HALCYON WAY
Questions asked by Jon Wilde, added to Rock Realms 23rd November 2010.
Atlanta, Georgia, progressive metallers have just released their awesome new album "Building The Towers". We caught up with vocalist Steve Braun and guitarists Jon Bodan and Zane to find out more...
Hi Guys, thanks for taking a moment to answer these questions. Hope all is well?
JON: Thanks man! We appreciate the opportunity to chat and the support!
STEVE: Thanks for having us!
What’s the history behind the band? How did Halcyon Way form, and how does today’s line-up compare with the one you had in the beginning?
JON: Well, we started in our first incarnation around 2001-2002. Basically there were a few of us that jammed. Aabron, our original drummer, and Zane who played bass at the time, along with myself and another guitar player. We wrote a bit of stuff, and messed around for a few months but the timing wasn’t right so we put it on hold for a bit. Zane went and sang for Cauldron Born for a while, and in the meantime the rest of us got back together. We held some auditions, and filled the lineup out with myself, Aabron on drums, a singer, another guitar player, and Glen on bass. We did a demo with this lineup, and played a bunch of local shows. Then the singer we had left, and then Sean joined and we started working on A Manifesto For Domination. We tracked the album, but there were delays in getting it mixed and released. During this time we lost our original drummer and bassist, and Ernie & Kris stepped in. They actually didn’t perform on Manifesto, but they were in the band for a while by the time it came out.
As you probably know, after Manifesto came out, Sean left the band. We were fortunate enough to find Steve very quickly and he actually was a member of the band only 8-9 days after Sean quit, which for a metal band is just unheard of. We thought we were going to be on ice for months when all that happened, but we never missed a beat or a show. We feel like we have the right guys on the bus, headed in the right direction, at the right time now. We all have the same goals for the band and for what we want to accomplish, so it’s a good period for us.
Who were the early influences?
JON: I did most all of the writing for Manifesto and the earlier stuff, and I’d say that the earliest influences for the band were a mix of thrash like Testament, but prog like Fates Warning or Queensryche. I’m also a big Galactic Cowboys & King’s X fan, so the vocal harmonies have always been a big part of what we do. I was also listening to a lot of stuff like At The Gates & In Flames at that point. However, our first singer had a voice that was kinda like David Draiman from Disturbed, so we also had a streak of modern rock/metal too. The idea was to write interesting riffs and songs, but have them be hooky and catchy at the same time. That is definitely a huge focus for us to this day.
STEVE: For me, I was influenced by 80's hard rock. I love Stryper and TNT. Michael Sweet (Stryper) and Tony Harnell (TNT) are 2 of the most underrated Metal singers. I also love early Dream Theater and Fates Warning.
Did you know what sort of sound the band was destined to have at the start, or has it developed a lot over the years?
JON: I think we’re really doing what I had hoped to at the beginning from a sound standpoint, but it’s certainly developed and gotten a lot stronger since then. More focused, I guess – basically the heavier parts are much heavier, the hooks are much catchier and bigger, the prog stuff is more insane – but the main thing is that we have to put all of that in the context of great songs that people will want to listen to in the car, that will get stuck in the listener’s head, and that they can bob their head to.
All of the current members bring something different to the table – for example, I write a ton of riffs and hooks, that’s kinda how I start, and I’m all about catchiness. Ernie brings a lot of technical drumming to the table and can take a simple riff and make it sound a lot more interesting. Kris brings his death/black metal influences to the table, so we’ve been able to incorporate that into the writing. Steve has a big AOR background and a really great sense of melody and harmony. Zane brings 80’s style vibes to the table to remind us all that it’s just rock & roll at the end of the day. So we mix it all up. But to sum it up - songs first, prog cred a distant second. The core influences are the same I think – but we all listen to a lot of heavy stuff like Chimaira, Gojira, Devildriver, Arsis, etc – and kinda meld those vibes with the stuff we all grew up on.
How would you describe the sound of the band to someone who hadn’t heard you before? Is it simply “Progressive Metal”, or is there a lot more to it than that?
ZANE: I would say that we are a heavy metal band. We have way too many influences to be stuck in one little subgenre, but fans of metal will dig what we are doing.
JON: I think it’s both more, and less. We’re not Spiral Architect. The stuff isn’t that technical and likely never will be. I think we’re more progressive in the sense that we try to do a lot with each part of the song – making the riffs interesting and not basic, making the drums push and not be generic, putting bass tapping in where maybe someone else would do an 8th note, and so forth. I guess we try to make the most of the parts of the songs as musicians so we can push ourselves and not get bored, but again it has to be a good song and not interfere with that. I pretty much just tell people that we play heavy metal, with clean vocals and big arena rock hooks.
STEVE: I think the first CD had more progressive elements than Building The Towers does. Ernie does some rhythms and patterns that are progressive but I would say we are more of a straight ahead Metal band.
When did you start work on the excellent new album “Building The Towers”?
JON: We actually had a pretty fair amount of it written by the time Manifesto came out in 2008; we’d had that album done for quite some time so we were naturally writing new material. Manifesto came out in 11/08 and we actually started tracking drums for Building The Towers in January of 2009. We had about 15 songs written, so we tracked all of those over 7-8 months at Open Sky Studios with Mike Froedge from doubleDrive engineering. He’s an incredible drummer in his own right, so his input was really helpful for Ernie as he recorded. We’d go in for 2-3 days, do 3-4 songs, and then go back and work on arrangements and the like in rehearsal. However, Sean left in the middle of the drum tracking, and he didn’t want any of his lyrics or songs used on the album, so Steve and I did quite a bit of woodshedding and re-wrote a lot of the lyrics and melodies. Although Sean’s request was quite the blow at first, the album came out much, much better in the long run as a result.
Once we finished that process, we flew Pamela Moore to Atlanta from Seattle for a week and did her guest parts. Then, in January of 2010, we flew Lasse Lammert in from Germany for a few weeks to finish the production. So we finished the tracking in January 2010, and then Lasse took the material back to Germany and mixed it in his studio.
Was the creation of the record hard work, pleasure, or a bit of both?
ZANE: A lot of both actually. Our music is definitely a labour of love!
JON: Definitely all of the above. We went through a lot of adversity during the process, between the singer change and then me getting sick right before release date, but we are very, very happy with the way it came out and it was worth the effort. We had made a conscious decision at the beginning that the material was so strong that we didn’t want to leave anything on the table when it came to making it better, or working with the right people. For example, when we approached Travis Smith about doing the art, we knew he was the guy we wanted, but he was booked solid for months. We said to him “fit us in when you can, we can wait”. So when he got it done, even though it took a bit longer we knew that we had one shot to do the album at the highest level we could, so we were cool with it, and of course he did an incredible job.
But you know, to be able to work with the caliber of people that we did on this album – Travis, Lasse, Pamela, Froedge – it really was a blast and we’d do it again in a second. You can’t put a price on that kind of experience.
How does the writing process in Halcyon Way work? Talk us through the birth of a typical song...
ZANE: One of us comes up with an idea, be it music or melodies or lyrics, and we build around it. Jon is the most prolific of us, but we all contribute in some way.
JON: It’s different every time, but it usually starts with a riff or two and goes from there. A lot of times I’ll have a vocal hook or something and we’ll start there. Sometimes it starts with a drum groove or a bass line. One thing that will be interesting to see is how having Steve in the room changes the dynamic, because we had all the music written & recorded for Building The Towers when he joined, it was just a matter of reworking some things and letting him put his stamp on it. So that will be cool to see evolve.
Where do you look for your lyrical and musical writing inspirations?
ZANE: The news is a biggie…
JON: On Building The Towers, the lyrics were inspired by the state of the nation. People are deeply divided over what the direction of the country should be, and there’s a massive disconnect between the people and the politicians. Right now the politicians in Washington are really grabbing for power over industry, over people’s daily lives, etc, and they are not listening to the people’s voices. So without taking a party stance one way or the other, we wanted to take on some of these issues. There’s a lot of anger out there directed at our government, and it seems to be deeper than at any other time I can recall.
Is there a story flowing through the album, or are the tracks all standalone?
JON: The songs are all roughly about the same types of things, but we didn’t want to call it a concept album because there was no central story, just a general theme throughout. However, you will see a couple of characters – “The Icon” which is a metaphor for Lady Liberty, played by Pamela on the album. “The Ghost” is the ghost of the founding fathers – one idea that we had throughout was “what would the men that drafted our Declaration Of Independence and Constitution think about the way things are going right now?” So we had a couple of characters that symbolized what our country was founded on, which is freedom.
STEVE: The common theme on this CD is that we are sickened by how we have strayed from the thoughts and beliefs of our founding fathers of this country. It is a wake up call for a radical change.
How does it compare in terms of style and quality to your debut album “A Manifesto For Domination"?
ZANE: A step above, most definitely!
JON: I think that from a songwriting standpoint, it’s a natural progression, and that we got much stronger at writing. Of course the different members all added their stamp to it, and that was positive too. Steve added a lot of different things vocally that we wouldn’t have been able to do before as well, and all of these things helped to make it a better record than Manifesto. Plus, we got real strings, choirs, etc – we left nothing on the table. If we felt it would make it a better album, we did it.
Do you do anything special or unusual in the studio to get your sound?
ZANE: Our producer needed a lot of Guinness!
JON: We were pretty meticulous on this album. We planned out what we wanted it to sound like before we tracked everything, and then adjusted what we did accordingly. For example, we quad tracked all the rhythm guitars to get a super heavy sound, so that was one thing. Lasse made us change the pickups we had in our guitars and have them wired up a certain way. We tracked the drums in a really organic room with vintage mics, tube preamps, and the like before we went into ProTools. We recorded the vocals on a $4000 vintage mic, with a high end tube mic preamp. Pretty much, we just looked at each thing and said “how do we get the highest quality sound” on each thing, and we went for it.
What’s your favourite track on the LP, and is it the sound of the song or the memories behind it that make you love it?
ZANE: For me, “Icon of Resolution” is a great tune. The line "the weary find their rest in me" is phenomenal! Steve's harmonies on that line give me chills. "Mouth Without a Head" is my other favourite because I wrote it and it's a ballad. :)
JON: To be honest, I don’t know that I have a real favourite, because they’re all like children, you know? I think that “Rise To Revise” is definitely one of my favourites. I wrote that song in the car while traveling, it just hit me all of a sudden. I had the riffs more/less written in my mind and just had to pick the guitar up and flesh them out. I love “The System” because it’s got such a great hook, and I love the guitar solo in that one. It’s tough to pick one out. There are songs that we couldn’t fit on the album that I love equally as well. Those will see the light of day before long. We ran out of space on the CD, not ideas, haha….
STEVE: I think my favourite song would be “Inversion”. When I came into the band they were already doing this song live but I came in and changed up some of the harmonies and the song really popped for me.
Do you enjoy the whole studio/creative experience, or do you prefer getting up on the live stage?
ZANE: For me, it’s live. The studio is just a stepping stone for getting to the stage.
JON: I love all of it. Playing metal is just what I do – there’s a certain satisfaction in the studio of making your ideas come to fruition, and hearing it all come together in a controlled environment where you can hear all the nuances, so that’s always cool. But we’re also known as a great live band, and that’s a huge part of what keeps us going, we love to play shows.
STEVE: I enjoy both. They really are 2 different monsters. Being in the studio is very tedious, like being under a microscope but it's awesome to hear your ideas come to together. Being on stage is like nothing else in the world. There is no greater feeling than being on stage and have people singing your songs back to you!
What is a Halcyon Way show like? What should fans expect from one of your performances?
ZANE: We have one of, if not the most, energetic live shows one can expect. We don't stand behind a wall trying to be all cathartic with our tunes. We are there for the same reason the audience is, and that's to rock out and have a great time!
JON: Well, we just bring it. We can do anything that’s on the album in a live setting. So if you hear a vocal harmony on the CD, we’re gonna do it live. But more importantly, we put on a show. We move, we interact with the crowd and each other, it’s a free-for-all. We pay attention to the little things and we constantly analyse and try to improve our game. We pay close attention to the set lists and make sure they don’t drag, that the crowd will stay entertained the whole time and so we keep the energy level up. If we could do pyro in the clubs we play, we’d do it, haha….
STEVE: Our shows are high energy. We sound just as good as the CD live if not better. We are a lot heavier in person. We love being on stage playing for our fans. Those 45 minutes are what we live for.
I understand a number of 2010 tour dates have been cancelled due to Jon suffering recent ill health. How is the treatment progressing, and is there any schedule in place for Halcyon Way returning to the making of noise?
JON: Yes, I was diagnosed with Lymphoma, which is a type of cancer, about a week before the album dropped. It was completely out of left field and unexpected, but no one ever thinks that it’ll happen to them, right? So it was just a couple of weeks before we were supposed to be leaving for a European tour with Stuck Mojo. We actually intended to go – I had doctor’s clearances, assuming that I got certain tests & procedures done – but some logistics got crossed up and we ended up having to cancel out. It was a huge blow and a big bummer, but the upside is that I started my treatments about a month earlier, so I’ll be done sooner. I’m currently on the 2nd of 6 rounds of chemotherapy and it’s responding well, and I should be done around February if it all goes well.
We are booked to play the Florida Powerfest with Blind Guardian in December, so we start up rehearsals for that this week. I’m determined to not let this disease get me down and keep me from doing what I need to do.
STEVE: Jon is doing good. He seems to be responding well to chemo. As for Halcyon Way, we already have 3 or 4 tour possibilities open to us. We are just waiting to hear that Jon has a clean bill of health.
What does 2011 and beyond hold for you guys? Are you going for world domination or do you take each day as it comes?
ZANE: World domination, I hope!
JON: We have one really big tour opportunity in Europe on the table right now, and we’re just seeing if it will work out. There was another near miss for 2011 recently that we looked at, and there’s a couple of US tours that we’re trying to see about, too. We told Intromental, our management, that we wanted to get out there and support this album like it should be, and they’re doing their best to get us some good opportunities to do that. We also will probably hook up with Fozzy or Stuck Mojo again in 2011, depending on what their tour plans are. We have a great rapport with those guys and had a blast with Fozzy in the UK earlier this year, so we want to do that again.
STEVE: We want world domination! We have big dreams and actually have a plan to reach them. We just have to keep working hard and be ready for whatever opportunities come our way.
What are you up to once you’ve finished answering these questions?
ZANE: Go back to playing with my kids, and annoying my wife! :)
JON: Haha, I have company in town so we’re gonna watch a DVD. I tried to get some midget strippers to make it more metal, but couldn’t work that out…..
Anything else you would like to mention?
JON: Thanks again for the support! If you’d like to connect with HW go to http://www.halcyonway.com/ and that has links to all of our pages like MySpace, Facebook, etc. – you can also pick up merch there, we have the album for sale as well as a bunch of cool shirts and other things. Tell your friends if you dig what we’re doing, and be sure to connect with us online and help spread the word, we can’t do it without the help & support of our fans….
Thanks again to the guys from Halcyon Way for their time. You can check out the Rock Realms review of "Building The Towers" by clicking here.
Label: Nightmare Records
Artist's website(s): Halcyon Way | MySpace | Facebook
