The Head and the Heart
American indie folk band
The Head and the Heart is an American indie folk band. They were formed in the summer of 2009 by Josiah Johnson (vocals, guitar, percussion) and Jonathan Russell (vocals, guitar, percussion). The band currently includes Russell, Charity Rose Thielen (violin, guitar, vocals), Chris Zasche (bass), Kenny Hensley (piano), Tyler Williams (drums), and Matt Gervais (guitar, vocals). The band is signed to Verve Records and have released six albums. Their sixth studio album, Aperture, was released on May 9, 2025.
History
The members met and the band was formed through a series of open mic nights at Seattle's Conor Byrne pub in Ballard, Seattle. Josiah Johnson had moved to Seattle from Southern California to attend graduate school, and Jonathan Russell had recently relocated from Richmond, Virginia. They met keyboardist Kenny Hensley, who had also moved to Seattle to pursue musical score-writing, and Charity Rose Thielen, who had recently returned from a year studying abroad in Paris at Sciences Po. Drummer Tyler Williams had been in the band Prabir and The Substitutes in Richmond, Virginia and moved to Seattle to be a part of the Head and The Heart after hearing a demo that Russell sent of the song "Down In The Valley". Chris Zasche was bartending at the Conor Byrne Pub, working aftercare shifts at The Perkins School, and playing in Seattle bands The Maldives and Grand Hallway.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2076097. VIAF identifies the subject as 170004089. The Library of Congress control number is no2011060895. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2009 and 2025.
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This entry incorporates text from “The Head and the Heart” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.