Self-Portrait: Emily Massey and Henry Stoehr of Slow Pulp
Scared of Squirrels
Jan 08, 2024 Web Exclusive Photography by Emily Massey and Henry Stoehr
For our recurring Self-Portrait feature, we ask musicians to take a self-portrait photo (or paint/draw a self-portrait) and write a list of personal things about themselves, things that their fans might not already know about them. This Self-Portrait is by Emily Massey and Henry Stoehr, of Slow Pulp. They both drew portraits of each other and also provided a selfie photo of them together.
Massey is the band’s vocalist/guitarist and Stoehr is their guitarist/producer. Teddy Mathews (drums) and Alex Leeds (bass) round out the lineup. The Chicago-based four-piece is originally from Wisconsin. Stoehr and Matthews went to elementary school together in Madison, Wisconsin. They met Leeds via a local music program, with Massey joining the band in college. A series of self-released EPs from 2015 to 2019 was followed by the band’s 2020-released debut album, Moveys, on Winspear.
Last September Slow Pulp released Yard, their sophomore album and first for ANTI-. It was one of our Top 100 Albums of 2023. During the recording of Moveys, circumstances dictated that Massey recorded her vocals at her parents’ home with her dad Michael, due to Massey’s diagnosis of Lyme disease and chronic mono and a car accident involving her parents. Pleased with the results, Slow Pulp once again worked with Michael on the vocals for Yard.
“Working together, we can be very honest with each other in a way that I wouldn’t be able to do with a stranger or a producer that’s not my family,” said Massey, in a press release, of collaborating with her father. “He already has so much context for what the songs are about, knowing my life so intimately. He is able to be very direct, saying things I often don’t want to hear but need to hear. I think it often leads to getting the best takes out of me.”
Read on as Massey and Stoehr write about phobias, joint medical conditions, and traumatic childhood memories.
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Emily: Henry and I decided to do blind portraits of one another, which means we sat across from each other at a table and tried to draw each other without looking at the paper. This was what came out of that.
Emily: I have double-jointed thumbs. I can bend them backwards and forwards in ways that look really unnatural and pretty gross.
Henry: I have five hidden tattoos, won’t tell you where they are though.
Emily: I have astigmatism in the left eye.
Henry: I have astigmatism in the right eye, neither of us can see at night well at all.
Emily: I used to do voiceovers as a kid. Did a radio ad for Band-Aids once and got paid $100, which was sooo much money for an eight-year-old. I bought a skateboard, fell off it once and never rode again.
Henry: I love the Facebook marketplace. I look at it everyday.
Emily: I am afraid of squirrels. When I was a kid a rabid one got stuck between a window and the screen in my house. I remember it screaming and scratching and frothing at the mouth. I have never looked at them the same way.
Henry: I was a child hockey player.
Emily: My first memory is choking on a piece of pizza at my third birthday party and my dad had to give me the Heimlich maneuver in front of all the kids.
Henry: My first memory is cutting my hand open on a carpet tack when I was three, there was blood everywhere.
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