Friday night at The Evening Muse in NoDa, people stood shoulder to shoulder in the dark as members of Cassettiquette took the stage and tuned up their instruments. There was a drummer, a keyboard player and three guitarists.
After a brief introduction from the club's owner, Joe Kuhlmann, the band opened with the title track from their new album, "Disintegrate."
Dressed in jeans and a striped shirt, the band’s lead singer and guitarist Connor Hausman leaned into the microphone on his tiptoes, his floppy hair just long enough to get in his eyes as he sang in clear, husky tones.
Born in Terre Haute, Indiana, Hausman is anything but a mild-mannered Midwesterner. Actually, he’s an indisputable goof.
When people held up phones for pictures, he bugged his eyes and wiggled his brows. In between songs, he worked the crowd with funny bits.
"You remember, like, how weird it was during COVID when everybody was just isolated?" he recalled after finishing one of the band's new songs — a breakup number titled "Two Stars."
"I was single, and I was, like, isolated from everyone. And I went on a date — like two dates — and I was like, I’m [expletive] in love with the girl."
Of course he was. He hadn't seen another human in months. The crowd laughed, and the band launched into their next number.
Even the name of the band — Cassettiquette — is a funny origin story. In Hausman’s telling, it comes from the band’s original bass player, Hyatt Morrill.
"He had a cat named Cassette, and it was like the nicest cat," Hausman tells WFAE. "And we had a few drinks at his house. We were cooking dinner, and I had said something like, ‘Cassette has great etiquette.’ And he was like, ‘Cassettiquette. That’d be a great band name.’ And I was like, ‘Well, that’s our band name.’"
"There it is," adds Emma Freas, laughing.
Freas, a Charlotte native, plays the keyboard and sings backup in the band. She joined a few months before their first gig in October 2023, and said she was drawn in by Hausman’s writing.
"I remember the first time I heard his songs, they made me feel something," she said.
Five of those songs are on the band’s new album. Sonically, it’s like diving into a warm bath of sound and texture.
Hausman said he draws influence from alt-rockers like Band of Horses, The Strokes and Death Cab for Cutie. He was also lucky to have an alt-rocker for a dad.
"(My dad) played in different bands through my whole childhood," Hausman said. "So I kind of grew up going to little dive bars and listening to him play. And he was definitely in the alt-rock genre of the '90s."
Hausman’s onstage silliness belies more serious, reflective lyrics with themes of acceptance and letting go, like on the tracks "Two Stars" and "Bloom."
Another track titled “Just a Dream” draws inspiration from a note by Hausman’s grandmother. He says their relationship was sometimes strained. He discovered the note with his name written on it after her death.
"She had written, ‘The past is just a memory, and the future is just a dream,’ and I was like, ‘That’s pretty cool,’'" he said. "So that’s the chorus of that song. So we, kind of, in a weird way wrote it together."
Present in that track — and others — are thoughts on the passage of time. Unlike a cassette tape, you can’t hit rewind or fast forward on life, so it’s better to make peace and let the tape roll.
Cassettiquette’s debut album, “Disintegrate,” is out on most streaming platforms.
