Mark Waldoch Lifts His Craft to a New Level With The Hallelujah Ward

Milwaukee's Mark Waldoch chats about singing, songwriting and The Hallelujah Ward's new album 'Everybody Swoons.'

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Music Features

Milwaukee singer-songwriter and guitarist Mark Waldoch admits that every little thing he does on guitar he “had to fight for. I think I have to practice twice as much as most people to retain and keep what I'm able to do,” says Waldoch. “I can do stuff, but it's taken me a lifetime to get any good at it.”

At the same time, singing always came easier for him, thanks in part to having a bigger, commanding voice. “I definitely always had a little bit of a knack for creating melody, but that's the people I listened to when I was younger,” he says. “I always played guitar, but I always tried to sing before any of that.”

It’s been an important asset for the singer, now in his 50s, with 25 years of experience in music. He’s performed solo and with bands such as Polite, Islands, The Mustn'ts and Celebrated Workingman. He’s also headlined many shows and opened for groups such as Bright Eyes, Arcade Fire and Interpol.

Lately, he’s found it significantly more challenging to start a new band with everyone’s life commitments, saying that it “sucks to start from square one.” That hasn’t deterred him, and he’s excited to share his new band The Hallelujah Ward, which features drummer Dan Didier (Maritime, The Promise Ring) and bassist Paul Hancock (Testa Rosa). After a handful of years of trying to form a band and following the release last year of their debut EP I Forced Myself to Live, Charlie Bee —the group is releasing their debut album Everybody Swoons on May 30 digitally and on limited-edition vinyl via Foreign Leisure Records.

Album Release

They’ll celebrate the release with an all-age show June 6 at Cactus Club with opener Caley Conway. The band is also performing at Summer Solstice, North Avenue Block Party and the Shitty Barn in Spring Green.

Initially, The Halleluiah Ward was the moniker Waldoch used for the solo compositions he was creating. However, when Didier approached him about playing drums, the idea to grow it into something more began fermenting. Didier hadn’t played drums in a band since Maritime had ended, so there was pent up interest in playing in a band again. Waldoch rounded out the group with friend and coworker James Sauer.

However, a series of roadblocks—Covid, Waldoch getting carpal tunnel surgery on both his wrists, Didier breaking his collarbone, James moving out of state—put a swift end to that initial version of the group. The next bassist, Jason Todd, didn’t last much longer before having to focus on his business.

Since the group had already booked a show at the Brady Street Festival in August 2022, Waldoch decided to play solo. It was there where he ran into his long-time bandmate and best friend Paul Hancock, who had come to see him play. After Hancock, who was in Polite with Waldoch back in the ‘90s, offered to help with his set and gear, they started discussing playing together. Hancock joined the group for an already booked October show and the band began to find its footing.

Masterful Level

“Just watching them play is joy for me,” says Waldoch. “Dan is such an amazing percussionist. He'll lose grip of a stick and then grab it again, push his glasses up and not miss a beat. His ability is on a masterful level and to be a part of that, it's an honor. Paul is the same way.

“Paul has been a master of melody and has complimented me as a songwriter for half our lives,” he continues. “He’s able to come to what I need and make it better and make it make sense and put it together. I'll have a structure, but his ability for picking melody is what puts it together.”

Waldoch says that the trio works because their “individual personalities as musicians still get to be seen, but together we make a very unique version of a modern indie rock band.” Listeners can hear one song and then the next and won’t be able to say, “this sounds like this band or thing, and this sounds like this.”

Modern Artsy Moments

He says they have some “modern artsy moments” and delicate moments but “with the emphasis on memorable melody.”

In 2023, they began tracking the songs for Everybody Swoons with the help of Kevin Dixon, who plays in the local band Brief Candles. They worked on it every other Tuesday for about a year, due to everyone’s work schedules.

“I mean, that's what happens when you get older,” says Waldoch. “It's just a matter of you do it when you have the time when you can make it. We just try to do what when we can, but it brings a lot of joy and a lot of happiness,” he continues. “Not just to the people playing, but honestly to a lot of people that come out to see it.”

Songwriting Therapy

Waldoch has always enjoyed words and lyrics and how they fit together musically. He came up with the album’s title before he knew it was going to be connected to the release. He even put it on a guitar strap. When it came to naming the album, he almost picked Death Swooned because many songs are about people he knows who have died.

For example, he wrote “The Ring of Brightest Angels, Around Heaven” about his friend and former roommate Tom Behrendt who committed suicide.

“We think he was an undiagnosed schizophrenic. He committed suicide near his job near Central Park in New York years ago,” says Waldoch. “It took me ten years to put that to bed, and I found a way to do that with the songs.”

“I've always tried to but never could until these songs came out. A lot of these songs are emotionally charged. They started as ideas about a person and feelings about them, and it sort of grew into something else.”

The album also delves into Waldoch’s own mental health struggles. After Frightened Rabbit's singer and guitarist Scott Hutchison committed suicide in 2018, Waldoch started writing album opener “Your Uncertain Shadow” just before his 44th birthday. He acknowledged his own depression, anxiety, and thoughts of suicide.

“It’s about my own feelings and my own depression, clinical depression and bipolar, depressive, not manic, but thoughts of suicide, things like that,” he says. “This song sort of pushed that along and helped me.”

Singing Physically

For Waldoch, the album’s songs are deeply therapeutic to perform and sing. The physical part of singing is easily one of his favorite things.

“You can see it when I play,” he says. “People have been drawn to me because they can see the exuberance just pour out of me. Whether it's sadness or anger or happiness or anything. I'm not afraid to talk about my feelings in a direct way. That's not necessarily easy for a lot of people.

“The reason why I started doing music at all was the feeling that I got when I was very young that made me feel connected to the world. The only goal has ever been to provide that feeling for someone else. That's probably the best reward as a human being, to know that you are connecting on that level with someone else.”