Photo credit Laura Schneider
A conversation about touring, storytelling, chemistry, and the mythic heartbeat of a nation.
Americana duo Haunted Like Human—the Nashville-rooted project of Dale and Cody—have spent years carving their own lane in the ever-evolving American folk landscape. Their new album, American Mythology, is a sweeping, textured, deeply human mosaic of stories gathered from the road, from memory, and from the corners of the country most people never look twice at.
Fresh off a run of shows through the Northeast—new territory for the pair—we caught up with Haunted Like Human for what became one of the most fluid, heartfelt conversations we’ve had in years. Between a cozy room, a traveling dog named Juniper, and a duo who speak like born storytellers, the interview unfurled into something intimate and revealing: a meditation on place, partnership, and the legacy of stories we carry.
“We’re storytellers first. Everything starts with the story.”
MUNDANE: You’re on tour right now, and it’s your first time in the Northeast. What’s the vibe out there? How are people responding?
HAUNTED LIKE HUMAN:
It’s been exciting—and honestly a little scary. We’ve played most of the country, but New England and the Northeast were still blank spots on our map. New markets can be unpredictable: you don’t know what the crowd will be like, you don’t know the local scene, and sometimes you don’t know if anyone will show up.
Crowds have been thinner than we’d hoped, but that’s a conversation happening everywhere right now. People aren’t buying tickets; small venues are closing across the country. It’s affecting artists at every level. But the people who do come out? They’ve been incredible—really engaged, buying merch, singing along to songs that technically aren’t even released yet because they backed our Kickstarter and already have the early download. That’s been surreal.
We’ve played about six shows so far, including tonight, and have three more on the way back. It’s been a blast exploring a region that’s new to both of us.
Strongholds, hometowns, and the geography of fandom
MUNDANE: What parts of the country feel like home for you, musically speaking?
HLH: The South and Midwest have been our strongest markets—Indianapolis, Columbus, Atlanta. Being Nashville-based, it’s easy to tour in bubbles outward in both directions. Atlanta especially is like a hometown show for us. We’ve played those regions again and again, so that’s where the foundation is.
But we’ve been intentional about expanding into new territories these last couple years, especially post-COVID. Everything about touring changed after 2020, so we’ve been rebuilding—slowly, thoughtfully.
Inside American Mythology: “Not a concept album, but full of concepts.”
MUNDANE: For readers discovering you for the first time, what’s the story behind the new record?
DALE: We’re storytellers first. Every song begins with a story we’re trying to tell. Our previous albums were steeped in that tradition—Ghost Stories, Folklore, Tall Tales and Fables—and after finishing Tall Tales, Cody pitched the name American Mythology.
We sat with that title for years. Touring the country, gathering stories, watching landscapes change—it all started clicking into place. The record is not a concept album, but it’s full of concepts: regional stories, unspoken histories, moments of myth, universal emotional truths, and these micro-feelings that only exist in very specific places.
There’s the literal side—American history, including the parts we were never taught, like in “Growing Pains.” And then there’s the mythic side—pulling from Greek mythology, from timeless archetypes, from the stories that shape us subconsciously.
CODY: We also wanted to zoom out from our Appalachian core sound—still rooted in it, because that’s home, but aiming for a more panoramic Americana vibe. American Mythology became the framework everything could rally around.
“Family Name” and the songs closest to their hearts
MUNDANE: Is there one track on the record that feels especially representative?
CODY: “Family Name,” for sure. It’s about the complicated inheritance of where you come from—the good and the bad—and how much of your identity is shaped by that. Lyrically, it’s one of our favorites. And musically, it almost wrote itself.
DALE: We’ve got 14 babies on this record, but yeah, “Family Name” feels like the heartbeat.
Origin story: “We’d known each other for three days.”
MUNDANE: I love asking duos how they knew the partnership would work. How did you know you were meant to create together?
DALE: We’d known each other for all of three days when we wrote together for the first time. I had never co-written before—I agreed mostly to force myself out of my comfort zone and didn’t think it would actually happen.
The first hour was awkward. I was terrified, throwing out tiny idea fragments. But after we figured out how to talk to each other creatively, everything clicked. We were writing the bridge and both had the exact same idea at the exact same time. It was this moment of, “Oh. This works.”
CODY: We’d both written with other people, and when it’s right, you know immediately. The writing flowed. The chemistry was easy. Within two weeks, we went from “let’s write a song” to “we’re a band” and I moved to Nashville.
Naming the band: the weight of being human
MUNDANE: How did the name Haunted Like Human come about?
HLH: We were brainstorming over Zoom while Cody was still in Washington State. We had some writer’s rounds booked and needed a name fast. We kept circling the same themes: shared human experiences, memory, connection, the universal feeling of being haunted by your past—by the good, the bad, and everything in between.
Cody said “Haunted Like Human,” and Dale immediately felt it hit in the chest. It carried weight. It felt true. And it aligned perfectly with the stories we wanted to tell.
The next chapter: sparks on the road
MUNDANE: Are you already collecting stories and ideas for whatever comes next?
DALE: Releasing a record independently is emotionally exhausting. Afterward, there’s always this incubation period where we just need to rest and recover. But lately, the spark has returned sooner than expected. I’m feeling ideas again, but we’re on the road so much that I don’t have the bandwidth to write them down.
Traveling through New England has been inspiring in ways I didn’t anticipate. The history, the landscapes, the architecture—it’s different, but it feels familiar. Appalachia is home and always will be, but there’s something really special about this region too.
CODY: Driving through all these places, the ideas naturally start forming. Even if we can’t write them yet, they’re gathering.
DALE: The seeds are there. We just need time to let them grow.
A duo built on story, soul, and unmistakable chemistry
Speaking with Haunted Like Human feels like sitting around a fire with two gifted storytellers who were somehow destined to find one another. Their partnership is seamless. Their language is poetic without pretense. Their relationship to place, history, and myth is textured and thoughtful.
And American Mythology—their most ambitious record yet—isn’t just a collection of songs. It’s a living document of an America both real and imagined, broken and beautiful, past and present. An emotional atlas of the places, people, and ghosts that shape us.
This interview was one of the easiest, most heartfelt we’ve had in years—and if the creative spark they’re feeling right now is any indication, the next chapter is already brewing.
