HALCYON On the Making Of ‘Mid Season Finale’
How does 'Mid Season Finale' reflect your musical journey and growth as a band?
It certainly represents our growth as people, we took a break from doing anything music related and came back to it fresh with new perspectives. Musically it became less about trying to show off as musicians and more about writing things that meant a lot to use and building arrangements around that. We also felt the effects of the pandemic quite heavily in our own ways, and using that pain were able to put everything into our performances when we recorded in 2021.
Could you discuss the lyrical themes or messages conveyed in 'Mid Season Finale?'
The lyrical themes in ‘Mid Season Finale’ generally surround themes of creative dissonance, artistic integrity and trying to find meaning in your early 20s. ‘Don’t Go Hollow’ is largely about writer’s block and constantly criticising oneself to the point where it becomes self-punishment. ‘Burn My Spirit’ is actually about being let down by your favourite artists and it’s a feeling of being angry and lost because you’ve been let down by someone who shaped you as an artist. It’s about trying to find that sense of inspiration again and the sour taste when you make something that even remotely resembles your former artistic inspiration. ‘Keep Warm’ is about feeling powerless when you have those late night thoughts of not being enough or not being happy. It's super easy to not address that or kind of brush it under the rug, but sooner or later it'll come back full force and leave you worse than before. It was also bare cold that night, properly sucked.
What are you most proud about 'Mid Season Finale?'
We tend to self-judge a lot as individuals, and when we came together in the studio, we found ourselves loving every aspect of each of our performances and what we contributed songwriting wise. Usually, we’d probably feel that it’s a certain song or a certain moment in the EP, but it’s the fact that we got to hang out and have fun making music together again which was the coolest bit. Burn My Spirit slaps to be fair.
How did your band members initially come together?
We all were at uni together studying the same course and we used to sit with Charlie a lot while he took out his life’s frustrations on the Dark Souls games, and thus a band was born.
Where do you find inspiration for your songs or musical ideas?
It varies really. The inspiration usually comes best when we stop trying to look for it. Sometimes it’s come from ‘hey wouldn’t it be funny if we did this’ and it turns out to be our favourite song we’ve written, but other times it’ll be a raw emotion and we have a song written in half an hour.