College Station's Loudest: HEEL
by Grace Abdayem
A pop-up terminal named “HL-DOS .exe” welcomes me to the website of HEEL, a shoe-gaze band from College Station, Texas. Neon green text loads in with instructions to “[ press any key ]” and I oblige, clicking the first manilla folder icon titled “music.”
The subfolder “unreleased” piques my interest immediately. With a double-click, I explore the tab containing demos made during the creation of the band’s debut album Segmentation. Becoming overwhelmed by the vast mp3 catalogue, I decide to scroll to the very bottom, finding a place to start with the odd-file-out, “readme.txt.”
The message gives exposition to the recordings of random riffs, practice sessions, and live shows disguised under a haphazard song naming system.
“Don't expect greatness from every track but have fun digging around,” reads the humble offering from the band’s drummer Andres Gonzales.
He designed the entire website as a resource for HEEL fans looking to gain access to the band’s creative process. When making it, Gonzales drew inspiration from the well of his storied and continued history as a Weezer fan.
“Weezer was the first band I really liked, so I would just go on YouTube and dig for random Weezer demos that I liked, or random Weezer content,” he recalled. “Weezer is infamously not that great. But the one thing about Weezer is that Rivers Cuomo dumps like every single demo he's ever produced on the internet.”
HEEL photographed by @jonafilms62 on Instagram
The band’s mutual history as music acolytes grants them the ability to be sincerely in tune with the experience they share with their audience.
“Anytime I've liked a band, I go on YouTube and find some vlog that they did on a tour or something. That's always been more valuable to me than just the album,” said HEEL’s lead guitarist and vocalist Adharsh Rajavel. “Being able to find that and feel like I can have something more than just the music has always been cool to me.”
Rajavel’s tastes lie more in line with Buzz Osbourne’s fervent growl than Weezer’s quirky brand of alternative rock. The Melvins opened the first show he ever went to.
That night, he fell victim to a common error: forgetting his earplugs. He ended up missing the headliner, after the set left him temporarily deaf. Still, Rajavel did not feel disappointed in the slightest.
“Obviously that, you know, hurt my ears. But I thought it was cool, which influenced how loud we play. I think we're probably the loudest band in College Station,” he said.
All four members of HEEL share a proclivity for deafening music, attending a Ride concert early on in their friendship.
Bassist Nick Dienstbier and Rajavel first met as roommates during their freshman year at Texas A&M. The two bonded over a shared love for the t.v. show Psych. Rajavel, who began learning guitar just a couple months previous, tried convincing his roommate to start playing the drums or bass in hopes they could start a band.
“[Rajavel] wanted me to play drums, but we were living on the sixth floor of a bigger parking building,” said Dienstbier.
To his friend’s delight, Dienstbier picked up the bass over the summer break, citing a familial tie with his uncle, a fellow bassist. He proudly refers to himself as a “new-gen music head.” attending his first live music experience during his freshman year of college.
“[The show] was Narrow Head and it was amazing and very fun. I wanted to live that again,” he said.
The following semester, when Rajavel could describe Dienstbier’s playing as “a little bit good,” the two began looking “just anywhere” for a drummer.
Gonzales was the first person they asked, and he needed no convincing.
He played the drums as a kid but eventually stopped. When Rajavel and Dientsbier approached him at a party asking if he played drums, he decided—with ease—that it was time to get back into it.
The following summer, the three found Tayla Diza after the guitarist and vocalist responded to the ISO message they sent to the big Discord chat for the college radio organization at Texas A&M. All four members of HEEL participated in the organization, with Rajavel and Dienstbier hosting a radio show together.
Like Gonzales, Diza joining the band meant having to relearn their instrument after playing a lot in high school but eventually stopping.
The band played their first show together on January 24th, 2024. With shy laughs and looks askance, they recalled a mutual displeasure for their sound that night.
HEEL photographed by @jonafilms62 on Instagram
Gonzales admonished the set’s oversaturation with “typical local band” cover songs.
The “easy” songs quickly fell out of favor with the band, but they served the greater purpose of teaching them how to play together. Ultimately, their disappointment evolved into the catalyst for the creation of Segmentation.
As HEEL bloomed with the possibility of their newly acquired skillset, they set their ambitions on something simple and honest.
“We only thought we were gonna play in College Station… The goal was always to have music that sounds good live and that people enjoy hearing,” said Rajavel.
When he set to write new material over the summer, he did so with a clean slate.
“We had some songs before all the Segmentation songs, but I think we all knew that they were kind of bad. We played them at a show and it wasn't very good” said Rajavel.
The next semester, he returned with a collection of Garage Band demos for the rest of HEEL to fully realize. Together at last, they officially began recording in December 2024.
The band released Segmentation in January of this year. Although unexpected, the long production period fortified their ability to play together.
“At our album release show we were probably the tightest we’d ever been. It was nice,” said Rajavel.
Segmentation opens with an introduction that enraptures the listener with its slow unravel into an expansive soundscape. The track introduces us to the sweet harmony of Rajavel and Diza’s voices, floating in on what sounds like the waves of a spirit box.
HEEL photographed by @jonafilms62 on Instagram
The atmospheric production style continues to build throughout the album, showcasing HEEL’s imaginative and inventive ear. Vocals emerge through thick mists of gritty guitar and the prologue to a song sends us down the runway for takeoff into fuzzy galaxies.
Sonorous, ethereal clatters unwind to open the faraway love song “August.” Diza’s sweet vocal sears with desperation and doubt. Dienstbier’s solid and sturdy bass leads through the heavy ring of Rajavel’s guitar tone.
On their debut, the band demonstrates an impressive ability to write succinct and powerfully phrased lyrics. In Segmentation’s welcomed acoustic intermission “Some Other Memory,” Diza softly sings, “old summers, running through the rain/ Fairer weather won't ease your sense of pain.” Rajavel and Diza deliver the devastating chorus of “In My Way,” with the line “can't you stay in my way/ I can’t find another reason.”
“Our genre of music doesn't really put emphasis on the words at all. So it was crazy that people actually took the time to try to listen to the lyrics and sing it back to us,” said Rajavel.
The bonus track “JBM” exists exclusively on the Bandcamp release of Segmentation. The hard and raw guitar backdrops the symphony of melodic computer bleeps, resembling birds chirping in rounds. The song plants seeds for how HEEL’s sound will develop.
At the mention of the black sheep demo, the band erupted into excited laughter in the square containment of their video chat. With plans to acquire an MPC over the summer, the band's future forecast points to them incorporating more of these electronic elements.
HEEL never backs away from experimenting when creating music.
In the almost three years since HEEL started playing live, they watched the College Station scene grow into one with a standard of well-populated house shows.
“A lot of people are realizing that there's a good scene and cool shows to go to,” said Rajavel.
Although fiercely loyal to their home-base, HEEL does aspire to play outside of the lone star state.
“We really want to go on tour, it’s just hard with school,” Rajavel said.
With three members recently graduated, and self-proclaimed “super senior” Gonzales on the way, touring is no longer a faraway possibility.
Beyond College Station, HEEL ventured into Austin for a performance at Rio Market, a gas station known for putting on D.I.Y. shows. They played in a clearing between the aisles, surrounded by plastic yellow packages of sour patch kids crinkling together like windchimes.
“On a personal level, I love gas stations. I'm a big gas station fan. So it was an honor,” said Dienstbier.
Positioned in front of a tall refrigerator displaying the store’s vast selection of 20oz soda bottles with his drums, Gonzales felt differently about the space.
“It's just a bit anytime we're in Austin…oh, wow, this is so weird,” said the Houston native.
HEEL spent this summer separated, resulting in our Brady Bunch intro-esque call where Diza sat with their dog outside a gas station and Dienstbier rambled around an overwhelmingly pixelated but still jawdroppingly scenic trail.
The band returns for their first show at the end of this month. Gonzales will be glad to play in the completely normal city of Houston.