Troy and Paula Haag

Troy and Paula Haag are a Northern Virginia-based husband and wife, singer/songwriter duo that regularly perform in the Northern Virginia area. Their music is steeped in Americana, folk, country, and alternative pop. Contemporary, yet fully informed by the American and English folk rock heyday of the 1960s and 1970s, their sound is a characterized by delicate yet driving acoustic guitar, propulsive percussion and intimate vocal harmonies.
 
Troy, a native of Hawaii, began a musical upbringing by high school—picking up the drums, violin and guitar. Now days, Troy adds the bass, mandolin and harmonica to the repertoire. Paula, a native of South Carolina, began dabbling in music around the same time—mainly taking up the piano, guitar, clarinet, and various hand percussion instruments.
 
They began to seriously pursue music by recording a cover of the Jayhawk’s song “Trouble” for an official fan page tribute, Standing In The Wings. They also cover and provide many of the related yet non-musical duties, including audio engineering, arranging, songwriting, social media, photography, and other related roles.
 
Troy and Paula's music is a mixture of the traditional and the contemporary, favorite musicians include the Beatles, Richard & Linda Thompson, Bob Dylan, Pentangle, Neil Young, Nick Drake, Iron + Wine, Gillian Welch and Leonard Cohen. The combination of strong songwriting, live performances, and a strong bond as a husband & wife duo, provides an ideal connection for creating pieces of beautiful, sincere, and authentic music. Troy and Paula describe the music as “a mash up of folk, rock, & Cosmic American.”
 
Troy and Paula Haag released their first full-length album, The Century, in early 2012. The album was inspired by nature and informed by history. It is elemental songwriting; stripped down and basic with the song itself taking center stage. The ten-track album was recorded at Southern Gothic Studios in Nineveh, Virginia. The duo played all of instruments, sang all of the parts and covered all of the studio engineering and production.
 
This same DIY aesthetic was applied to their most recent album, Migrate, due out in April of 2015. Migrate consists of ten new original compositions; all written, performed, recorded and engineered at Southern Gothic Studio. Where The Centurywas purposely a sonically stripped down affair, Migrate finds the duo confidently stretching out in the studio and exploring a wider sonic palette.
 
The duo’s commitment to music stems from an innate ability to appreciate the people and places that have affected their lives in sometimes simple, but more often than not, very profound ways. According to one review, “the inherent ability to capture these moments in an engaging and musical manner is where Troy and Paula excel.”