Whoever said quality pop music is dead, well, for the most part, is right. But on February 20th at a sold-out Café 939, we witnessed a clear exception. Dear Havanah, a trio of Mike Blong, Colin Healy, and Dan Htoo-Levine hit Boston with a set of songs reminiscent of Matchbox 20 or Train with the improvisational energy comparable to the Dave Matthews Band or Blues Traveler. Backed by a keyboard player, a lead guitarist, and a two-man horn section, the band took their catchy, radio-friendly tunes to a whole new level and created something of a storm at Berklee’s cozy, student-run venue.

As the band is awaiting the release of their new album–which should be available this spring–they debuted a few of the new tracks from the release such as “The Rain” and “Ohio Sun.” The new selections seemed to stick with the band’s trend of catchy and soulful rock, but differed from their earlier originals by building upon their acoustic core and achieving greater, somewhat unfamiliar levels of energy. The girls who flocked to the front of the stage were able to sing along to familiar older tunes like “Bring Me Home,” creating a spirited atmosphere and, if that wasn’t enough, the band showed off their Berklee-bred improvisational skills during a cover of the Allman Brothers’ “Whipping Post” for their encore.

Dear Havanah did everything in their power to show that the heart of pop music still beats, drenching their infectious songs with tasty guitar licks, powerful horns, and rather impressive vocal solos.

I was able to catch up with the band before the show, and although these guys currently have a lot on their plate, good things are clearly on the horizon with the release of their upcoming album.

–Perry Eaton

Okay Dear Havanah, give me the rundown, who plays what?

Dan: I’m Dan, I play acoustic and electric guitar and I sing. I also play harmonica sometimes.

Mike: I’m Mike, I play drums and percussion and I sing backup vocals.

Colin: My name is Colin and I play bass.

How did you guys form?

D: It was kind of an accident, or a series of fortunate events. In 2007, I was just hanging out waiting for an ear-training class to start at Berklee and I met Mike. We just started bullshitting and three weeks later he was in the band. Me and Colin had originally formed the band, just kind of a rootsy guitar and bass thing.

M: I started playing with them in May of 2007 and a month later we recorded our first album. For shows, we play with some other dudes as well, but all of the songwriting basically comes from the three of us.

Cool, so where did the name Dear Havanah come from?

D: It came from a dream I had. I woke up after it and just pulled random letters out of the alphabet and got lucky.

So this is you first show headlining Café 939, have you guys had good experiences here in the past?

M: Yeah, last gig we played here, the show sold out. It was October 30th and we were opening for a guy named Jer Coons who was down from Vermont. That was kind of our time to prove that we could draw a crowd. It sold out and it was an awesome show, so they gave us this slot and let us put the bill together. This one’s close to selling out too.

Any other Boston venues you guys really like playing?

D: I think this place is our favorite.

M: Yeah, we love this room, but we’ve also played Harper’s Ferry, the Middle East, TT the Bear’s. We’ve played some great shows at those places. I was telling my friend earlier how much I dig this venue because it’s all ages, the sound is great, everyone is really nice, and it’s really accessible being right on Boylston because people like to hit up the bars and stuff before the show.

Any bands in particular you guys like to play with?

M: Well, it’s sort of been a recent thing for us, we’re trying to get this kind of community of bands together. I don’t know if there are a whole lot of bands in Boston that match our style.

D: We just haven’t, in our experience, come across many bands that sound a lot like we do. We just kind of have to go balls to the wall with marketing strategies on our own. We’re lucky enough to have Elise Hayes and Tom Howie with us tonight.

Any other cities you guys have enjoyed playing?

D: New York is always fun.

M: We’ve done Philly and Connecticut, also Middlebury, Vermont is a good spot. We went down to Ohio University and had a blast. One of the new tunes on the record is called “Ohio Sun” and that was just straight up inspired by that weekend.

What’s one record you guys have been really into lately?

C: Rage by Lettuce. I’m a bass player so I love that stuff.

M: The Rustic Overtones, A New Way Out. I fuckin’ love it.

D: And you fuckin’ stole it from my car.

M: Well, yeah, I put it on my computer, but that’s Ryan Zoidis’ band from Lettuce and Zoidis just came in and recorded some stuff for our new album.

D: A favorite record of mine is Drops of Jupiter by Train, that record changed my life.

C: Yeah, they’re ridiculous man. They’re a pop band on the radio, we went and saw them live a while ago and they’re amazing. They played “Going to California,” the Zeppelin tune, and they just nailed it.

As Berklee grads, did you find that Berklee was really competitive to get your band out there, or did you find that you were able to kind of play with each other and build off of each other?

D: Well, I think that’s one thing that Berklee needs to work on is building more of a community. It can be a bit of a cold environment.

C: I don’t think there are really as many bands as you think there might be at Berklee either. Everyone is sort of like playing with everyone. Very few people just go all in with one band. That’s what kind of made us different, we played exclusively with this band and we pushed it as well as we could. Starting a band takes a lot of effort, and if you don’t throw all of your stones in one basket, how do you expect to do something with it, you know what I mean?

M: There are some small communities that people form at Berklee, it’s not like it’s not happening, it’s just not happening as much as you might think.

The new record is produced by Alan Evans (Soulive), how did you guys wind up hooking up with him?

M: I was in an old band here when I first came to Boston, it was kind of like a funk band. The bass player of that band grew up with this guitar player who grew up in Amherst and was Alan’s studio assistant because Alan lives around there. I kind of made that connection there, through word of mouth and didn’t really use it for a couple of years. But then, when it came time to record the new album, we wanted to work with someone who was both objective and was also kind of a name, you know? So we hit him up one day and he was really stoked about it. We wound up going out to the studio and we showed him the tunes. We saved some money and started doing it. He brought in Nigel Hall on keyboards and the Shady horns (Ryan Zoidis and Sam Kininger) for a few tracks. Alan’s singing some backups and doing some percussion too.

How else has recording your new album been different than your previous recording experiences?

D: Oh man, there’s a long list, but this is the first time that I can say in my studio experiences that I’ve just been able to totally let go of the idea that I was in a studio and just relax and let whatever comes out come out. I haven’t over-analyzed or hang on to every note and worry about whether it sounds amazing or not, I just play the fuckin song.

M: When we recorded our first album, the studio we used was right for that time, but it was a traditional studio environment with a control room and an isolation booth and everything else. Alan’s studio (Playonbrother Studios) is just a big barn, and there’s no control room. He has a really unconventional style of recording and it’s extremely laid-back. We went out and lived there for a week, so it was just one of those experiences where by the end of the week, some really cool shit was going on.

Cool guys, well any other plans that Dear Havanah fans should know about?

D: Nothing urgent, just that we’re not breaking up and that we’re gonna keep making music. We’re really proud of this new record. It should be out this spring and I think a lot of people are really going to be shocked about just how different it sounds from our other stuff. Not in a bad way, but it is just a real stylistic change from our other stuff and I really dig it.

Sweet, well good luck tonight and good luck with the upcoming album!