In the Valley Below finds peace in Grand Rapids with ‘mind-blowing’ indie-rock: Local Spins Rewind

With the Grand Rapids duo playing Thursday night’s live-streamed HopCat presents Local Spins Live at River City Studios session, Local Spins revisits its feature on the nationally acclaimed band as a preview.

THE BAND: In the Valley Below
THE MUSIC: Mesmerizing indie-rock and dream pop
WHERE YOU CAN SEE THE BAND: 7 p.m. Thursday via Facebook Live on the Local Spins Facebook page, the River City Studios Facebook page orr the HopCat Facebook page.

EDITOR’S NOTE: A version of this Local Spins Artist Spotlight first appeared last June. Since then, Angela Gail and Jeffrey Jacob of In the Valley Below have released an EP, “Elephant,” and toured the country. Before heading to the mammoth South by Southwest festival and conference in Austin in mid-March to showcase their distinctive music for an international audience, they’ll perform a special live-streamed session of HopCat presents Local Spins Live at River City Studios at 7 p.m. Thursday. Fans will only be able to watch that performance live on Facebook via the Local Spins Facebook page, the River City Studios Facebook page and/or the HopCat Facebook page.

 

Watching In the Valley Below’s metamorphosis from a genial, soft-spoken duo of singer-songwriters into a luminous indie-rock/dream pop powerhouse on stage is at once startling and mesmerizing.

Decked out in dazzling white, Angela Gail Mattson and Jeffrey Jacob Mendel masterfully blend subtle theatrics with potent musicianship – from an original gem like “Dove Season” to a striking, hypnotic rendition of Tom Petty/Stevie Nicks’ “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around” — propelled by drummer Joshua Clair’s dynamic approach.
It’s a spellbinding experience.

“Musically, they are mind-blowing,” raves Peter Fox, recording engineer and co-owner of Grand Rapids’ Stone House Recording where In the Valley Below recorded parts of its upcoming new EP.

After reveling in international success as an L.A. dream pop marvel, In the Valley Below has found a home in Grand Rapids.

Last summer, the band played three straight Wednesday nights at Founder Brewing Co. in Grand Rapids as part of a first-ever residency at the brewpub as it prepared to release its new “Elephant” EP in July.

Around that time, In the Valley Below performed an acoustic version of a provocative new single, “Blood Hands (Oh My Fever),” as part of Local Spins Live radio show on News Talk 1340 AM (WJRW). Listen to the full radio podcast here.

PODCAST: Local Spins Live with In the Valley Below

Angela, a Muskegon native who graduated from Mona Shores High School and Grand Valley State University, and Jeffrey, a guitarist from Memphis, met in Los Angeles, eventually formed the band and earned widespread acclaim for the single, “Peaches,” from In the Valley Below’s 2014 full-length debut album, “The Belt,” released by Capitol Records (the same label that boasts stars such as Katy Perry and Sam Smith).

The attention brought them appearances on late-night network television, put them on tours across North America and Europe, and earned them buzz-band acclaim: The Huffington Post named “Peaches” the No. 5 song of 2014 and L.A. Weekly listed “The Belt” among the 10 best albums of 2014 by L.A. artists.

FINDING PEACE, CLEAN AIR AND ‘A TALENTED POOL OF MUSICIANS’ IN GRAND RAPIDS

But “the frustration of L.A.” eventually convinced them two years ago to relocate to Angela’s home state, with the couple buying a 93-year-old home on Grand Rapids’ Southeast Side where they also set up a basement studio.

“Once everything took off as a band, we were just gone all the time on the road,” recalls Angela, who plays bass and keyboards. “We decided we wanted to live somewhere that was peaceful and quiet and there was clean air.”

What the married couple also found in Grand Rapids was a thriving, inspiring music community.

“We’ve been really happily surprised by the music scene here,” says Jeffrey, an accomplished guitarist. “It’s a small town compared to L.A., so it feels like everybody kind of knows everybody, which is nice because you can kind of just sink into the scene real quickly. Everybody’s been very welcoming to us.”

Added Angela: “We’re very impressed by the talent. We had no idea it was such a talented pool of musicians here.”

The couple spent “a lot of time in the basement studio just writing a ton of songs” before paring those down for the new “Elephant” EP, recording drum tracks at Stone House, along with a backing Grand Rapids gospel choir assembled by singer Debra Perry for the “Blood Hands” single.

That poignant lead track – which was released along with a video last June – was inspired by the 2014 Michael Brown shooting in Ferguson, Mo.

“You feel helpless to do something, when there’s something so wrong going on,” says Angela, who’s been influenced by artists as varied as Sinead O’Connor, PJ Harvey and Bob Seger.

“We wrote this … a couple years ago, and even then we thought, ‘Oh, well, the message is going to fade,’ but unfortunately, the same thing keeps happening.”

To help build its West Michigan audience, In the Valley Below also arranged for the three-week residency at Founders, a common practice in Los Angeles to “try to get as many people out as possible” to see artists perform.

“It’s good for us, because we can get comfortable on stage and it’s good for the audience because it gives them more chances to come out and less excuses,” says Jeffrey.

Following the residency and official release of the new EP in mid-July, In the Valley Below launched a full-bore summer U.S. tour.

For Angela, that’s a long way from growing up in Muskegon with no notion of being a career musician.

“I was always a singer and a performer in theater and I liked to make up songs and have my younger siblings sing them,” she recalls.

“But I never thought I could do it as a job, as a profession. So my inspiration comes from … just ‘following your dreams’ and that whole poetic story. But it’s so true that you really can.”

VIDEO: In the Valley Below at Founders Brewing (June 7, 2017)

Copyright 2018, Spins on Music LLC