Tommy and the Whale
By Matthew Beale
Photo by Jonathon Kingsbury

For Tommy Hans, moving from Pensacola to Nashville with Christian pop band Arkitekt meant moving from a small local scene into the heart of what Hans calls the “pop-machine.” Eyes in Los Angeles and New York might roll at anyone calling Nashville a pop band destination, but in the tight niche of mainstream Christian music, Nashville is a mecca of labels, top name producers and the ilk of big music industry. Arkitekt jumped into the city’s fire headfirst and got burned. The band, with Hans’ songwriting at its core, took hits for getting too clever and struggled to make adjustments to match local success formulas or find any kind of a fan base.

When Arkitekt grew tired of being tossed around with no real direction the group split up, with two members abandoning Nashville. For Hans, new musicians weren’t hard to find. Most of Tommy and the Whale’s five members met parking cars at the same restaurant.

“It’s almost an assumption in Nashville that if you meet somebody they play an instrument,” he explains. “But you don’t know they’re going to be really good.”

“The Whales” are is not so much Hans’ backing band as a group of collaborators. Multi-instrumentalist Kai Welch leads a side project (under his own name) with the same lineup as does bassist Thomas Samuel (under the name Tallest Trees). It just happens that as Tommy and the Whale they make music that most excites each other and their audiences. That’s likely due to Hans’ knack for pop. He says his song writing has moved forward since coming to Nashville (“We’re three years from where we were,“ he says) but he’s also stayed close to his pop roots. “Would fans of Arkitekt like Tommy and the Whale?” he muses, thinking of the two bands pop similarities. “Yeah I think they would.”

Being turned off by the musical expectation imposed by the mainstream industry is something all the band members share.
“I know we all want to be able to pay our bills and be a successful band,” says Hans. “I don’t think pop is a negative thing, and we have pop in us, but it’s got to be a natural thing because it can be contrived. I think that’s what people will notice right away.”

The group has been sporting a blog and video shorts as they record their new album, something that lets them keep their pop honesty and still reach an audience.

“People have access to a lot more music and it’s not all shoved down your throat anymore,” explains Hans. “I think something is gonna happen soon, and my goal is just to be a part of that.”

www.tommyandthewhale.com