photo credit: Michelle Lobianco
I feel as if we covered Heavy Halo enough by this point that an introduction to the project really isn’t necessary. But for those that insist or those who are curious it’s a duo of industrial rock freaks who’ve been really stepping up their game lately. They just released a brand-new music video for Lost in Heaven which is made up of footage from their recent summer tour with Light Asylum and they also have a brand-new album out on Silent Pendulum Records. That and more is talked about on this edition of INTRODUCING.
Give us a brief about your band. Who are you and what do you do?
Heavy Halo is a goth-industrial blood pact recording out of an abandoned hospital in south Brooklyn, NY. We take influence from the spirit and existential angst of grunge/alternative and reflect it through the twisted funhouse mirror of the digital age.
My name is McKeever and I sing, produce, and play guitar. Gosteffects produces, plays synth live, mixes, and masters.
When did you first launch the project and how has it come along since?
Heavy Halo dropped our 1st single on 8/13/21, so we have been a band in others’ eyes for 4 years.
In that time we have released 2 full-length albums and a remix album, dropped a ton of music videos, toured the east coast with Light Asylum, had a bunch of people get our logo tattooed, and met so many cool artists and lovable weirdos we admire.
What bands and artists influenced you the most and why?
When I lived in LA and Gosteffects would come visit, we’d be stuck in traffic for hours listening to the same scratched CD-R of NIN and Adore-era Smashing Pumpkins. We also had Justice’s Cross in the car as well as Y2K jungle and tracks from more modern producers like Rustie and Dark0. These long listening sessions in gridlocked smog formed the basis of Heavy Halo.
If you could pick a single song from your discography to explain your music, which song would you pick and why?
Probably BLACK SEED. It is the 1st song on our 1st record so it comes across as a mission statement. 2 minutes 45 seconds, just IN and OUT, no filler. The song conveys a lot of the contradictions within our band: melody vs noise, electronics vs live instruments, aggression vs melancholy.
The lyrics were written in 10 minutes during a mental breakdown and the vocal melody is so fucked up I’m not really sure how I wrote it. We also did an acoustic version of the song and the viscerality still comes through even without the production.
What is your most recent release and what is it about?
We just dropped our 2nd album DAMAGED DREAM last month. Simply put, a “Damaged Dream” is what you’re left with when the ideals you hold shatter. Cruel reality brings the hammer down on the purity of innocence, energy, joy, youth, love, creativity, optimism…
But while the Dream is Damaged, it is not completely destroyed. In fact, desperate times call for desperate measures, and you can use the longing spark deep within you as fuel to wage war against the negative forces pulling you down. You can reject nihilism and strive to reclaim your agency and meaning in a chaotic world.
Take us through your creative process. How do you compose a song from start to finish? Where do the ideas come from?
We always say that I’m the starter and Gosteffects is the finisher. An initial idea takes shape on a synth, a drum machine, or an acoustic guitar usually. We have a synth wall and a battalion of hardware boxes that we use to spit out sounds until we find something compelling that inspires a vocal melody and lyrics. Then everything goes into the computer into Ableton and the arrangement is fleshed out and honed. Many layers are added then pieces are carved away…
I get the track to the most finished point I can then pass it over to Gosteffects who has free reign to completely explode the track and put it back together or simply refine it and beef it up. He then does the final mix and master and that’s a wrap.
What’s your current favorite song, band, or album within your scene? And vice versa, what do you enjoy the most that’s completely opposite of what you make?
As far as vital artists in the scene today I saw YOUTH CODE and STREET SECTS absolutely demolish a warehouse in Brooklyn, amazing bands with unhinged new releases that dropped this year.
As far as what’s the opposite of what we make, I adore Sparklehorse, his music truly exists in its own world of warped, degraded melancholy. Industrial bands use production to evoke fractured vistas of futuristic dystopias. Mark Linkous’s production is equally inventive, but instead it conjures faded memories of southern gothic carnivals.
What is on the horizon for your project? Upcoming gigs, tours, merch, videos, etc. Name it, link it, show it off.
There is a west coast tour in the works in support of DAMAGED DREAM, keep your eyes peeled…
You can cop our vinyl and merch at our label Silent Pendulum.
As far as newer music, we have a remix dropping for one of our music heroes this fall. We also have album 3 written and mostly produced so we are diving deep into the vocal recording for that.
I’m also moonlighting as a guitarist for Coatie Pop this fall, playing some shows with them supporting Pixel Grip and Patriarchy. See you out there…
Merch: https://silentpendulumrecords.com/collections/heavy-halo
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/heavyhalo.nyc/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVXe9NRonDY
