The Hails

BIOGRAPHY

Regardless of whichever omnipresent puller-of-strings you subscribe to, it’s undeniable that some force was always working to ensure the inevitability of The Hails. From two of the band members both calling the same third floor apartment home at different parts of their then separate childhoods — the very building they’d later meet their bassist in — to a fateful college dining hall encounter years later that set things in motion. There has always been a strange air about the sequence of events meant to unite Robbie Kingsley, Franco Solari, Dylan McCue, Andre Escobar and Zach Levy, that begs the question, is anything ever truly random?

Despite first playing in an insular Miami high school music scene, the band officially formed at the University of Florida, finding their moniker in the college’s alma mater — “All hail, Florida, hail.” The Hails banded together through a slew of long nights and wild house shows in their living room — the only option in the basement-less state of Florida. Ironically, from the tattered carpeting and the beer bottle lined shelves of their shitty college house arose a distinct, refined sound that is now synonymous with the band’s name. 

With shimmering early singles like “Younger” and “Stay,” and their debut EP He Seems Upset (2020), running the press gambit (Ones To Watch, American Songwriter, Lyrical Lemonade, Atwood Magazine, Noctis Magazine), The Hails came to represent an edgy sort of sleekness that can only be attributed to the cities they cut their teeth in — Gainesville and Miami. Mirrored in the band’s sound, there’s an underlying grit that comes from Gainesville’s affinity toward DIY; where the band played countless shows at the infamous High Dive over the years and hijacked the community spirit of an entire college town. But within everything the band does, you can hear Miami’s quality of perfectly riding the line between the cutting edge and the neon-laced nostalgia of yesteryears. Fusing their varying cultures, upbringings and influences, comes a sound that's unmistakably singular.

With the post-pandemic world returning to live music, the band recently held court at festivals like III Points, WonderStruck, Okeechobee and Playground. On the heels of their second EP, 2021’s Alive in Strange Ways, the band did a home-state victory lap, nearly selling out every night of their six-city Florida run. The first half of 2022 also saw The Hails join WILLIS for West and East Coast dates. 

Firing the starting pistol of their next chapter, The Hails released “Exonerate” in October 2022 and “Breathless” in February 2023. The band’s new era earned them praise from Billboard, Consequence, EARMILK and many others, as well as editorial support on Spotify’s All New Indie, Fresh Finds and Fresh Finds Indie playlists. The coming months will see them support The Happy Fits, The Beaches, and the moss, along with their own headline dates, all while the band works toward the release of their debut LP. 

The keys to that third floor apartment have traded hands to another family, and a new wave of orange-and-blue-clad underclassmen shuffle into the dining hall to grab their heat-lamp-warmed meals. But even in the same settings, no string of occurrences will ever happen again to create a band quite like The Hails.