The Art of Longevity Season 8, Episode 2: Half Moon Run

I had invited Half Moon Run onto the podcast after first hearing Salt - imploring their BMG PR to arrange it as a matter of priority. 

Speaking with Dylan Phillips was an insight behind the creative process of the (decades long) making of one of my favourite records in ages. Also, I had never spoken to a drummer who is simultaneously a keyboard player, but that is part of the modus operandi of Half Moon Run - a continual swapping out switching up of instruments between the band’s three members, Phillips, Devon Portielje (also lead vocals) and Conner Molander. 

Half Moon Run was formed over a decade ago, originally as a four piece (with Isaac Symonds). The band’s 2012 debut album Dark Eyes was a well received and exciting addition to the indie-rock canon. But now four albums into their 14 year career, their 2023 release Salt really is something else. It is the sound of a band finding a different level. The band itself knows it too:

“It’s the first time we felt unanimously that we were fully happy with the work we did on a record”.

So how does a band with no hits to speak of (Full Circle is the nearest thing, approaching 50M streams on Spotify), albums that don’t chart and a virtually unrecognisable name make a viable living after a decade in the game? Being brilliant appears to be the answer, mostly. Work as hard on your songs and performance as Half Moon Run does, and enough fans will follow you to the ends of the earth. Or at least from city to city. 

Making an excellent album certainly helps. Salt is the complete work, a perfect album - as close as this band has come to a masterpiece, even if it will not chart or feature on many (if any?) critics best of lists. 

“We had done this little project called the 1969 Collective, with Connor Sidell and we called him to see if he was interested in making a new full length record. He was, so we put all cards on the table - opened the books on everything we’ve ever done. Even if we’d failed with some of the songs before, maybe we could succeed this time around. We went from 80s songs to 24 and then brought it down to 11 songs for the album. A lot of the songs were a gift from ourselves, songs we’d had been trying out for a long time”. 

So, once a special record has been made - surely it deserves a wider audience? Or, as I prefer to say about Salt - lot’s of people deserve to hear this record. Is the band itself happy with their modest level of success?

“I’m super grateful that we are making this work. It’s tough though, especially when it’s hard to make a tour just about break even. When you want to make a good production of it”. 

Perhaps Half Moon Run will keep running purely on the strength and passion of the band’s existing fanbase. It’s those fans that are frustrated about the band’s relative lack of recognition. It isn’t enough to just make it out of Canada (a theme that may emerge in the current season of TAoL if you follow the podcast episodes). But that is the modern music industry. The very best music doesn’t always naturally rise to the top. 

Salt may not be on the 2023 ‘best of’ lists simply because the compilers of those lists will have missed it in the glut of music albums that come week-on-week. Yet It stands up as a modern indie-pop/rock classic by a band with real promise. 

(full write up on https://www.songsommelier.com/)

Transcript

Dylan Phillips, Half Moon Run: 2:23

I'm great. I'm on a day off in Utrecht right now. Yeah,

Keith Jopling: 2:28

you're between dates on the European tour. So where were you yesterday? Where will you be tomorrow?

Unknown: 2:34

Yeah, we were in Nijmegen yesterday, if I'm pronouncing it correctly. And then tomorrow, we are playing in new tracks and a beautiful venue called to boldly Brandenburg, which we're very much looking forward to. But we just got a few more left on this tour, and the Netherlands and then we're going home.

Keith Jopling: 2:51

Do you finish in Berlin?

Unknown: 2:54

We finished in masterlist.

Keith Jopling: 2:55

Okay,

Unknown: 2:56

we played Berlin a few days ago, I think all right.

Keith Jopling: 2:59

I was trying to get out to Berlin to see you. I just couldn't make it work. And that's why I thought maybe I still had time.

Unknown: 3:07

Yeah, the Berlin show was, it was incredible. There's something about Berlin crowds, they just they wouldn't even let us leave the stage. They were, they were crazy for it.

Keith Jopling: 3:17

Okay, I want to maybe tap into that a little bit, because I was at the London show. But first of all, tell me how of the European shows been going down?

Unknown: 3:25

Yeah, really couldn't hope for it to be any better, actually, you know, always a little nervous before going out on big tours, especially after the pandemic, you know, kind of got used to a different lifestyle in a way. A lot of the work we were doing for a long time was being creative and writing music and getting in studio and, you know, little projects here and there. But in terms of the long haul on the road, we haven't done that for a long time. So we were all like, Okay, we're going back to this, this is what we want to do, we've done this before, but it still kind of felt it felt new again. And being a trio again, was kind of a new dimension to it.

Keith Jopling: 4:01

It's a great point, because to some extent, all bands are both recovering from the pandemic and and not being able to do what you love to do, but also going into a very different environment. Right? I mean, making just making a ton of work, right? It's harder than it was before the pandemic.

Unknown: 4:20

Definitely yeah, it's it's tricky, you know, looking at the, just the fundamentals of the whole thing, like you know, tour buses cost twice as much as they did before venue rental fees have gone up. I was reading some crazy stats were like, half of technicians like the touring crew have have left the business at least that was that was true in Canada, which makes them a lot harder to find. You know, and then agents are saying ticket prices have to go down a bit economic situation is tough out there. If you want to fill up the venues then it's tricky. You know, all of those things that are kind of working against you, but it really makes it feel that much better when we come to Europe and see that no way we can still make this work. And, you know, it really feels like a special connection with the crowd as well. Like we're all sharing something here.

Keith Jopling: 5:08

Well, look, I gotta say this because I go to a few shows, so you know, maybe a couple of times a week, and you know, when a show is special. So recently, I was at Kentish town Forum, which in London, which is one of my favorite venues there, too. So it's an it's another nice venue, which we'll talk about in a second, because you're on a nice circuit in a way, there was something about the atmosphere there. I remember at the end of the show, the audience just was still standing there. It's like, almost like they were they were waiting for you to come back on after the Encore, or they were just stunned. And there was a really special feeling just being down there on the floor. It was there. So how are you feeling that onstage?

Unknown: 5:54

I mean, it's a good question. Usually the way that you feel it as well, while you're playing. And especially when we're playing new songs to hear people singing along with new song, that's always a moment because even in previous records, you know, even with songs that have done well before, kind of their first time on the road, even if people are enjoying them, they're kind of like experiencing it somewhat for the first time. We're not to the point of of singing along to verses and things like that. But I remember in I think London, specifically noticing how well Alko went over. And that people were singing along to that one. And I thought, wow, that's That's fast. That's fast. And I thought, Okay, this is probably a good sign. But yeah,

Keith Jopling: 6:36

I guess that is a special feeling when the crowd is singing the new songs and as you say, the verses as well, because then you know, right, because otherwise, how do you know with new stuff these days, if it's landed, unless you got to number one in the charts? And even even then,

Unknown: 6:53

yeah, it's it's it's a tough one to gauge gauge the crowd interest in things are going well. And every new album you do, there's always a fear that did we miss on this one or not? You know, even if you love it yourself, you know, you can never expect that everybody else is going to feel the same way. And, you know, you always hope that people are gonna latch on to stuff in

Keith Jopling: 7:14

Kentish town, of course, you had the string quartet, was that the only show with a string quartet? Was that something that you could only kind of make happen in London? Yeah,

Unknown: 7:24

that was, it was unfortunately the only show. But it was a very special show. And we were really happy to have those girls with us. But we just simply couldn't afford to have a string quartet on the whole tour. But ideally, in the future, we could a lot of songs use strings. And we're used to working with the same string quartet at home that we've worked with for about a decade now. And I think strings make up a great, it's kind of a great enhancement to what we're doing already as a trio.

Keith Jopling: 7:52

Yeah, and of course, for the songs on salt, which have many of I think most of them have string arrangements. It was just really, really great to hear. I've got to tell you, though, that after that show, I kind of changed my plans around I saw you were playing in Manchester, and you couldn't get to Europe, but I could get on a train to Manchester. So I did that on the following weekend. So you play the Albert Hall, which is another Yeah, stunning venue. Yeah, took a friend along actually ended up taking three friends along to that gig. And about a third of the way through the show. I remembered that you didn't have the string quartet. So you know, it was a nice embellishment to what you do, but you don't need it there to make that sound, which is pretty incredible.

Unknown: 8:40

Yeah, I mean, we try and we try to write the music in such a way that that really kind of underscores the, you know, the trio that we are and then the way we lean on each other musically and otherwise and in terms of the arrangements and stuff and then so we try and write it in that way. So we're not dependent on external musicians for like human you wouldn't write elite aren't necessarily for external musicians, but at the same time to sample some string stuff and play it myself and the keyboards when we don't have a quartet than that I've just got I've got more stuff to do and the keyboards that I'm arguing

Keith Jopling: 9:18

Yeah, I guess it was it was nice to not have to do all the all the extra stuff. But it was interesting as well in in the audiences because I was trying to gauge you know how many people there were really hardcore fans, I think it was maybe the majority, but they'd all brought friends along. So they're all kind of probably just trying to, you know, introduce more fans to you as a band. So, the fans know that you're multi instrumentalist, and you swap out and stuff like that, which is very exciting. It's always exciting to see that. But I think it was the people that didn't expect that, that were, you know, the most surprised and delighted. And also for yourself, you know, you're drumming at the back and you're playing keyboards. Well, you don't see that very We often that's not the same time.

Unknown: 10:02

Yeah, it was. I'm not even really sure how it all began, I guess, like I have grown up playing piano my whole life. So keyboards have been something familiar to me my whole life. And I didn't really start playing drums until this band. But when this band started in 2009, I was doing kind of just for fun, it was a, you know, let's meet once or twice a week and just have a couple of years and have some fun. And I was still in school for piano at the time. So while playing the drums in this band, there was a, you know, we didn't even have a bass player at the time. And I just reach over and there was, you know, an electric keyboard in the practice space. And I would reach over and hit some low note. Sometimes they'd be like, Oh, that's nice. You know, you should do that from time to time. That's, that's cool.

Keith Jopling: 10:47

On your blog page, right there on Wikipedia, it says, so when you form the band together with Connor, and then you put this out on Craigslist for a bassist. And then, you know, Devin applied to the ad and couldn't play the bass, but could play everything else. So to some extent, is part of the half moon run story, isn't it?

Unknown: 11:06

For sure. Yeah. I'm not sure if we had a bassist in those early days, maybe I would have just been pigeonholed into my role as a drummer and never to have touched a keyboard in this group again, but I'm glad that I do.

Keith Jopling: 11:19

The art of longevity is presented with Bowers and Wilkins, the revered British Premium Audio brands, Bowers and Wilkins make some of the world's finest audio products from the iconic 800 series loudspeakers trusted by Abbey Road Studios for over 40 years to the flagship px eight wireless headphones. This is music as the artist intended you to hear it. I have to ask just, you know, talking to musicians all the time and being in in the business and a knowing that when you see a show, like you put on, it's not just that you're multi instrumental, talented group you it's perspiration too. So how much of those shows is work rehearsal wise? And also sound wise? How do you just pull that off from perspective of the sound?

Unknown: 12:10

Yeah, I mean, it was it was huge for this. For this album for the for the self tracks that we added to the show, it was a really big process. And also beyond that, becoming a trio again. But having two albums worth of material that we're done is a four piece and kind of rethinking how we can possibly make those work as well. And so to begin with, we kind of made sort of this mega setlist of every song, we think that we'd like to play, you know, leaving off the ones we're like, oh, maybe, maybe that's a that's a song from the past. And we don't want to do that one anymore. So kind of limited the list in a way. And then I just started making a list going through it myself, each by each song, creating a checklist of all the different problems involved. It's like, there are two drum sets. So that's a problem. How are we going to make this beat work with just one drummer? And so I could try and solve that, but then also look at how many other parts are going on in here? How many can I achieve on my own? Can I play bass and that pad part at the same time? If not, what's the challenge? Can I rearrange the keyboard to make it fit in my hand better, you know, like, I do all sorts of tricks with MIDI to make it fit into my hands. Because normally like if you want to if you want to hold tents or play a triad chord, while playing a baseline, like it's a little too much stretch for your fingers. But I can reprogram the, I call them buttons. They're not just keys on a keyboard, I called some professional professional button pushers sometimes. So I'll take you know, I'll take one button on the keyboard and I'll turn it into a pad. And now that's you know, that's that's one triad. And if the chord changes, I move it to a different button. And that's a new triad. And so all that to say it's kind of like you solve one little problem at a time. And every time you solve a little problem you inch towards being able to actually play the thing. And I'll do a lot of that work myself beforehand. And I know Devin Connor are also working on their own sounds in their own way. And then after a certain amount of time, we say okay, let's, let's, let's try it out. Let's have a practice. Let's go for it. And then we'll we'll have a list. Sometimes it's just two or three that we work on in a day, and then really put in the time to try and see if it works. And often even though I did some good work, it just doesn't sound right for some reason. And then it's like why doesn't it sound right? Let's try it again. I'll come back with some new bass sounds next time or let's let's adjust this, adjust that. And for a long time, it felt like some of these were like, on the edge of impossible in a way. And it really took it took a long time to inch things to where they needed to be. But I'm really happy with how it turned out.

Keith Jopling: 14:44

It's really interesting hearing you describe that because after all of the planning and the problem solving individually, you then have to just practice and rehearse and it does feel like a lot to pull some of those songs off. I think you mentioned at the London show. Maybe it was Alka was one song You said you've been trying to get live for a while?

Unknown: 15:04

Well, yeah, there were a couple of them. Alko was was one of them has been around for a long time. But we've been trying to get that one on record as well. You know, it's been around for a long time and just didn't quite hit its stride. It's kind of this delicate balance of, kind of, you know, it almost has that traditional folk sound to it, but mixed with the electronic elements, mixed with kind of a strange arrangement. You know, the kind of the sections that are all uniquely their own, that don't necessarily repeat, it was really hard to thread the whole thing together. But then the live aspect to was, it was tough. I'm playing handclaps in my heel, well, I've got I've got several buttons with my feet that, you know, when my hands are both occupied, my feet have multiple roles to do as well.

Keith Jopling: 15:49

But then you get the payoff. The crowd is singing the song back. So

Unknown: 15:53

yeah, well, that's really it's a nice payoff. Because, you know, sometimes we might think that the dogs working but you know, it's possible that they it just doesn't communicate. Yeah,

Keith Jopling: 16:04

there's some elements of the sound as well, that were unusual to me. So just one example would be some of Connors guitar solos in various songs, but you know, usually, you kind of see the whoever's going to play the solo kind of limber up. And, you know, sound man just cranks it up in the mix a little bit. And that's how you get to hear it. But it was different. It was like this. It wasn't more of an ambient sound. And so I'm just wondering, like, Do you have a sound team that you take with you? How do you work with each individual venue? To get that sound? Right?

Unknown: 16:40

Well, just in terms of sound, I mean, we our sound guy, Ben Falco has been with us for a decade. And he is he's a master of sound, really, and he can work with any type sound system, you know, he's obviously he prefers a really nice PA and a really good room. But he's also a master of damage control, which is the words that he uses. And, you know, sometimes there's often damage control to happen. If you're in a big room with lots of echo. It's gonna be tough for feedback. And for clarity in there, there are all these different tricks that he uses in ways to try and get the sound clear and, and forward. Well,

Keith Jopling: 17:20

hats off to Dan, it's always good to give a shout out to the sound band, but it makes sense that he's been working with you for that long because I just thinking that, okay, this takes work, you know, this just doesn't happen where you show up and do a couple of sound checks and get to this level. Okay, so you're playing some nice venues. So when you get to a new city, and you check out the venue and stuff, how do you orientate to that venue? What's your routine, if you like?

Unknown: 17:49

Well, in Europe, it's been really nice, because on this side of the ocean, often there are beautiful catering and backstage setups that at the venues, the same, unfortunately isn't necessarily true on the other side of the ocean. But we're touring in a bus over here with a crew and also the opening band flight on a bus and when we arrive in a new city, might have a few hours before they open the door to the venue. And then it's usually a nice time to do your morning walk, go see the city, find a nice coffee, find a park somewhere, just kind of slowly wake up and get the caffeine in you and then get to the venue and take showers and get ready to start soundcheck kind of a rinse and repeat. Yeah,

Keith Jopling: 18:31

okay. So the venue in particular, like any particular setup, that you are a way that you know, you've got to play to get the most from a venue.

Unknown: 18:41

Often, it's not necessarily a question of the way the venue is as much as the way the crowd it's and sometimes there's they're very different responses, which is interesting. I think in the past, we maybe were a little afraid of it, especially a crowd that's more quiet, when you get used to people screaming along to everything all the time. And then you get to a city where there might be a lot of people but they're all very quiet and attentive. The temptation is to think that, is there something wrong with us? Are we are we doing something wrong here? Is it not coming across? Do they not like us. But I think we've come to learn that there are a lot of cultural differences across different places in Europe. And some places we go back to people are always very sensitive when we go there. Often venues in France are like that. When we play in Belgium, crowds are very quiet. But it's fun, it's fun to play kind of with a different spirit in that sense. And like really play with dynamics with crowds that quiet it means you can get down really quiet with your own dynamics and almost to a pindrop level. So you can really play with the range. So then in contrast to the big moments that get explosive like you can go even more explosive, because there's just there's just so much more of a range going on. But you know, in the louder venues when people are screaming along like that's just it's a feedback loop of electricity and, you know, that's it's a different type of energy. What

Keith Jopling: 20:00

are you expecting? When you get back across the water? You know, having started the tour, if you like in Europe, what are you looking forward to most about back to the US and in your home country, Canada?

Unknown: 20:12

Well, it's gonna be a lot of fun to play, we're playing some legendary venues in Canada. And that's going to be, it's gonna be a lot of fun, especially after having all this practice in Europe, and feeling really confident, both with ourselves and our ability to put on a good show, you know, making micro setlist adjustments here and there finding out when certain songs work better than others, you know, some interchangeable things, but we have the general shape and flow of the whole show. And we know how to play the songs well. And it's going to be great to show that on some of these stages in Canada, for sure, the US is going to be smaller venues. But it'll be fun to go back there, too.

Keith Jopling: 20:52

Let's talk about salt for a moment. Honestly, it's the best thing I've heard in ages. It really is. Well, I discovered it late. It was sometime in the summer, I was away on a break with my wife. And we were just having a lazy afternoon in the hotel, I just and this thing just popped up on Spotify, because I knew your first album a bit, but then I'd lost touch in between, which may be I think, you know, not uncommon for a lot of people with the band, I just knew there was something about it. And then I've played it pretty much nonstop. So just talk me through some of how this piece of work was created. Because I've been reading a lot about it. And there's a narrative around, you know, some of the songs are 10 years old. And you obviously went from four to three, between the last album and salt. Just talk me through the process of how the album came about from from the firsthand.

Unknown: 21:46

Well, it was quite a process. And we didn't really know what it was going to look like in the beginning. You know, during the pandemic we had, we had those two week pieces that came out, the first one seasons changed was I had kind of a collection of shrapnel leftover from a blemish in the great light. And then when we did inwards and onwards that was kind of our own attempt at producing and doing everything ourselves, which was we're very proud of that effort. But still, after that, we felt like we could use some some help here. So in going into the next writing process to say, Okay, we want to do our port full light studio record. Now, how do we want to do it, we really wanted some some help, we had done this little project called the 1969 Collective, which our song fatal line have been on that. And that was a project of Connor Seidel, who ended up becoming our producer. But that was our first time meeting. Connor Seidel was his project, he invited us to write a song for it. And it turned out exceptionally well, our experience of being in studio with him was as good as it could be made us feel super relaxed, but his choice in tones and sounds and just philosophy of recording and things like that it just really lined up. We felt like we could just show up and be musicians and talk about arrangement and fun things and just get in there and record. So after that, we thought, okay, let's, let's call him up and see if he's interested in producing our fourth record, then he was super down. It was like I'm all in, let's do this, let's make the best possible thing we can do. Let's go from A to Z, everything we can possibly think of let's put all cards on the table. Let's let's figure this out. And one of the ideas for putting all the cards on the table was to literally put all songs we've ever recorded on the table and say, Well, is this any good? Is this worth thinking about? We had, of course, our list of all the new stuff we've been working on. And in our minds, we kind of thought like, we might have a couple things. But let's mainly focus on all this new material we have. And it just kind of turned into this thing where we opened the books on everything we've ever done. And in that process kind of realized that we'd written a lot of great things in the past that just because we failed that doing them before, it doesn't mean we'll fail this time. And maybe that we have some new perspective on it now and they're, you know, they might have a chance of success. And you won't know until you try it. And so we did demos on so many things. I think we read it demos on a boat at tracks total. And from that list of 80 tracks that we then we then start you made a huge spreadsheet, you know, with all our boats, you know, check marks and x's and all that stuff and notes what potential something has what needs to be changed. There's a massive list and we just slowly went through the whole thing and whittled it down to a list of 24 that we fully recorded in studio and went for it. And then from the from that 24 Then we again brought it back down to 11 songs that became the final album. But that process of going through all that old music it was it was actually kind of exciting and in some weighs like some of this hold music felt like a gift from our past selves to our current selves. And we were kind of shocked in some cases like the dodge the rubble, we're like, why did we never put that on a record? Like, it's a great song. And, and the it was actually one of the first three songs we ever did. At the very first show we ever played at the bar fly in Montreal, we I think we have 21 gun salute and dodge the rebel than full circle, I think, like those were the first three songs we ever had. Wow.

Keith Jopling: 25:31

Okay, so in a way, then this is exciting for fans to know that you got from 24 to 11. So do you have a plan for the others?

Unknown: 25:40

We do have a plan. They're not all necessarily imminent ideas. But in some cases, the songs are, you know, similar to previous records were like, you know, Alko didn't quite make the cut this time. Like, maybe it's something to save for future records. When we try to gather something, there's there's going to be some of that going on. But we certainly have songs and ideas that are out there, whether or not we use the recordings. We did those kind of questions for the future. But we are actively thinking about ways to do things with the things, the other stuff from that session. It's

Keith Jopling: 26:14

very on trend. You know, you can understand why in this day and age, we have to keep putting out music, you know, you can't leave it two or three years between albums. You know, I know you have done that, from time to time, but it seems to be a trend at the moment where you get a record. I'm thinking of the national, for example, recently, and then six months later, you get another one. I think metric are your Canadian siblings. fellow Canadians are about to do the same thing. And yeah, I think it's, I think it's a good idea. So yeah, make another Yeah,

Unknown: 26:50

every every time we do a recording for the session, we should just make sure we record 80 songs every time. So we have, we have a lot of material, which is

Keith Jopling: 27:00

thanks for listening to the art of longevity, I hope you're enjoying the conversation so far. Please take a moment to rate the show, leave a review on Apple podcasts if that's where you're listening and do spread the word. Also, you can sign up via the songs familia web page for our newsletter, artwork, and much more. Back to the conversation. So as you describe that process, which were the songs that came together, first for the record, and which came fell into place later.

Unknown: 27:32

That's a good question. You mean, like while we were recording it? Yeah. That's, that's funny, I actually can't remember like what we started with or what we finished with, it's like the, but what I do remember is that when we did get into record, it went surprisingly fast. And that was something that was starkly different to previous recording sessions that we've done in the past, where like they are kind of expectation is that it takes so long to get the right drum sound or the right this sound or find the right chain or you know, like getting those sort of pre mixes together before you actually hit record and start playing the tune. It's like times, you might spend a day on getting a drum sound or something. And we always thought that was kind of a torturous way to record. But on this time, it just felt like and this is a testament to Connor Seidel and his ability to engineer and produce at the same time, like, he would just put up mics, and it would sound great. It was very quick from putting the mics up, and hitting record the very small window of time. And sometimes we get two, maybe three songs done in a single day, you know, in terms of getting the beds and the main idea of the song. And then after that, you know, it may take us a while to listen to what we did for a while and think about it and maybe come back recorded again, maybe make a change was kind of nice to have the breathing room rather than doing like six weeks one shot in a in a big studio, that you paid big rental fees every day, like we would just do two or three days, a weekend here weekend there. We'd exchange you know, bounces back and forth during the week and maybe do a session in our jam space and then go to Connor studio, it was very relaxed, and we gave ourselves a lot of time to listen to what we did. But while we were in studio, it just it just flowed like water works really easily.

Keith Jopling: 29:21

Yeah, that comes across, actually. So I think despite the length of the gestation period on some of these songs, it's such a cohesive piece of work. It makes sense that you recorded them fast over the four records and when you've been recording record solo or your other experience in recording, what's your How do you balance the process versus the outcome, which is more satisfying for you personally?

Unknown: 29:48

I think it's the process for sure. I mean, when the process is that much fun and just feels like it. It feels meaningful just to show up and try something I like I think that is much more important than putting too much emphasis on on a result that needs to happen. Like, whatever if you have to shove a circle through a square square through a triangle to make this album come out, like, you know, I hate the process of killing yourself to try and force an outcome. It's a lot more fun to try something, take risks, be unafraid to do things that might sound weird or horrible, like, just just have some fun in studio and bounce ideas around and see what comes of it. Did

Keith Jopling: 30:31

you know with salt, and do you even know might have mentioned a little bit about this beginning that you've made something special.

Unknown: 30:40

This is the first time that all of us in the band unanimously agreed that we were fully happy with the work we did on a record. Every other record we've done before, even if we ended up liking the work we did like the feeling of coming out of studio or, or you know, doing one of those, you know, nightmarish listening sessions where you invite a bunch of industry and friends into the room and play the album for the first time start to finish. Like we've had some really tough experiences of that, where you have this kind of the first time you're listening to your music through somebody's else's ears. And you just get terrified that you've done something horrible. Like we've definitely had that feeling or if not all of us than one person here there has gone through it. But this record, we unanimously loves the work that we did. And we're very proud of it, which to me was a very good sign

Keith Jopling: 31:33

with some records. Because the whole process these days as a fan, is you have to sift through so much material music is like the gift that keeps on giving. And a lot of it is superb, as well. And every week, there are good releases to listen to, but you just can't listen to it all. And so, you know, my method has become like, hey, just whatever sticks. I'm going to pick this one, I'm going to play this one repeatedly. And then, you know, it reveals those hidden pleasures that great albums do. So my favorite song on this record just keeps changing all the time. I could go through the whole site one and say at some point, that's my favorite on the record. And there's there's a fair few other side too, as well. So from your perspective, just playing them live. Are there some of the songs from salt that are just becoming your favorites? Or particularly good for you just playing on the tour?

Unknown: 32:31

Yeah, that's for but it's a very question. It depends who in the band you ask for sure. My personal favorite to play on stage is the title track salt. I think it's such a, it just has this ethereal flow to it and just feels like there. There is no time and you just sit in this groove the whole time with this rich harmony and the bass feels so good to play. But yeah, it's a difficult Deb has trouble playing that one life though. Not in terms of ability, but he just has trouble with his enjoyment of playing. So we can sometimes bounce around. Which one is our favorite or and it changes for us too. I think that when we kind of learned how to play nine beat as a trio. I thought that was pretty exciting.

Keith Jopling: 33:17

Oh, yeah. It's very exciting. Live it. Very, very cool. Yeah, it's one of my favorites, for sure. The other one I've been talking to with my daughter a lot is hotel in Memphis, which is the one that stood out for her, which has got a kind of Doobie Brothers bounce to it. Yeah, yeah. And I've been pitching you left, right and center people since since airing songs. That's the one I point to? is sort of like a I don't know, it's feels a little bit super trampy to me. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I can see that. Has that ever been in the conversation? It's

Unknown: 33:50

come up, maybe like not specifically about hotel in Memphis, but it has been, you know, has been in the airwaves from time to time. Oh, at Hotel in Memphis is uh, that one also goes way back and it's taken so many different shapes and forms it actually began as a solo piano piece. Way back in the day, that sounded nothing like it does now. It's one of those strange examples of you take an idea into a jam space that exists in a certain way. And then you try and add an element to it or you know, add a B section and do something else to it. And then slowly over time, you know, you lose your a section, you lose your B, you're seeing your D or E or fu G and now all of a sudden, okay, we've got h and i and it's kind of a new song or something. And it was it was one of those songs that had gone through so many evolutions.

Keith Jopling: 34:42

It's a fun, listen, you know, I think it has almost as a twin track with goodbye California, which is yeah, it lightens up the feel of the album because you know, the rest of the album is quite melancholic. There's a lot of you know, emotional stuff on there. Those to just lighten up the the The tunnel a bit, which I really love. So just thinking about this, because when I am pitching you to a lot of people who don't know the band, or maybe remember you from, from dark eyes or something and maybe lost touch, I don't know, most people I'm talking to you about just don't know the band. You have to use other bands to describe bands, which must be annoying when you're a musician, but I like it. Yeah, it's, it's a mix of Radiohead and Supertramp. And, and one of the things I've out of the many conversations on, on the art of longevity is one of the secrets of longevity, if you like has been to, for bands to meld their influences together, but into something that is uniquely you as a band. Can you describe your music? I mean, how would you pitch it?

Unknown: 35:48

That's, that's the tough one. It's hard. But I liked the way that you described how one of the secrets to longevity might be to meld your influences into into kind of something that becomes uniquely its own, I think they in a way, that's kind of the story of us three in this band, that come from very different places and think about music in very different ways that have each each of our own different sets of influences that have affected us over the course of our lives. And we come into the jam space to write music together. And we have to melt those things together. And we come in with an open mind to say, well, somebody wants to go more down the traditional folk Road, somebody wants to try, like, you know, more electronic dance things, or somebody wants to try, you know, just a pure rock tune or, you know, and we never speak in terms of those genres. But somebody might come in with a riff or an idea. And we're never saying like, Oh, that's kind of outside the scope of what we call this band or our sound, I think we're always open to new musical ideas. And I've never been close to genres of any kind. Really. Yeah,

Keith Jopling: 36:55

it's interesting, because listening back through the catalog, there are times when you kind of drift off in a very nice way, I have to say, I'm thinking of Black Diamond, which is from blemish, which is the album before salt and nerve from the first album, where it's almost like going back to the 70s, classic rock sound. And then there are other tracks where you're kind of veering more into almost like an old country style. When you're doing that. Is there a conversation about this is going to fit? Was that the case with salt because I think salt is very cohesive, there's no drifting off somehow, every tracks that just seemed to fit, you know, one after the other. Well,

Unknown: 37:34

it's salt that was kind of part of the discussion and pacing the songs in this way. And even about the song selection itself came from that sort of cohesive flow that we wanted to achieve, which wasn't actually that evident when we looked at that list of 24 songs we recorded in studio it was not evidently clear how we would find some ordering of these songs that would flow well together. And there are some offshoots out there, you know, that are that we didn't put on the record right now, but that definitely branch out into other styles that would be kind of, you know, might be considered like a little too far out there for this record, but I hope they see the light of day someday because they were great ideas.

Keith Jopling: 38:15

The altered longevity is recorded at cube West studios in Acton, and sometimes at the QB studios in London's Canary Wharf cube is the world's first member's studio for musicians podcasters and content creators and it's a real sanctuary for London's independent inspired creators. It's a real pleasure to record the show here. Yeah, I hope so. Okay, so I have to ask, and this is almost from my, with my industry hat on, like, with my marketing hat on because, you know, often the expression people use is that this is a great record, it deserves an audience with salt. It definitely is that case, but it's almost like the other way around. You know, that's why I'm forcing everybody to listen to it. I'm like, you deserve to listen to this. There's a conversation among your fan base, and it's, it's right there on the internet, but like, okay, halfmoon Ron made it out of Canada. But why aren't they bigger? And when you make a record, like salt, is there an element of frustration in you or the band that you know, this is not in the chart somewhere? Or talked about or played on the radio have any of that stuff?

Unknown: 39:33

I mean, not No, I wouldn't say so. I think I think actually the response to this record has been has been quite great and I think that maybe like you know in on our first record, like we got into BBC One and there were you know, the we've got some like major commercial radio ads on on some of our songs, which which to me and to us at the time was was shocking. Remember the first time I heard full circle on the radio I thought what are these guys do? Like, why are they playing our song? It doesn't make any sense. But I think nowadays it feels like things are a little more of a slow burner. And I actually like, I'd like approaching things in that way, musically as well. Because otherwise, like the pressure has become, and we've had this from our labels in the past, they say like, well, you've got this pop crossover potential, and you need that you need that radio bang, or, you know, just, you know, compromise some of your precious artistic integrity just to get that one banger. And then you can do all the music you want to do after that, you know, that was always the, you know, dangling this gold chain narrative that happened for so long,

Keith Jopling: 40:38

that sort of the common wisdom, but I think you're right, I think it's actually gone beyond that now. And maybe it was never the case, actually, I think was Donny Osmond. That said, the bigger the hit, the bigger the liability. It's like a becomes an albatross hanging around you, your neck for the rest of your career. So I mean, full circle is not done badly. I think you've hit 50 million streams. So it's kind of a modern version of a hit. You know, you have Yeah, have a big song, you have a fan. Not necessarily a fan, but it is a fan favorite, and everybody expects it. But yeah, I think it's from momus. From the fans perspective, you just want more people to hear it. And also you want and you want to see the band have the success they deserve from it, whatever that means these days? Do you have a success? conversation in the band or a definition? Are you happy with where you are? commercially?

Unknown: 41:31

That's a definitely a yes. And no answer. I think we're very grateful to be in the position that we are especially you know, in a world where it feels like it's very difficult to to have success with music, or as a musician, I had friends during the pandemic musicians who just simply had to go do something else. Because, you know, venue shut down, life became harder. You know, a lot of people change professions got out of the business, it's tough. You know, like, I'm super grateful that we're making this work, for sure. But it is a little tough. Sometimes when it feels like maybe it's hard to make a tour, do anything better than breakeven, for instance, even though the tour might feel like it's going super well. You want to elevate the show to the production levels that you think makes the music shine in its best way. But it's hard to afford all the things that you need to put on the show you want to put on. And I don't know if that makes any sense. Yeah,

Keith Jopling: 42:29

it definitely does. And, you know, again, part of the prevailing wisdom in the industry, I guess, pre pandemic, and wasn't necessarily true, because what people felt was that that is how bands make money, because it's hard to make money off of the records. Yeah, you might sell a few physical copies or whatever. But streaming is it doesn't really pay so you go on tour, and that's where you make your money. But that's not necessarily true anymore. And so somehow across the piece you I think you just have to have maybe you know, what I'm seeing more of is actually signed up yesterday to my morning jacket's community, which is one big family. And it looks pretty cool. I'm like, okay, these guys know where they're gonna go from here. And they're a little bit further along than you are, you know, I think they're eight or nine albums in. But that feels like the future of success is basically how do we just keep the relationship with our fan base tight and just get them to do a little bit more work for us to spread the word which again, as a cent that's happening from people bringing friends and family to your shows, because they want them to hear your music. But then, you know, just doing things to build it from there is more purposeful, almost than trying to get in the charts or on the radio. So I'm hoping BMG gets that. And they're also patient with this record, because, again, I discovered it just a couple of months ago, it's been out since the spring. So you're right. You know, when you've got a record like salt, it's worth for want of a better word, working that record, you know, for 1218 months before you move on. Yeah,

Unknown: 44:04

and hopefully with with some more new material to support it along the way.

Keith Jopling: 44:09

Are you looking beyond this tour? We talked a little bit about maybe doing something with some of those other 13 tracks or whatever might happen. Where do you see the future? Do you talk about the future as a band?

Unknown: 44:24

We do we do. We talk about the future a lot. Yeah, it's it's tough to see too far ahead. For now, I think we're all really we're focused on on doing the best we can for for this record, and for the other ideas we have for new releases coming up, which we're all very excited about. But we really wanted to get this thing out on the road and see how see how things performed and see how things went. I think one thing that's definitely true now is that you can't take anything for granted so there's no there's no assuming that the tours are gonna go well and that the shows are going to sell we need to we need to put in the work to to go out there and do our best to make the best to where we can and see how things go from there in a way, you know, we have ideas for things to come out, we're talking about, you know, when to start writing again, and, and what the, you know, the wheels are rolling on those types of things. But we also have other projects in our lives and other interests as well. You know, there might be, I'm going to be getting married next year, there may be kids coming into the picture, there's going to be kind of new dimension to life coming forward. But all of us are, you know, we all love this project and are committed to each other and to the music and to our fans and, and really hope to hope to see some success with this record.

Keith Jopling: 45:42

Well, that's good to hear. And congratulations, by the way, with this record we talked about, you found a new label. So you know, you have some belief in terms of BMG stepping up and signing you. I mean, as a musician, what do you do with that relationship? Do you trust that it's in their hands? Do you take them to task? How proactive are you and who is proactive out of the three of you?

Unknown: 46:08

We're all we're all involved, for sure. on all aspects of things, though, you know, certain individuals have better strengths than others. So you know, we've kind of play into that as much as we can. But I think what's what's interesting and nice about this relationship with BMG is that it's not, it's not as a standard label deal would be sort of a thing. Like they're more they're working as our distributor more than a label, it's kind of like we're hiring their services as a distributor to help us get the good word out there and get the music, you know, into people's ears. But they offer more than a standard distributor, in a way kind of offering all these label services on top of being a distributor, but at the end of the day, we are, we are the owners of our music, you know, which, which is a nice feeling and different from the past. It seems like that's a model that more and more people are adopting. Absolutely.

Keith Jopling: 47:03

And it makes perfect sense. I think it makes perfect sense, especially for for bands that are making music that is going to last because it's your music, you know, it's not something you sign over to, to an organization for it to belong to them, I think puts you in a good club as well. Because what I love about the strategy over at BMG is I've had a lot of their bands on this podcast. So suede, Rickie Lee Jones, and they're going for classic bands. So I think from that perspective, maybe they understand that what they have in in a potential relationship with halfmoon run, which is these days, you have to build a quiet legend. Right. Yeah. You know, no modern band is going to be, you know, as big as as Coldplay. But you have to have your own version of that. Yeah.

Unknown: 47:54

And yeah, BMG have been they really seem like they get it and they've been present at everything we've been doing. It feels like a great connection, to be honest.

Keith Jopling: 48:05

Yeah. That's good to hear. And good to see. Okay, Dylan, I think we're, we're coming up for time. And I don't want to keep you too long. It's your day off.

Unknown: 48:13

All good. was a pleasure speaking with you? Yeah. It's

Keith Jopling: 48:16

been great to have you on. I wish you all the best with the rest of the tour, for sure. And especially when you get back home to Canada, again, I wish I could get two more shows. It's just one of these things, or wait for whatever happens next time. Hope you come back to the UK in the Europe soon. And the meantime, yeah, best of luck with everything and thanks for coming on.

Unknown: 48:34

Thank you so much. Thanks for having me.

Keith Jopling: 48:35

Good to me,

Unknown: 48:36

YouTube.

Keith Jopling: 48:37

Thanks. Bye