there... Just, randomly... in the New York Post... and they published it. Also... we aren't really folk rock, but okay) - New York Post

Portland-based band The Hugs is set to captivate listeners with their latest studio album, New Adventure, an electrifying new entry into the electronic-pop genre. Combining infectious melodies, pulsating MPC beats, and soul-stirring lyrics, the band has crafted a dreamy soundscape that effortlessly blends electronic music with their signature pop sound.

Inspired by their vibrant surroundings in Portland and the Oregon coast, New Adventure brings together catchy hooks, dreamy synthesizers, and infectious rhythms that will hook listeners from the very first note. The album reflects The Hugs’ ability to push boundaries while maintaining the heartfelt, thought-provoking lyrics that have always defined their music.

Songwriter and lead singer Danny Delegato dives deep into themes of love, heartbreak, exhilaration, self-discovery, and the complexities of modern life. His introspective lyrics are balanced with the band’s innovative yet accessible production, co-produced with Portland native Ben Stager. From meticulously crafted electronic elements to dynamic live performances, The Hugs bring a unique energy to every song.

Having earned critical acclaim and established a loyal fan base, The Hugs are now poised to reach a broader audience with New Adventure. Whether you're a long-time fan or new to their music, this album promises to leave a lasting impression with its irresistible melodies and captivating lyrics.

Mark your calendars for February 2nd, 2024, and prepare to be swept away by the sonic brilliance of The Hugs. With their new album, they’re ready to take you on a musical journey you won’t soon forget. - Maya Grant