Husbands form musical duo

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Despite the duties that come with full-time jobs and marriages, a musical duo composed of Oklahoma Christian University alumni overcomes the odds to blend blissful bedroom pop melodies.

Husbands is the collaborative brainchild of Oklahoma Christian alumni Wil Norton and Danny Davis, who bonded through family history and the Chi Lambda Phi brotherhood.

“We became really good friends when I directed Spring Sing my senior year,” Norton said. “Danny was unofficially my co-director and we worked on writing all the songs and choreography together. That’s when we started realizing how much we liked each other’s musical tastes.”

Norton and Davis’ mutual appreciation for the other’s musical abilities continued to flourish beyond the set of Chi’s first-place Spring Sing show.

“I would go over to Danny’s apartment and we’d spend all Saturday just writing songs together,” Norton said. “It was something that came really easy. We’re both pretty spontaneous with melodies and song structures, so it was just easy to build songs that way.”

When they decided their musical partnership was something they wanted to share with the world, naming the duo was not a laborious task.

“I got married right before my sophomore year, so when I was in club, I was sort of known as the married guy,” Davis said. “Most bands are just full of dudes who like hanging out together. But Wil and I are both married and our wives like to hang out, so Husbands was just a funny name alluding to the fact that we’re always hanging out as couples.”

After releasing 13 singles online this past summer, Norton relocated from Oklahoma City to Washington, D.C. to pursue a master’s degree in English literature at Georgetown University. The move restricts songwriting to shared recordings and lyrics via email. Fortunately, sending files back and forth each week was already the duo’s preferred method of writing together.

“It wasn’t much of a transition,” Davis said. “Sometimes, Wil will write most of the song but not know what to do with the chorus and a lot of times, I’ll have an idea to finish it. Our better songs are the more collaborative ones. They allow us to put our own little spins on the songs.”

While the two share an attraction for the lo-fi aesthetic their music embodies, their stylistic choice wasn’t really a choice at all. Without the best studio equipment to polish their songs, resorting to digital alterations was as much a necessity as it was a conscious decision.

“Over-compressing our songs is a big part of our sound,” Davis said. “It can help to identify and separate us in good and bad ways, depending on who you’re asking.”

Current Oklahoma Christian students are discovering the unique sounds of Husbands.

“I think it’s really cool how technology has advanced and allowed musicians to add new dimensions to their sound,” sophomore Alexandra Autrey said. “Husbands do a really good job of pulling a vintage style into modern era to appeal to our generation.”

Fortunately, the self-imposed, deadline-driven process of releasing one song every week has produced a rewarding and creative output of songs.

“I think a lot of people out there are writing songs all the time,” Norton said. “What we decided to do was just as a goal for us to keep writing music, to make a song every week and just put it out there and publish it. The whole publishing it online is kind of like an accountability thing. It’s a goal for us to make sure we keep writing music. The idea is that if we do it as well as we should, we should have 52 songs, which is pretty cool.”

Despite the distance, Husbands isn’t planning on pushing their productions to the back burner anytime soon.

“Our initial batch of songs is summery, guitar-pop songs,” Davis said. “Lately though, we’ve been using an acoustic guitar in our songs with a more easy-going sort of vibe to them. We try to have a similar mood to what we’re doing with those singles. We view them as collections. I’m in the process of putting our EP on iTunes and Spotify of six songs that are more cohesive out of our first 13 singles.”

This small selection of singles will provide a gauge of the listener barometer all musicians crave to know in response to their hard work and passion.

“New and upcoming bands are my absolute favorite to listen to,” senior Sarah Ulrich said. “I love when I stumble upon local bands with a fantastic sound that hasn’t been saturated with the effects of fame. It’s just pure and natural talent.”

Although the duo continues to produce music for the public, they manage to keep up with their other responsibilities as well.

“Obviously, we have to have jobs to support ourselves and our families,” Davis said. “But I know that I’ll always be doing music. It’s my favorite thing to do, so it will always be a part of my life. Really I do it because it makes me happy and hopefully people like to listen to it. If it happens to go somewhere, that’s just icing on the cake.”

While Norton pursues his master’s degree in Washington D.C. and Davis maintains his 9-to-5 as a software engineer in Oklahoma City, they offer a bit of advice to students still in college.

“Think big,” Norton said. “Don’t let yourself get stuck in a small worldview; whether that’s thinking about OC, Oklahoma City, the state of Oklahoma, or whatever. Your possibilities are global. Try to find ways your job can match your ideals.”

Norton and Davis have each other’s friendship and support to help actualize their dreams in music alongside of their marriages and career paths.

“Hopefully your goals after college align with something you actually enjoy doing,” Davis said. “Always do what you love to do. If music is something you love to do, then just because it might not make you money doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it. Do what you love to do because that’s what will end up making you happy. If you work hard enough at something and you persevere, it will become something that you can appreciate.”