Press Photo
photos by Austen Eicher
photos by Reeder Vyain
Bio – Abridged
WESTHEAD
Spotify / Bandcamp / Instagram / TikTok
Reissue compilation III and an EP released Oct. 1.
New single “Alright Now, Right Now” out Oct. 20.
Upcoming album It’s So Heavy To Have A Body (out March 2027).
Westhead is the indie folk/rock project of Chicago-based producer, audio engineer, and songwriter Max DiFrisco.
His fourth full-length album It’s So Heavy To Have A Body will mark his first since returning to Chicago from Bloomington, Indiana. Co-produced alongside Jack Henry (Free Range, V.V. Lightbody), DiFrisco’s forthcoming work is, in many ways, a reintroduction and leap forward following his stellar 2023 release When I Am Older, I Will Love This More.
Westhead has appeared at a handful of venues nationally, including Lincoln Hall, The Basement East and Hi-Fi and has supported acts such as Six Foot Blonde, The Back Alley and more.
They perform in both solo and four-piece formats (Antonio Rosario, bass; Jack Tekiela, pedal steel; Braeden Janes, drums).
Bio – Unabridged (by Helen Howard)
“I don’t bleed songs like I used to,” is a sentiment Max DiFrisco repeats on the opening track of his latest project as Westhead, It’s So Heavy To Have A Body. Whether or not the compositions of the Chicago-based producer, audio engineer, and songwriter, are the product of drawn blood, the emotions conjured on his fourth full-length album are deeply human and palpable and remain rooted in honest vulnerability, sometimes catching you when you least expect it. At times, the vignettes painted throughout these 10 tracks are sharp like pin pricks, leaving you instantly stunned in their wake. In other moments, these expressions are more like a sting, sticking with you long past their runtime due to their persistent, but in this case, welcomed ache.
Despite the emotional weight present on It’s So Heavy To Have A Body, DiFrisco’s musical landscape crafted on the record is sonically anything but heavy. With lush acoustic guitars, layered and brushed percussion, delicate synths and keys, and vocals that bend at the will of each song’s unique structure and melodic arrangement, he, alongside co-producer Jack Henry, uniquely approaches these complementary elements, blurring the lines between folk and rock soundscapes and both modern and classic genre markers.
Though DiFrisco has been crafting music under the Westhead moniker for over six years now, It’s So Heavy To Have A Body serves as a distinct reintroduction to both his catalogue and his meticulous music-making process. “Oftentimes, bands design their tracklist at the end of making the record. It’s the first thing I start working on. An album with no meaningful progression through the tracklist wouldn’t be worth making for me. The records are the benchmarks of my lived life, and I haven’t made one in awhile,” he says, “I used to just crank them out, but that was a young man’s game.”
His previous work, in ways, all led up to creating this album, and it mirrors his re-introduction to making music in Chicago after spending the last several years in Bloomington, Indiana. It’s a return to where he grew up, as well as a return to pouring everything into his craft.
DiFrisco’s lyricism present on the album equally balances both intrapersonal and interpersonal introspection, offering continual moments of the life-long attempt to understand this mortal coil and always extending that empathy to others. Even when feelings are blurry and clarity is being sought after, his lackadaisical and lilting delivery doesn’t undercut these sharp emotions, only softening their landing. “My friends are doing well. Maybe not, it’s hard to tell. Sit down, ask and see, just might change how it feels to me, ” he observes on “Alright Now, Right Now.” There’s a neverending sense of community felt throughout the album’s runtime. It’s as though each track’s subject is present in the room, aware they’re being doted upon in song. DiFrisco doesn’t hold back in showcasing his appreciation for those he loves, even if he’s the only one earnest enough to say it aloud so boldly. Like a traditional folk song discussing friends and lovers by name, we’re allowed into his world so candidly.
It’s not always the case that a songwriter allows so many conflicting emotions to exist both together and sequentially. It’s intentional and lets the listener sit with the thoughts that plague us universally as human beings. We’re let into those moments where he remembers and reminds the listener that time is not an infinite resource. Maybe time is just a way to measure our physical bodies’ capacity and a measuring of the moments we spend with those we love. These conflicting emotions call back to each other consistently throughout the record in ways that compliment each other rather than conflict. He sings on “Time For You,” that, “I’ve got time,” while on “For All I Am,” he states both that, “I’ve got no time,” and only a few moments later declares, “I’ve got all this time and songs to play.” Neither statement negates its inverse.
Though DiFrisco intensively creates most of his work alone, you’d never know it due to the multitude of voices and warmth felt on each song. The album builds to magnificent crescendos and walls of sound on the album’s final few tracks. On “Those Were My Days / Divine Wind,” the song’s split is the perfect representation of his world building, and the way in which DiFrisco crafts music that is both emotionally vast and sonically expansive. The song begins with buzzing guitars, effortlessly blending together with his crooning vocals. This first movement of the song recalls memories of a final earring purchase and a final spotting of a friend, highlighting both the lack of something material and something human before packaging up those associations, “Those were my friends, those were my days.” At its halfway mark, the song drones effortlessly with haunting keys that reprise the album’s musical throughline into its second half, which crashes into a harmonious refrain, “I’m just like a picture sometimes, anelectric and alive. I’m just like a mountain at night, I’m moving all the time.” It’s fit for a sing along, and one where the emotions swell and maybe the tears cloud your ability to do so.
Perhaps the final track, “Just Enough,” is the perfect representation of the album’s thesis and DiFrisco’s everlasting musical goals. It’s jaunty, immediately anthemic, and feels incredibly spontaneous. DiFrisco ties up every theme on It’s So Heavy To Have A Body in so few words, and yet, they’re thoughts that could be discussed until the end of time itself, “I don’t need to gather what I need, just some air, and a friend, and me.”
The song was crafted intentionally with a vision for its intangible, special nature, though its final product was shaped entirely through circumstantial improvisations. DiFrisco recruited almost 20 contributors including friends in Six Foot Blonde, Natalie Ingalls of Prairie Scout, Reeder Vyain of Brick Lancaster, among others, to record the track at a cabin in Morgantown, Indiana. Running on a tight schedule, the crew set off to bring the final track to life, tightly confining themselves to their isolated, remote location. Upon reaching the cabin, a summer storm hit. “We had just gotten set up, rehearsed, and pressed record. On the first downbeat, the power went out, but we realized we had enough gear to record there. Everyone in the house grabbed an acoustic instrument, and my initial vision for the song dissipated in front of my eyes. How could any of my hopes for the song compete with all of my friends in one room, singing the song with me? Anyway, we did it in one take. It was one of the best moments of my life.”
How else can you sum up a record about the joy of existence, its impermanence, and its beauty through anything else but a chorus of your friends singing right back to you? Backed by acoustic guitars, mandolin, tambourine, and a chorus of oohs, DiFrisco closes the album out with the lines, “It’s easy to fall in love when you talk about what you love. Yes, talking is just enough, just
enough.” And it is.