When asked what businesses Greenpoint are multitudinous, many may say (as of late, at least) smoke shops. But that’s not all — the neighborhood also features an impressive number of record stores in its less than three square miles. And local band Chest High Fires is making it their mission to perform in all of them.
The band — a project driven by husband-and-wife duo of producer Jeff Berrall and singer-songwriter Carrie Ashley Hill — is currently in the midst of an acoustic record shop tour in celebration of their latest album, Regional Hits. So far, they’ve performed at Brooklyn Record Exchange and For the Record, with a future show planned at Fire Talk Shop. Some non-record-store performances scheduled include the McCarren Parkhouse and Sleepwalk in Bushwick, the latter featuring their full band (Zach Brewer, Gregg Giuffre, and Matt Sumrow — all of whom also live in Greenpoint). But they’re not just limiting themselves to traditional record store setups.
“It’s been really fun,” Hill said. “Even if you just sell one record, we want to do a show.”
This hyperlocal circuit aligns with their goal of being “huge in Greenpoint,” particularly to give back to the neighborhood that’s given them so much — from band members (they met Brewer in McGolrick Park) to recording studio spaces to songwriting inspiration.
“One of the gifts of NYC is the regional things built into different neighborhoods,” Hill remarked.
“My philosophy is ‘one neighborhood at a time,'” Berrall, who was previously in the band Elefant and is currently the bassist for Caveman, added.
Hill and Berrall met when Berrall was living at 137 Franklin Street and, after some stints in other parts of Brooklyn, moved back to Greenpoint in 2016. They have been here since, and now raise their son here and send him to PS 110.
“I’ve made more musical connections on the playground than in the bar,” Berrall mused.
The couple stayed in town throughout the pandemic, which is when the band quickly formed a pod and started working on Regional Hits together, including recording the majority of it in a then-closed Baby’s All Right where Berrall works. The opening and closing tracks of the record, “You Will Never Walk Alone” and “Let’s Drive Horses,” are directly reflective of their experiences in Greenpoint during the height of the pandemic, and they gathered sonic inspiration from the echoes and reverberations among the empty spaces near 325 Kent Avenue at the time.
While the band does have a number of new songs already in the works for their next record, they’re still focused on dedicating ample time and care to their current tour, both to get Regional Hits in front of even more people while supporting local music businesses, many of which are run by friends of theirs.
“All roads lead back to Greenpoint,” Berrall said.
Chest High Fires’ next free show is at McCarren Parkhouse on Sunday, March 3, at 7 p.m. Other record store shows will be happening on Sundays at 3 p.m.