About Pretend You're Happy

Pretend You’re Happy use indie-rock to encourage reverence and catharsis in everyday life. They are currently based out of both Burlington, VT and Bryson City, NC. The band plays in a variety of live forms. One night they might be a stripped down acoustic 2-piece, the next an 8-piece electric entourage including brass, strings, woodwinds, and atmospheric noise. Their music takes influence from divergent genres such as ’60s folk revival, NYC hardcore, romantic classical, pop punk, and early jazz. The project is the evolving brainchild of Jeremiah Morelock, who uses it to expand and express his own musical and conceptual horizons. Morelock insists that PYH is first and foremost a creative process. Its social and sonic forms are fluid, and Morelock is always excited to work with new artists. Participants contribute in different ways at different times at varying levels. It is both a group and not a group. It never formed and it will never break up. “The Great Joyful Rebellion” is their second full-length release, put out by DIY Bandits in April, 2011 with the involvement of Fake Four, Inc. The album shifts between textures and arrangements. Now a string ensemble, now a punk band, now a marching band, now a mini orchestra, now a folk solo act, now an early soul outfit, now a collection of swirling noise and feedback, the music rapidly and dramatically shifts between lifeworlds.

Band Members