February 10, 2025 • 47 mins
Nathan Barlowe is a talented multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, and producer, best known for his work as a member of the bands Luna Halo, Five Knives, Reality Check, Honeymoon Thrillers and Keith Urban’s band as a touring musician. His music has been recorded by high-profile artists like Taylor Swift, Steven Tyler, Keith Urban, and Newsboys. Nathan has also achieved significant success in the dance music scene, with three top 10 Billboard dance singles to his name. His song placements include The Voice, American Idol, in Apple commercials, NHL Stanley Cup, the theme song for the final season of King of Queens. He is also the inventor of an innovative electronic instrument called “The Phantom,” which functions as a sampling machine played like a keyboard. We discuss how he began in music at an early age, imposter syndrome and listen to an original demo of the Luna Halo song “Feed Your Feelings”.
Find Nathan Barlowe
Find Luna Halo
Listen to Feed Your Feelings
Worktapes is Produced by Brandon Carswell
Film & Editing by Shaun Carswell
This episode was filmed at Sound Stage Studios in Nashville, TN
Episode intro music written by Brandon Carswell & produced by Micah Tawlks - "Back To Us" Worktapes show cover art designed by Harrison Hudson
**All songs used by permission**
Find Nathan Barlowe
Find Luna Halo
Listen to Feed Your Feelings
Worktapes is Produced by Brandon Carswell
Film & Editing by Shaun Carswell
This episode was filmed at Sound Stage Studios in Nashville, TN
Episode intro music written by Brandon Carswell & produced by Micah Tawlks - "Back To Us" Worktapes show cover art designed by Harrison Hudson
**All songs used by permission**
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Welcome to Work Tapes. This is a podcast where we
tear up our songs. Why was the song written, what's
it about, what's the context and emotion behind it? Where
were you at the time, what were you going through?
How did certain lines come to you? What's the inspiration?
How long did it take to write? I'm Brandon Carswell
and I'm fascinated with songwriting and how songs are built
(00:30):
from the ground up. It's easy to hear a full
production song on the radio and dismiss its origin story.
I want to hear the rough draft of the song
or the work tape. I want to explore the very
beginning of how songs that move us and make us
move our born.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Loving to me that it was off for show.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
Made me melt again like sun snow.
Speaker 4 (01:08):
Just MOI go to far.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
Push she call me, kiss me in the time, show
me leave lempassable.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
No, no, you have guess she got joyes.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
Sees SEEZ and you leave me in Peace says Peace
says Peace says you just walk on.
Speaker 4 (01:52):
I can't even.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Tell me why.
Speaker 4 (02:02):
You can go long sail goodbye. Every cook is d Man.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Hello everyone, and welcome to Work Tapes. This is Brandon
as usual. Today is an exciting episode for me. I'm
joined by the frontman for Luna Halo, who I've been
a longtime fan of. He's had songs recorded by Taylor Swift,
Steven Tyler, Keith, Urban Newsboys, Jars of Clay, He's a
(02:33):
Grammy nominated songwriter, had three top ten Billboard Dance singles.
He's done all kinds of things. I've been in bands
like Reality Check, Luna Halo, Five Knives, Keith, Urban Honeymoon Thrillers,
which is one of my favorites, been on the road
(02:54):
with Velvet Revolver, Hubastanks, Smashing Pumpkins. Is there anything I'm missing?
Nathan Barlow sounds impressive to me. It's fun like, who
is this person? You've had an expansive career in music
and an impressive one, and thank you for being here.
Speaker 5 (03:12):
Yeah, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
Yeah. Absolutely. I would have been introduced to Luna Halo
well reality Check also, but I didn't know you were
connected back then, right between the two. But in my
high school days we were just talking about that, and man,
that first Luna Halo Shimmer album was just like on
(03:33):
repeat for me, like songs one through four. I think
were my go tos at that time, and some of
that was super influential for me being in at the time.
I wasn't necessarily in a band in that part of
high school, but shortly after that had started a band
with my brother, rock band and that kind of style
(03:57):
of music between like Radiohead, Muse, Coldplay, kind of some
of all of that stuff that I think you were
probably heavy into. And I remember shortly after high school
we were able to open a show with you guys
in Raleigh at Lincoln Theater. I'm saying all that to
(04:19):
say we also are kind of some of the Raleigh crowd,
my brother and I being lived in Raleigh for a
long time. You and Carrie, your brother, Carrie Barlow, who's
also a huge, fantastic songwriter. Well he's not huge, but
his songs are huge.
Speaker 5 (04:36):
Yes, his songs are huge.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
And man, it's just it's exciting for me. There's a
lot of history here. Carrie was on episode eleven. Nick Autrey,
who's a mutual friend, good friend, who helped make your
last record with Luna Halo or ep, who runs the
studio that we're sitting in. Just so many connection points
(04:59):
between people we know history. I've followed you forever, so
I'm excited about it. If you can't tell, Yeah, me too, man. Yeah,
So let's start off with there are tons I want
to talk about. I want to know, first of all,
who you are and how you started in music at all,
(05:22):
Like what was the background. I know a little bit
just based on my interview with Carrie, but you're not Carrie,
so I want to know what happened to get you
so involved in music in the first place.
Speaker 5 (05:36):
And I'm ten years older than Carrie, so he doesn't
even know how.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
That's funny.
Speaker 5 (05:42):
I grew up in church. My dad was a pastor,
and so I come from a really musical family, even
beyond my parents, just grandparents. And you know, I remember
growing up, even as a three year old and hearing
the whole family like ten people around a piano and
my grandmother would be playing and they'd sing hymn's and
(06:04):
gospel songs and stuff like that. So that was probably
the original music I heard growing up. And then, you know,
as my mom tells it, at four or five in
the car I was she noticed I was singing harmony
to the songs on the radio, so I was like
singing tenor at four or five. So they had a
(06:26):
little group that my dad played piano and we went
and sang and stuff. And so I was sort of
like the little trick pony that they would put me
up on the thing and I'd sing my two songs
and they'd give me some candy and i'd, you know,
go off. So the stage was right away something I
was comfortable with at a at a young age. And
that's the first music that I remember hearing.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
Yeah, so gospel, yeah, was it like southern gospel.
Speaker 5 (06:54):
Very yeah, Beulah Land all that stuff, so yeah, yeah.
And then and then the first influential thing beyond that
that I can recall is my my dad had a
bunch of records that I believe my uncle gave him,
and I remember finding the Beach Boys for the first
time and hearing those harmonies, and that kind of music
(07:16):
just changed my life forever.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
Was that was Brian Wilson's voice, something that you try
to emulate because you have an insane range right for
people that don't know you can go super low like
and super happy, yeah, and you have a crazy great
falsetto and all of that. Was that.
Speaker 5 (07:38):
I really think that all those early influential albums like that,
the Falsettos that like, and even later in life, like
there were just albums like you mentioned Muse. You know,
I would constantly be like, can I do that? Can
I hit that? Can I you know? And but absolutely
the Beach Boys influenced that in the beginning, and that's
(08:01):
how I started singing so high, right, I just thought, well,
that's what you do.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
Like, yeah, you know what age was that when you
found those records?
Speaker 5 (08:09):
I think that was around nine or ten.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
Okay, so you would have was it like a bunch
of different styles that you were finding there.
Speaker 5 (08:17):
Yeah, for sure, But I gravitated towards you know, although
there were seventies things like leads up on and all
that kind of stuff. It's funny because I never I
love that, and I appreciate it, the musicianship especially, but
I liked the melodic you know, for me, it was
more the Beach Boys and eighties stuff and Elton John
(08:39):
and like things like that. That this melody is what
I was drawn to. So it was all kind of
like pop hooks most of it. Yeah, and then it
was later that the rock bug really really hit me,
you know, And yeah, but those are my early early memories.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
Yeah, because it seems like stylistically in a good way,
you go all over the place, or you have from
Reality Check being what it was in the nineties, which
is kind of like a DC Talk esque. They had
their own thing. It seemed like right going it from
(09:18):
that into Luna Halo. Was there anything between that or
did you find something in Reality Check? Were you being
influenced at that time? You mentioned earlier being influenced by
radio Head kind of during that season, but that you
were like, oh, this is what I want to do.
Speaker 5 (09:40):
What's funny? And during the reality Check years when we
won the National Gospel Competition and we won a record
deal with Sparrow and so we moved to Nashville in
ninety six, and I remember being a little lost writing
for that record because I didn't the DC Talk comparison
was drove me nuts because we came we formed at
(10:03):
Liberty as well, same area. I knew those guys, still
great friends with all of them, but we didn't want
to be them. And it's hard when you have, you know,
two white guys and black guy and you rap and
you rock and it's you know, it's very similar aesthetic
and makeup, and when I came to town, I discovered
(10:25):
this band called Self, which Matt Mhaffey is the brainchild behind,
and he and I are best buds now. And when
I heard that, I said, that's how I can make
us different musically, and so started to write songs basically
not not copying him, but emulating those sounds in the
(10:46):
way he did things. It's funny because he eventually produced
the Luna Halo demo, which we'll get to but yeah,
So so that became the beginning of the reality check
and what set us apart, I think from other things.
But during that after years of being in that band,
(11:08):
I mentioned to you that Radio had had released Okay
Computer and it was making waves all across the music industry,
and our guitar player at the time, Johnny Macintosh, and
I after every show would go to the back lounge
of the bus and put that video on and just
watch the live show of Okay Computer, and we just
(11:30):
were like, we want to do that. That's what I
want to do, you know, And that led to us
leaving to form Luna Halo.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
Okay, that's great. Yeah, you mentioned not copying but emulating,
and I didn't know about that comparison between DC talk.
That's I to prep for this. I just listened to
as much as I could've done this week. But I
(12:01):
would say, like emulating someone is really the highest form
of flattery.
Speaker 5 (12:05):
Right, Oh yeah, you're you're.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
Paying homage to what they're You're saying, this is fantastic.
Let me do something like this, but put my spin
on it. Yeah, And you do have your own sound.
It doesn't matter if that sounded like whatever. Like there's
when I say it sounded like it, I mean like
there's a piece of it that sounds like it, right,
Like there's a there's a riff, or there's a there's
(12:27):
a part of a record or a song that sounds
like a thing. I think we all have that as artists, right,
we're pulling from whatever influences us. But you, specifically as
a frontman and a writer, have your own vibe and
it's very unique. Your voice is super unique, your stage presence,
(12:47):
all of it is Like it's like, I'm curious, actually,
like in real life do you turn that on or
is that just like a stage thing, a studio thing. Yeah,
you know when you know when it's go time, it's.
Speaker 5 (13:01):
A natural thing. Yeah, and I think a lot of
it too, comes over years and years of touring and
experience and you know.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
What form what formed that. Not to interrupt, but like, okay,
so go back really early, like your first live experiences.
Everyone's nervous, right, you know you're nervous your first time
singing in front of anyone. You grew up in church
doing that, which makes it a little bit easier maybe
on some regard because people are like, oh, look at
that cute kid singing, and then you start getting ego,
(13:33):
you know, like, yeah, you're hot ship because yeah, you know,
everybody likes this.
Speaker 5 (13:38):
When I was I think I was five and I'd
sang this mega church in Dallas, Texas and they rolled
out a red bicycle right afterwards, and my mom said
that ruined me because I expected something from singing every time.
Speaker 6 (13:52):
That might have helped you actually in business later maybe,
so yeah, I'm not doing this for free. Yeah, but
you know it was one of you know, what it
is is just years of I wouldn't say rejection, but
of especially I remember the club days, like when you're
playing to a room that doesn't care, you know, you
(14:14):
learn what doesn't work and what does work, and to
work harder and to maybe I should be a little
more entertaining and not be the cool guy with my
head down staring at my pedal board or maybe you know,
and that's just me personally. I have become an entertainer
over time, and truthfully, I don't think I've ever said this,
(14:34):
but in the beginning, I felt like I was overcompensating
because we weren't good enough.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
So who's we?
Speaker 5 (14:43):
The any band I was in at the time, So
you know, I had little bands in high school and
stuff like that, and I did my own little solo
thing kind of. But I just felt I've always had
imposter syndrome my whole life, and so I still do.
And so I I feel like it was a way
of if I entertain really well, then you won't hear
(15:05):
this bad song that we're playing right right, and we'll
get to the one good one we have or whatever.
And you know, I think some of it came from that,
but then over time it just becomes part of your personality.
It's just what I do.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
Yeah, let's dive into that, just like a little bit,
or as much as you want, as far as imposter
syndrome and rejection goes. Because in this business, they kind
of go hand in hand and it's kind of inevitable.
And I would say most people I know have in
(15:37):
this business have been rejected. I mean, really, in any
business of must it's how do you handle that? You've
been through different bands, different deals. I'm sure I don't
know this for sure, but I'm sure you've been dropped
here and there. Oh yeah, you've had things canceled, whatever,
songs don't hit. How do you handle that? And why
(15:58):
do you keep doing it?
Speaker 5 (16:00):
I've had four record deals, major record deals, four or five,
and I've been dropped from every one of them except one.
So and that when I asked to leave, I ask
out of But like I've had four publishing deals, I've
been dropped from everyone except the one I'm in now.
(16:21):
It's part of the business and that's easy to say,
but you know when you are when you are rejected.
You know that, especially as artists, and I think we're
very sensitive people, and you know, I don't want to
say it hurts worse than anybody else, but when you're
emotional and sensitive, you know it definitely it hurts you,
(16:45):
and it hurts it's more than hurts your ego. It
hurts your confidence. Yes, so you know I feel like
you're kind of like, am I even good at this?
Speaker 1 (16:55):
I don't a certain amount of success?
Speaker 3 (16:58):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (16:58):
Oh absolutely I feel that today.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
Yeah, Rammy nominated, Great Records, great Songwriter, Cuts after cut
and right still can get you right there?
Speaker 5 (17:09):
Yeah absolutely. I mean it's it's something that you know,
for me doesn't doesn't go away. And I think some
of that comes from like just feeling like, you know,
you're not as good a musician as someone else, or
you're not you know, you get offered this thing and
you're like, oh, no, I'm not you know. I remember
when Keith Urban called and I said, no, that that's
(17:31):
not what I do. I had never been a side
guy before. I was always a front man, and when
I got the call that he wanted me to be
in the band, I almost literally talked him out of
it because I was like, no, I'm not that good.
I shouldn't be in this band, you know. And then
I was there for nine years.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
So you know, well, based on what I've seen those shows,
I haven't been to a show physically, but what I've
seen you look like a front man. No, well, it
look like there's two front men. That might be why
I don't have the job anymore. Speaking of rejection, yeah, right,
you were so you were with Keith for nine years.
Speaker 5 (18:03):
Nine years, Yeah, until about two weeks ago.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
So okay, was that expected or not.
Speaker 5 (18:08):
Or it was not?
Speaker 1 (18:09):
Okay?
Speaker 5 (18:09):
Yeah, I think that he decided to make a change
and sort of cleaned house. And uh, Jerry Flowers, who's
my great friend who was a bass player for twenty
five years with him, we were two of the three
to go. But I have nothing but great things to
say about him, nothing but respect. He's uh, he treated
(18:31):
us incredibly for nine years. I have a song on
his record right now. It's Uh, he's a good dude,
and I think he it's his artistic vision. And in
the end you realize, you know, we're not a band,
and yeah it felt like that, but we're not. And
so wherever he's headed, I'm you know, I'm happy to
see see what happens.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
And that's I think that's a key thing to remember
for any up and comer or anybody in the business,
is that it is a business. Yeah, and like the
rejection can feel personal, right, but it's money.
Speaker 5 (19:03):
Yeah, it's a business, and you forget that you know,
especially when you become friends and you're like, you know,
in that situation in particular, which I don't want to
hang on too long, but it we it felt like
a band, yeah, because he's a band guy and treated
us like a band, which was amazing when you're in it.
I mean, who lets their guitarist sing a song by himself,
(19:23):
you know what I mean? Like a whole song, Like
that's what the kind of stuff he would do.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
And yeah, I at that caliber and that those kind
of shows. That's insane.
Speaker 5 (19:31):
Yeah, absolutely wow. So he's a he's a fantastic showman
and obvious guitar player, the best I've been around, and
it was it was a hell of a run in
amazing nine years. And but you know, you move on
and new things ahead.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
Yeah man, Yeah, let's uh tell me about that instrument
you made, the phantom?
Speaker 3 (19:52):
Is that?
Speaker 5 (19:52):
Yeah? Yeah, I want to know, but it looks weird. Yeah,
so very cool. When I when I got the call
for the Keith job, I was in a band called
Five Knives, which was an ed yep Zach Hall, my
buddy EDM punk kind of thing that Zach and I
(20:13):
had started together, and I was triggering samples That's when
I had gotten into Ableton and like, how how can
I make the show more interesting? How can I trigger
these samples live so it's not all on track, you know,
And we were trying to straddle the line. It's when
DJs were just so huge, you know, like we did
(20:34):
shows with skrillics and like you know that we were
doing these massive EDM festivals where it's just DJ's up
there and they are just you know, it's one hundred
thousand people out there going crazy, and at that time
that was literally you know, if you had a live instrument,
you couldn't get arrested. So we were trying to walk
this line of still playing guitars and keys and had
(20:56):
a live drummer even but we sounded like a DJ.
Like it was, you know, pretty a pretty cool concept.
And so I had gotten into triggering samples, cutting up
things off the record. And so when when Keith called,
I went and watched the show and I realized right away,
I'm like, I know what I can do to make
(21:17):
this cool and different, and you know, my role, And
but what I realized was he plays giant arenas every
single night, and I'm like, no one wants to watch
a guy just pushing some buttons and not know what
he's doing right up there, and which I You know,
I played keys and guitar too, but a lot of
(21:38):
the times I was triggering these things off the record,
and that's when it came to you know, it dawned
on me that if I had something that lit up
and faced the crowd. So every time I hit a
MIDI note, a trigger played some part. Not only could
you hear it, but you could see it, and there
was a visual excitement to it. And so after like
(22:01):
three months of R and D and failed attempts, like,
we finally got the first one that worked. And at
that time it was four iPads, which is a horrible idea,
but it got us through the rehearsals and then you know,
and then you get on the road and you realize
this is a lot more complicated than we thought because
they all have to talk to each other and one
(22:22):
goes heywire, some midi thing happens and it's blinking and
you know. And as a matter of fact, one of
my biggest nightmares happened when we played the Grammys, and
it's one of the most nervous shows I've ever done
because the curtain opens and I see Paul McCartney and
(22:42):
the Weekend and Madonna and like they're all sitting right
in the front row watching intently as we play. And
I've got this new weird thing. And we didn't realize
at the time, but TV studio lights are so bright
that it was coming in the I don't know what
you call the eye, the retina thing of the the iPads,
(23:03):
and it would freak them out, and they were they
were blinking on their own without me touching them. And
luckily I could turn the volume down and it made
no sound, but it just looked absolutely ridiculous. So I
finally made it to play the Grammys, and it just
screwed up the whole time.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
Yeah, what what was it? What was the pad? Eventually, so.
Speaker 5 (23:24):
Eventually I don't want to give away all my secrets
of what the program I was using, which they don't
make anymore, so I guess it doesn't matter. But we
eventually moved to a more sophisticated situation. And but actually
that screen is just a Dell computer, you know screen,
But we used a company called Touch Innovations that are
(23:47):
now out of business, so I can tell you, but
it let you draw your own.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
I could.
Speaker 5 (23:52):
I could have made that thing any look anyway I
wanted to. I just made it look how I wanted
it to look. Well, So we looked into the because
we were using third party things like Ableton is the
brains behind it all, and because we were using the
Dell screen, and because you know, touch innovations, that I
(24:13):
would have had to come up with all those things
on my own. You know, I can't use another company's
like product, so we would have had to invent a
new version of Ableton Live and a new you know,
so it got too crazy and expensive. And you know,
(24:34):
I would love if anybody's out there and wants to
do that. That'd be amazing and come up with that
kind of thing, you know, and and that as well. Yeah,
stress and time and yeah, so maybe that's after retirement,
I can.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
The gear world is a whole different ball, right for sure.
Before we get into talking about the song that we're
going to talk about, which is a newer Luna Halo song,
I want to talk about Untouchable for a second, right,
being like the song that will Not Die. Yeah, I
(25:08):
want to just maybe go through that story, tell us
about what has led to that song, just living out
this like crazy path. What was it like writing it?
Did you know it was special at the time because
it's just one of those songs as soon as it
comes in, you know it's good.
Speaker 5 (25:25):
You know it's funny. As we tried to find a
work tape to that, Yeah, and it's so old that,
like our bass player said, I think I have it
on a CD somewhere, but I can't even Yeah, so
like I couldn't track it down, but it would have been.
My brother and I wrote that song we were living
in I was living in a duplex with the drummer
(25:46):
Chris Coleman in Silvan Park here in Nashville, and we
had a little Roland kind of eight track recorder where
you had to you could record, you know, for it.
We would record like really terrible drums in the living
room and then I'd bounce that down to one track
and then it'd add the base and you know what
(26:06):
I mean. It was like really crude the way we
were recording, but it's what we could afford, and we
just get the basic ideas down. But I remember, I
believe my brother had that riff the ban and I
immediately went, this is a smash like I don't even
care what we say over it, like this is huge,
(26:29):
And I started humming a melody as I do, just
gibberish and you know, and I think it stayed that
way for a few weeks because I just didn't want
to mess it up. I was so scared of starting
a lyric. And then I think it just came to
me the title, and you know, just I just rattled
(26:52):
it off and wrote wrote it like that. Eventually we
had turned it into Barbara Orbison, who was my publisher
at the time, and she just wanted a couple of
lyric tweaks before we went in the studio and recorded it.
So we brought in Tommy Lee James, who's a friend
of ours who's a great songwriter, and I think he
only changed like maybe two lines, and you know, even
(27:15):
so much when we offered him, he was like, you know,
but I was like, you know, Tommy, you he definitely
made it better and just pushed it over the edge,
you know. So we went in with Rick Rubin and
recorded that one and it just came out. It's still
one of my favorite things I've ever done in my life,
and a lot of people say, you can tell when
(27:38):
a song's great when you can do it on acoustic
or piano and it's still great, you know. And I
feel I feel that way about that song. It was
just a magic gift from God that you don't expect
and it comes once, usually once in a career. For
some people it comes a few times. But for us,
I think that thing, it was just magical, you know.
Speaker 7 (27:59):
And what happened, well, what happened on that What happened
is that we we we put it out, the label
puts it out as a single, and it does nothing
on rock radio.
Speaker 5 (28:11):
It kind of floundered. I can't remember where it got,
but it wasn't very high up, and I just figured
that was it. It's dead in the water and that's
a shame. And it was, you know. And and then
the album kind of followed. Suit did the same thing,
and Carrie and I just went, we're going to just
go into songwriting and just forget the band really and
(28:33):
you know, well that was fun. But and then I
get a call from Scott Borshetta at Big Machine and
he said, Hey, I played Taylor Swift, this new artist
I have. I played her year record and she's gonna
do a cover of Untouchable on this TV show called Stripped,
which was just her and an acoustic guitar, and I thought, wow,
(28:57):
that's pretty amazing. You know. I hadn't of her, but
I was like, that's pretty cool. And so later I
see it and she's turned it into a ballad and
changed the melody on the verse, and I was a
little bit like, wow, that's really different. But I liked it.
(29:17):
I thought it was really good and I loved what
she did with it. I've always had I have an
open mind with that kind of stuff. I'm never like, oh,
that's mine, and she messed it up, and you know,
I was like, that's cool. I would have never thought
to do that, you know. And all of a sudden,
it's back when you know, YouTube was first like really
(29:40):
blowing up, and all these young girls just were putting
up copycat versions of them in their room, you know,
doing it. And I think that's one amazing thing that
happened with that song is that she did it that
way first so that people could copy it, because if
it was a big produced thing, they might not have
as many you know. I mean it's just her and
(30:00):
a guitar, and so all these girls in their room
and guys like playing the song, posting it. It just
started to take off. And so then I get the
call that she's putting it on the Fearless album, so
which is mind blowing, you know. And by that time,
she was well, she was big, you know, and because
(30:22):
Fearless had really taken off. And then and then we
get the call that she's doing it on Saturday Night Live.
So she did that. I got to sit and watch that,
and you know, I'll never forget sitting. We were hanging
out with the Kings Leon Boys and Jared and Nathan
Followell in their living room and my brother and I
(30:43):
are there and our song's about to be on Saturday
Night Live. And when it came on, they were freaking out.
They're like, dude, you're on Saturday Night Live. And I'm like,
you're in one of the biggest bands in the world,
like you would have thought, like you know what I mean.
They were excited about that for us, you know, which
was really cool of them. But I just thought it
was so funny. I remember that moment of seeing it
because I was with them and they were so excited
(31:04):
for us, which was really cool because they, you know,
they placed out of your friend succeeds. Yeah, it was.
It was really cool. It was a good time in
our in our lives for sure.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
And then she's put it on something else, right.
Speaker 5 (31:15):
Unless she re recorded it for the Taylor's version. Yeah,
so yeah, she recently did that, and uh, I just
won't go away. It won't go away, yeah, which I'm
fine with.
Speaker 1 (31:24):
I like that. Please. Yeah, it's such a good song.
If if you all out there, I haven't heard it,
which is probably just a handful of people at this point,
but please go listen to it. It's so good.
Speaker 5 (31:34):
The Luna Halo version and the Taylor.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
VERSI yeah both. I sent him to my son, actually yeah,
because I don't have the I was showing my kids
the CDs, the Luna Halo CDs in the car, right,
and I told him about that song. I was like,
you know, Taylor Swifts cut it and all of the stuff.
So I sent both of them and he liked her version.
Speaker 7 (31:52):
Yeah, he's gonna be most people do, I think so.
Speaker 1 (31:56):
But I like your version. Thank you, Luna Halo fan.
So you why restart Luna Halo? After I say restart,
I feel like it never went away, But you know,
you guys had a career, you have families, you have
all this stuff going on between the four of you. Yeah,
(32:16):
why come back? I know you were supposed to do
something right around the time COVID hit, right right, Yeah,
like a show A So we were.
Speaker 5 (32:25):
Doing a reunion show just for fun, and then COVID
hit and so then obviously that put that off a
year and a half or something like that, and we, uh,
I can't remember if that was like an anniversary of
like it might have been twelve year and some kind
of anniversary thing for us. But so we ended up
(32:46):
doing that show and we hadn't played a show in
seven years or something. And what was amazing is that
first rehearsal we just sounded like Luna Halo. It wasn't
We hadn't been in the room together, you know, and
all those years, same same original guys, and it was incredible,
and so we all got excited. And then we do
this show and sell out Mercy Lounge and then the
(33:08):
show goes great, and you could feel this underlying like
we should put out more music, like because we still
got it, we still sound good and people still want
to hear it. So it just felt like something we
should do. So we discussed it like, hey, is it
would you guys be in if we did an EP?
(33:29):
And they're like yeah. So I then had to go
about what what would we sound like now? Like would
we are we still emulating Lunahalo from two thousand and
seven or thirteen when that you know that era? Or
are are we supposed to sound like older guys that are?
You know what I mean? It is really hard and intimidating.
(33:52):
So I didn't start writing a song for six months
or so because every time I wanted to, I would
get my own head and I'd be like, right, I
can't do this, like yeah, and you don't want to
taint something that's got a good reputation. And then it
was my brother again comes in with this riff that's
(34:14):
oddly or not oddly but similar to the untouchable kind
of vibe, and it became Hollywood Faded and that's the
first song we wrote for it, and I knew as
soon as we had that, I was like, this is it.
This is the path, this is where we you know.
Speaker 1 (34:28):
Yeah, because the new stuff is not a total rip
of your old stuff, right, but it's also it's still
that right, you know, like it's got like a modern
like a twenty twenty five modern.
Speaker 5 (34:42):
Asque, slightly more mature.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
I don't know what to call it. Yeah I don't.
I'm not like a top forty guy, but like at
least current top forty guy. So I don't know what
to call it, but I hear like it. It could.
It could one get to me your old fan, uh
and get to a new generation, right, kids, that are
(35:05):
that like all the other influences that you're pulling.
Speaker 5 (35:08):
Yeah, I'm really happy and I'm proud of proud of
what we.
Speaker 1 (35:11):
Did, which leads us on to feed your feelings, which
is a great song. We'll go ahead and listen to
the work tape of that and then we'll kind of
break that down.
Speaker 2 (35:23):
Heavy Abby.
Speaker 3 (35:32):
Who the Babby Heavy Heavy saved the bodyby the moment nob.
Speaker 2 (36:01):
Ho no mob the b b be so loves and
raise and reason holl loveth.
Speaker 4 (36:21):
So hab.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
I'll do in the way you.
Speaker 3 (36:36):
Maybe you're notving no live.
Speaker 4 (36:45):
Said, says says wing Reed living.
Speaker 6 (36:59):
Something in.
Speaker 5 (37:06):
You re mem.
Speaker 3 (37:20):
Love me ex.
Speaker 2 (37:30):
When nod like, why are you changing your man?
Speaker 5 (37:35):
Something in me?
Speaker 1 (37:36):
Was this time you say.
Speaker 4 (37:40):
We got you got your raisons reasons three since sure,
leave me in pass ba serious basis, you're just walking up.
Speaker 5 (37:59):
Cool hands.
Speaker 1 (38:38):
This is a great work tape. So what I've done
on this work tape is I'm putting two together. So
you've got what I appreciate about the work tape that
you sent is, uh, the first one has no lyrics.
It just says you making noise the melodies. Is that
how you generally write? Yes, melody first. That's like the
(39:02):
old age question.
Speaker 5 (39:03):
Right, Yeah, I am. I am sometimes music and melody
at this same time. Sometimes music first and then I'll
you know, but it's usually pretty uh, simultaneous.
Speaker 1 (39:16):
Well, what's interesting about this because I do this a lot.
I mean, I'll write lyrics all the time, but that
have nothing. They're just ideas, right, kitschy phrases or whatever.
But if I play a riff, I stumble on a
nice riff or whatever, then I'll start making those noises
like you did, and then certain words fall out.
Speaker 5 (39:37):
That's what happened.
Speaker 1 (39:37):
Yet, like Matt, it's like this weird thing where like
you hear a word and then you write around that.
Is that? Yeah, that's what happened.
Speaker 5 (39:47):
I mean, that's what happened with this where I you know,
this was late at night. The story behind Feed Your
Feelings was that we thought we were ready for the
EP to go in and record, and something was bugging me,
like we're missing one moment.
Speaker 7 (40:04):
You know.
Speaker 5 (40:04):
We had great songs, we had more upbeat stuff, we
had the you know, I was like, we need like
an emotional song. We don't have that, and it was
bothering me. And also I didn't feel like vocally I
had really shown what I could do on the other songs,
even though they were good songs. I was like, I'm
not really like going for it, you know. So the
(40:26):
idea that I brought to my brother Carrie and my
buddy of ours, Mike Fiorentino, was we need to write
this emotional ballad thing that blows up. We had a
song called Haunted that kind of like does a similar thing,
but obviously I wanted this to be a more sophisticated
version of that. But so we had planned to get
(40:47):
together in a couple of days, and then that very night,
I think I'd had a couple drinks and that I
went up to my studio and I just went into it,
you know, But like you said, I just I'm playing
the p I know, and I'm mumbling and I'm like zunds, zunds,
and like that ended up being the actual lyric that
(41:11):
made the record. And I think it was Mike that said,
what sounds like you're saying reasons here and what that's cool?
Why don't we just start with that or you know?
And then I came up with I guess you got
your reasons and yeah, so we we we just kind
of talked the three of us when we wrote it
and Carry's studio and we're like, you know, what if
(41:33):
it's like a you know, a vampire sucking kind of
relationship where it's, you know, she comes back to feed
her feelings, you know, so that's a yeah, thank you.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
Yeah, it's kind of off center for like a love
song breakup kind of thing, right, like the you know,
the buzzwords now it's like a narcissist, yeah vibe I
got when I heard listened down to the lyrics like
your feelings that goes right yeah right into it.
Speaker 5 (42:03):
Worked out too bad? The what's the Kristen Stewart Vampire
Show is and still a thing.
Speaker 1 (42:09):
Yeah, maybe they'll do they always make remake.
Speaker 5 (42:11):
Maybe they'll do another movie.
Speaker 1 (42:13):
Yeah, I'm sure there's vampire stuff you can Yeah, definitely
all day. What do you have? What do you have
coming up? So we actually haven't you have newfound freedom
right now? Yeah?
Speaker 5 (42:29):
I do, I kind of do. I'm I Two days
after I got that call from Keith, I got a
call from someone else to play with them, which I can't.
I don't want to jinx and don't want to mention yet.
But I'm currently learning twenty five new songs and going
to Europe in March to play with another country artist.
(42:52):
So I'm looking forward to that and I'm really excited
about the opportunity. In the meantime, when we tracked that EP,
we track some extra songs and we didn't tell anyone
and haven't mentioned it but on I don't know when
this is going to air. This will be after okay,
(43:14):
So February seventh is when we have a song coming
out called The Real Thing, which is great Luna Halo,
and you're one of the very few people that have
heard it.
Speaker 1 (43:23):
So yeah, I heard the intro and it was like,
huh yeah. I got into it and I was like,
this is a rat Yeah cool it hits man, yeah great,
and you can play it on the outro of this
if yeah, absolutely snippet of it and that'd be great,
let's do it. I'll do that.
Speaker 5 (43:38):
So, yeah, that's that's coming out. And then we've been
trying to get a Luna Halo show together here in
Nashville for five months now and it's just been all
our touring schedules because everybody's doing different things. Our bass
player works for Brad Paisley now, and our our drummer
is married to Hank Junior's daughter, Holly, and they play
(43:59):
together and he plays a Hanksome and and my brother
is a songwriter and you know, so it's we all
have kids and you know, families, and so it's it's
been hard to get us in them. And then any
date we locked down, you call the clubs and Nashville
is like hot shit now all of a sudden, it
wasn't back in the day. Yeah, they were begging people
(44:20):
to play on them Thursday night or whatever, and now
you can't get it.
Speaker 1 (44:24):
What was your favorite venue back then, like late nineties,
early two thousands.
Speaker 5 (44:28):
I feel like twelfth Importer was always our home.
Speaker 1 (44:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (44:32):
I liked the size and the sound of that room.
And even when we got to where we could have
sold that out two or three nights in a row.
I just wanted to play it that one night and
cram people. And it was like uncomfortably hot in there.
Speaker 1 (44:46):
And one of the drunk I'm not proud of this,
but one of the drunkest I've ever been was.
Speaker 4 (44:51):
There.
Speaker 5 (44:52):
You go, oh my gosh, that's a common story. Yeah,
that's a common story.
Speaker 1 (44:57):
Wild. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (44:58):
We uh, we didn't. We left no stone unturned. We
definitely lived that the full thing. It was like, you
go to this great, energetic rock show and then it
just keeps going, It keeps going. The show is over,
but it's not really. Yeah, And we prided ourselves in that.
We were like, oh you think it's over, No, come here,
(45:19):
come to this bar.
Speaker 1 (45:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (45:20):
We'd be on tables and DJ and you know.
Speaker 1 (45:23):
I was done for for like three days after that.
That's it was bad. That's why I remember it.
Speaker 5 (45:29):
Hangover in your forties.
Speaker 1 (45:30):
Yeah, yeah, And I can't do that now, right man.
Speaker 5 (45:34):
Thanks for being here, Yeah, thanks for having appreciate its fun.
Speaker 1 (45:37):
Making the time. I feel like there's one hundred more
things we could talk about. Yeah, but I don't want
to keep you all day, So I appreciate it and
thanks for having me man. Good luck on everything coming up.
Speaker 5 (45:50):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (45:51):
I think you'll be fine, Thank you, Thank you. Work
Tapes is produced by me Brandon Carswell, filming and editing
(46:14):
by Sean Carswell. Special thanks to Nathan Barlow and Luna Halo.
Learn more about Luna Halo on their Instagram page at
Luna Halo Music. Thanks for listening to Work Tapes. Don't
forget to like and subscribe wherever you listen to your
favorite podcasts
Speaker 5 (46:31):
Sat tell Me In
Welcome to Work Tapes. This is a podcast where we
tear up our songs. Why was the song written, what's
it about, what's the context and emotion behind it? Where
were you at the time, what were you going through?
How did certain lines come to you? What's the inspiration?
How long did it take to write? I'm Brandon Carswell
and I'm fascinated with songwriting and how songs are built
(00:30):
from the ground up. It's easy to hear a full
production song on the radio and dismiss its origin story.
I want to hear the rough draft of the song
or the work tape. I want to explore the very
beginning of how songs that move us and make us
move our born.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Loving to me that it was off for show.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
Made me melt again like sun snow.
Speaker 4 (01:08):
Just MOI go to far.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
Push she call me, kiss me in the time, show
me leave lempassable.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
No, no, you have guess she got joyes.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
Sees SEEZ and you leave me in Peace says Peace
says Peace says you just walk on.
Speaker 4 (01:52):
I can't even.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Tell me why.
Speaker 4 (02:02):
You can go long sail goodbye. Every cook is d Man.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Hello everyone, and welcome to Work Tapes. This is Brandon
as usual. Today is an exciting episode for me. I'm
joined by the frontman for Luna Halo, who I've been
a longtime fan of. He's had songs recorded by Taylor Swift,
Steven Tyler, Keith, Urban Newsboys, Jars of Clay, He's a
(02:33):
Grammy nominated songwriter, had three top ten Billboard Dance singles.
He's done all kinds of things. I've been in bands
like Reality Check, Luna Halo, Five Knives, Keith, Urban Honeymoon Thrillers,
which is one of my favorites, been on the road
(02:54):
with Velvet Revolver, Hubastanks, Smashing Pumpkins. Is there anything I'm missing?
Nathan Barlow sounds impressive to me. It's fun like, who
is this person? You've had an expansive career in music
and an impressive one, and thank you for being here.
Speaker 5 (03:12):
Yeah, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
Yeah. Absolutely. I would have been introduced to Luna Halo
well reality Check also, but I didn't know you were
connected back then, right between the two. But in my
high school days we were just talking about that, and man,
that first Luna Halo Shimmer album was just like on
(03:33):
repeat for me, like songs one through four. I think
were my go tos at that time, and some of
that was super influential for me being in at the time.
I wasn't necessarily in a band in that part of
high school, but shortly after that had started a band
with my brother, rock band and that kind of style
(03:57):
of music between like Radiohead, Muse, Coldplay, kind of some
of all of that stuff that I think you were
probably heavy into. And I remember shortly after high school
we were able to open a show with you guys
in Raleigh at Lincoln Theater. I'm saying all that to
(04:19):
say we also are kind of some of the Raleigh crowd,
my brother and I being lived in Raleigh for a
long time. You and Carrie, your brother, Carrie Barlow, who's
also a huge, fantastic songwriter. Well he's not huge, but
his songs are huge.
Speaker 5 (04:36):
Yes, his songs are huge.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
And man, it's just it's exciting for me. There's a
lot of history here. Carrie was on episode eleven. Nick Autrey,
who's a mutual friend, good friend, who helped make your
last record with Luna Halo or ep, who runs the
studio that we're sitting in. Just so many connection points
(04:59):
between people we know history. I've followed you forever, so
I'm excited about it. If you can't tell, Yeah, me too, man. Yeah,
So let's start off with there are tons I want
to talk about. I want to know, first of all,
who you are and how you started in music at all,
(05:22):
Like what was the background. I know a little bit
just based on my interview with Carrie, but you're not Carrie,
so I want to know what happened to get you
so involved in music in the first place.
Speaker 5 (05:36):
And I'm ten years older than Carrie, so he doesn't
even know how.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
That's funny.
Speaker 5 (05:42):
I grew up in church. My dad was a pastor,
and so I come from a really musical family, even
beyond my parents, just grandparents. And you know, I remember
growing up, even as a three year old and hearing
the whole family like ten people around a piano and
my grandmother would be playing and they'd sing hymn's and
(06:04):
gospel songs and stuff like that. So that was probably
the original music I heard growing up. And then, you know,
as my mom tells it, at four or five in
the car I was she noticed I was singing harmony
to the songs on the radio, so I was like
singing tenor at four or five. So they had a
(06:26):
little group that my dad played piano and we went
and sang and stuff. And so I was sort of
like the little trick pony that they would put me
up on the thing and I'd sing my two songs
and they'd give me some candy and i'd, you know,
go off. So the stage was right away something I
was comfortable with at a at a young age. And
that's the first music that I remember hearing.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
Yeah, so gospel, yeah, was it like southern gospel.
Speaker 5 (06:54):
Very yeah, Beulah Land all that stuff, so yeah, yeah.
And then and then the first influential thing beyond that
that I can recall is my my dad had a
bunch of records that I believe my uncle gave him,
and I remember finding the Beach Boys for the first
time and hearing those harmonies, and that kind of music
(07:16):
just changed my life forever.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
Was that was Brian Wilson's voice, something that you try
to emulate because you have an insane range right for
people that don't know you can go super low like
and super happy, yeah, and you have a crazy great
falsetto and all of that. Was that.
Speaker 5 (07:38):
I really think that all those early influential albums like that,
the Falsettos that like, and even later in life, like
there were just albums like you mentioned Muse. You know,
I would constantly be like, can I do that? Can
I hit that? Can I you know? And but absolutely
the Beach Boys influenced that in the beginning, and that's
(08:01):
how I started singing so high, right, I just thought, well,
that's what you do.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
Like, yeah, you know what age was that when you
found those records?
Speaker 5 (08:09):
I think that was around nine or ten.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
Okay, so you would have was it like a bunch
of different styles that you were finding there.
Speaker 5 (08:17):
Yeah, for sure, But I gravitated towards you know, although
there were seventies things like leads up on and all
that kind of stuff. It's funny because I never I
love that, and I appreciate it, the musicianship especially, but
I liked the melodic you know, for me, it was
more the Beach Boys and eighties stuff and Elton John
(08:39):
and like things like that. That this melody is what
I was drawn to. So it was all kind of
like pop hooks most of it. Yeah, and then it
was later that the rock bug really really hit me,
you know, And yeah, but those are my early early memories.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
Yeah, because it seems like stylistically in a good way,
you go all over the place, or you have from
Reality Check being what it was in the nineties, which
is kind of like a DC Talk esque. They had
their own thing. It seemed like right going it from
(09:18):
that into Luna Halo. Was there anything between that or
did you find something in Reality Check? Were you being
influenced at that time? You mentioned earlier being influenced by
radio Head kind of during that season, but that you
were like, oh, this is what I want to do.
Speaker 5 (09:40):
What's funny? And during the reality Check years when we
won the National Gospel Competition and we won a record
deal with Sparrow and so we moved to Nashville in
ninety six, and I remember being a little lost writing
for that record because I didn't the DC Talk comparison
was drove me nuts because we came we formed at
(10:03):
Liberty as well, same area. I knew those guys, still
great friends with all of them, but we didn't want
to be them. And it's hard when you have, you know,
two white guys and black guy and you rap and
you rock and it's you know, it's very similar aesthetic
and makeup, and when I came to town, I discovered
(10:25):
this band called Self, which Matt Mhaffey is the brainchild behind,
and he and I are best buds now. And when
I heard that, I said, that's how I can make
us different musically, and so started to write songs basically
not not copying him, but emulating those sounds in the
(10:46):
way he did things. It's funny because he eventually produced
the Luna Halo demo, which we'll get to but yeah,
So so that became the beginning of the reality check
and what set us apart, I think from other things.
But during that after years of being in that band,
(11:08):
I mentioned to you that Radio had had released Okay
Computer and it was making waves all across the music industry,
and our guitar player at the time, Johnny Macintosh, and
I after every show would go to the back lounge
of the bus and put that video on and just
watch the live show of Okay Computer, and we just
(11:30):
were like, we want to do that. That's what I
want to do, you know, And that led to us
leaving to form Luna Halo.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
Okay, that's great. Yeah, you mentioned not copying but emulating,
and I didn't know about that comparison between DC talk.
That's I to prep for this. I just listened to
as much as I could've done this week. But I
(12:01):
would say, like emulating someone is really the highest form
of flattery.
Speaker 5 (12:05):
Right, Oh yeah, you're you're.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
Paying homage to what they're You're saying, this is fantastic.
Let me do something like this, but put my spin
on it. Yeah, And you do have your own sound.
It doesn't matter if that sounded like whatever. Like there's
when I say it sounded like it, I mean like
there's a piece of it that sounds like it, right,
Like there's a there's a riff, or there's a there's
(12:27):
a part of a record or a song that sounds
like a thing. I think we all have that as artists, right,
we're pulling from whatever influences us. But you, specifically as
a frontman and a writer, have your own vibe and
it's very unique. Your voice is super unique, your stage presence,
(12:47):
all of it is Like it's like, I'm curious, actually,
like in real life do you turn that on or
is that just like a stage thing, a studio thing. Yeah,
you know when you know when it's go time, it's.
Speaker 5 (13:01):
A natural thing. Yeah, and I think a lot of
it too, comes over years and years of touring and
experience and you know.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
What form what formed that. Not to interrupt, but like, okay,
so go back really early, like your first live experiences.
Everyone's nervous, right, you know you're nervous your first time
singing in front of anyone. You grew up in church
doing that, which makes it a little bit easier maybe
on some regard because people are like, oh, look at
that cute kid singing, and then you start getting ego,
(13:33):
you know, like, yeah, you're hot ship because yeah, you know,
everybody likes this.
Speaker 5 (13:38):
When I was I think I was five and I'd
sang this mega church in Dallas, Texas and they rolled
out a red bicycle right afterwards, and my mom said
that ruined me because I expected something from singing every time.
Speaker 6 (13:52):
That might have helped you actually in business later maybe,
so yeah, I'm not doing this for free. Yeah, but
you know it was one of you know, what it
is is just years of I wouldn't say rejection, but
of especially I remember the club days, like when you're
playing to a room that doesn't care, you know, you
(14:14):
learn what doesn't work and what does work, and to
work harder and to maybe I should be a little
more entertaining and not be the cool guy with my
head down staring at my pedal board or maybe you know,
and that's just me personally. I have become an entertainer
over time, and truthfully, I don't think I've ever said this,
(14:34):
but in the beginning, I felt like I was overcompensating
because we weren't good enough.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
So who's we?
Speaker 5 (14:43):
The any band I was in at the time, So
you know, I had little bands in high school and
stuff like that, and I did my own little solo
thing kind of. But I just felt I've always had
imposter syndrome my whole life, and so I still do.
And so I I feel like it was a way
of if I entertain really well, then you won't hear
(15:05):
this bad song that we're playing right right, and we'll
get to the one good one we have or whatever.
And you know, I think some of it came from that,
but then over time it just becomes part of your personality.
It's just what I do.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
Yeah, let's dive into that, just like a little bit,
or as much as you want, as far as imposter
syndrome and rejection goes. Because in this business, they kind
of go hand in hand and it's kind of inevitable.
And I would say most people I know have in
(15:37):
this business have been rejected. I mean, really, in any
business of must it's how do you handle that? You've
been through different bands, different deals. I'm sure I don't
know this for sure, but I'm sure you've been dropped
here and there. Oh yeah, you've had things canceled, whatever,
songs don't hit. How do you handle that? And why
(15:58):
do you keep doing it?
Speaker 5 (16:00):
I've had four record deals, major record deals, four or five,
and I've been dropped from every one of them except one.
So and that when I asked to leave, I ask
out of But like I've had four publishing deals, I've
been dropped from everyone except the one I'm in now.
(16:21):
It's part of the business and that's easy to say,
but you know when you are when you are rejected.
You know that, especially as artists, and I think we're
very sensitive people, and you know, I don't want to
say it hurts worse than anybody else, but when you're
emotional and sensitive, you know it definitely it hurts you,
(16:45):
and it hurts it's more than hurts your ego. It
hurts your confidence. Yes, so you know I feel like
you're kind of like, am I even good at this?
Speaker 1 (16:55):
I don't a certain amount of success?
Speaker 3 (16:58):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (16:58):
Oh absolutely I feel that today.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
Yeah, Rammy nominated, Great Records, great Songwriter, Cuts after cut
and right still can get you right there?
Speaker 5 (17:09):
Yeah absolutely. I mean it's it's something that you know,
for me doesn't doesn't go away. And I think some
of that comes from like just feeling like, you know,
you're not as good a musician as someone else, or
you're not you know, you get offered this thing and
you're like, oh, no, I'm not you know. I remember
when Keith Urban called and I said, no, that that's
(17:31):
not what I do. I had never been a side
guy before. I was always a front man, and when
I got the call that he wanted me to be
in the band, I almost literally talked him out of
it because I was like, no, I'm not that good.
I shouldn't be in this band, you know. And then
I was there for nine years.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
So you know, well, based on what I've seen those shows,
I haven't been to a show physically, but what I've
seen you look like a front man. No, well, it
look like there's two front men. That might be why
I don't have the job anymore. Speaking of rejection, yeah, right,
you were so you were with Keith for nine years.
Speaker 5 (18:03):
Nine years, Yeah, until about two weeks ago.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
So okay, was that expected or not.
Speaker 5 (18:08):
Or it was not?
Speaker 1 (18:09):
Okay?
Speaker 5 (18:09):
Yeah, I think that he decided to make a change
and sort of cleaned house. And uh, Jerry Flowers, who's
my great friend who was a bass player for twenty
five years with him, we were two of the three
to go. But I have nothing but great things to
say about him, nothing but respect. He's uh, he treated
(18:31):
us incredibly for nine years. I have a song on
his record right now. It's Uh, he's a good dude,
and I think he it's his artistic vision. And in
the end you realize, you know, we're not a band,
and yeah it felt like that, but we're not. And
so wherever he's headed, I'm you know, I'm happy to
see see what happens.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
And that's I think that's a key thing to remember
for any up and comer or anybody in the business,
is that it is a business. Yeah, and like the
rejection can feel personal, right, but it's money.
Speaker 5 (19:03):
Yeah, it's a business, and you forget that you know,
especially when you become friends and you're like, you know,
in that situation in particular, which I don't want to
hang on too long, but it we it felt like
a band, yeah, because he's a band guy and treated
us like a band, which was amazing when you're in it.
I mean, who lets their guitarist sing a song by himself,
(19:23):
you know what I mean? Like a whole song, Like
that's what the kind of stuff he would do.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
And yeah, I at that caliber and that those kind
of shows. That's insane.
Speaker 5 (19:31):
Yeah, absolutely wow. So he's a he's a fantastic showman
and obvious guitar player, the best I've been around, and
it was it was a hell of a run in
amazing nine years. And but you know, you move on
and new things ahead.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
Yeah man, Yeah, let's uh tell me about that instrument
you made, the phantom?
Speaker 3 (19:52):
Is that?
Speaker 5 (19:52):
Yeah? Yeah, I want to know, but it looks weird. Yeah,
so very cool. When I when I got the call
for the Keith job, I was in a band called
Five Knives, which was an ed yep Zach Hall, my
buddy EDM punk kind of thing that Zach and I
(20:13):
had started together, and I was triggering samples That's when
I had gotten into Ableton and like, how how can
I make the show more interesting? How can I trigger
these samples live so it's not all on track, you know,
And we were trying to straddle the line. It's when
DJs were just so huge, you know, like we did
(20:34):
shows with skrillics and like you know that we were
doing these massive EDM festivals where it's just DJ's up
there and they are just you know, it's one hundred
thousand people out there going crazy, and at that time
that was literally you know, if you had a live instrument,
you couldn't get arrested. So we were trying to walk
this line of still playing guitars and keys and had
(20:56):
a live drummer even but we sounded like a DJ.
Like it was, you know, pretty a pretty cool concept.
And so I had gotten into triggering samples, cutting up
things off the record. And so when when Keith called,
I went and watched the show and I realized right away,
I'm like, I know what I can do to make
(21:17):
this cool and different, and you know, my role, And
but what I realized was he plays giant arenas every
single night, and I'm like, no one wants to watch
a guy just pushing some buttons and not know what
he's doing right up there, and which I You know,
I played keys and guitar too, but a lot of
(21:38):
the times I was triggering these things off the record,
and that's when it came to you know, it dawned
on me that if I had something that lit up
and faced the crowd. So every time I hit a
MIDI note, a trigger played some part. Not only could
you hear it, but you could see it, and there
was a visual excitement to it. And so after like
(22:01):
three months of R and D and failed attempts, like,
we finally got the first one that worked. And at
that time it was four iPads, which is a horrible idea,
but it got us through the rehearsals and then you know,
and then you get on the road and you realize
this is a lot more complicated than we thought because
they all have to talk to each other and one
(22:22):
goes heywire, some midi thing happens and it's blinking and
you know. And as a matter of fact, one of
my biggest nightmares happened when we played the Grammys, and
it's one of the most nervous shows I've ever done
because the curtain opens and I see Paul McCartney and
(22:42):
the Weekend and Madonna and like they're all sitting right
in the front row watching intently as we play. And
I've got this new weird thing. And we didn't realize
at the time, but TV studio lights are so bright
that it was coming in the I don't know what
you call the eye, the retina thing of the the iPads,
(23:03):
and it would freak them out, and they were they
were blinking on their own without me touching them. And
luckily I could turn the volume down and it made
no sound, but it just looked absolutely ridiculous. So I
finally made it to play the Grammys, and it just
screwed up the whole time.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
Yeah, what what was it? What was the pad? Eventually, so.
Speaker 5 (23:24):
Eventually I don't want to give away all my secrets
of what the program I was using, which they don't
make anymore, so I guess it doesn't matter. But we
eventually moved to a more sophisticated situation. And but actually
that screen is just a Dell computer, you know screen,
But we used a company called Touch Innovations that are
(23:47):
now out of business, so I can tell you, but
it let you draw your own.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
I could.
Speaker 5 (23:52):
I could have made that thing any look anyway I
wanted to. I just made it look how I wanted
it to look. Well, So we looked into the because
we were using third party things like Ableton is the
brains behind it all, and because we were using the
Dell screen, and because you know, touch innovations, that I
(24:13):
would have had to come up with all those things
on my own. You know, I can't use another company's
like product, so we would have had to invent a
new version of Ableton Live and a new you know,
so it got too crazy and expensive. And you know,
(24:34):
I would love if anybody's out there and wants to
do that. That'd be amazing and come up with that
kind of thing, you know, and and that as well. Yeah,
stress and time and yeah, so maybe that's after retirement,
I can.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
The gear world is a whole different ball, right for sure.
Before we get into talking about the song that we're
going to talk about, which is a newer Luna Halo song,
I want to talk about Untouchable for a second, right,
being like the song that will Not Die. Yeah, I
(25:08):
want to just maybe go through that story, tell us
about what has led to that song, just living out
this like crazy path. What was it like writing it?
Did you know it was special at the time because
it's just one of those songs as soon as it
comes in, you know it's good.
Speaker 5 (25:25):
You know it's funny. As we tried to find a
work tape to that, Yeah, and it's so old that,
like our bass player said, I think I have it
on a CD somewhere, but I can't even Yeah, so
like I couldn't track it down, but it would have been.
My brother and I wrote that song we were living
in I was living in a duplex with the drummer
(25:46):
Chris Coleman in Silvan Park here in Nashville, and we
had a little Roland kind of eight track recorder where
you had to you could record, you know, for it.
We would record like really terrible drums in the living
room and then I'd bounce that down to one track
and then it'd add the base and you know what
(26:06):
I mean. It was like really crude the way we
were recording, but it's what we could afford, and we
just get the basic ideas down. But I remember, I
believe my brother had that riff the ban and I
immediately went, this is a smash like I don't even
care what we say over it, like this is huge,
(26:29):
And I started humming a melody as I do, just
gibberish and you know, and I think it stayed that
way for a few weeks because I just didn't want
to mess it up. I was so scared of starting
a lyric. And then I think it just came to
me the title, and you know, just I just rattled
(26:52):
it off and wrote wrote it like that. Eventually we
had turned it into Barbara Orbison, who was my publisher
at the time, and she just wanted a couple of
lyric tweaks before we went in the studio and recorded it.
So we brought in Tommy Lee James, who's a friend
of ours who's a great songwriter, and I think he
only changed like maybe two lines, and you know, even
(27:15):
so much when we offered him, he was like, you know,
but I was like, you know, Tommy, you he definitely
made it better and just pushed it over the edge,
you know. So we went in with Rick Rubin and
recorded that one and it just came out. It's still
one of my favorite things I've ever done in my life,
and a lot of people say, you can tell when
(27:38):
a song's great when you can do it on acoustic
or piano and it's still great, you know. And I
feel I feel that way about that song. It was
just a magic gift from God that you don't expect
and it comes once, usually once in a career. For
some people it comes a few times. But for us,
I think that thing, it was just magical, you know.
Speaker 7 (27:59):
And what happened, well, what happened on that What happened
is that we we we put it out, the label
puts it out as a single, and it does nothing
on rock radio.
Speaker 5 (28:11):
It kind of floundered. I can't remember where it got,
but it wasn't very high up, and I just figured
that was it. It's dead in the water and that's
a shame. And it was, you know. And and then
the album kind of followed. Suit did the same thing,
and Carrie and I just went, we're going to just
go into songwriting and just forget the band really and
(28:33):
you know, well that was fun. But and then I
get a call from Scott Borshetta at Big Machine and
he said, Hey, I played Taylor Swift, this new artist
I have. I played her year record and she's gonna
do a cover of Untouchable on this TV show called Stripped,
which was just her and an acoustic guitar, and I thought, wow,
(28:57):
that's pretty amazing. You know. I hadn't of her, but
I was like, that's pretty cool. And so later I
see it and she's turned it into a ballad and
changed the melody on the verse, and I was a
little bit like, wow, that's really different. But I liked it.
(29:17):
I thought it was really good and I loved what
she did with it. I've always had I have an
open mind with that kind of stuff. I'm never like, oh,
that's mine, and she messed it up, and you know,
I was like, that's cool. I would have never thought
to do that, you know. And all of a sudden,
it's back when you know, YouTube was first like really
(29:40):
blowing up, and all these young girls just were putting
up copycat versions of them in their room, you know,
doing it. And I think that's one amazing thing that
happened with that song is that she did it that
way first so that people could copy it, because if
it was a big produced thing, they might not have
as many you know. I mean it's just her and
(30:00):
a guitar, and so all these girls in their room
and guys like playing the song, posting it. It just
started to take off. And so then I get the
call that she's putting it on the Fearless album, so
which is mind blowing, you know. And by that time,
she was well, she was big, you know, and because
(30:22):
Fearless had really taken off. And then and then we
get the call that she's doing it on Saturday Night Live.
So she did that. I got to sit and watch that,
and you know, I'll never forget sitting. We were hanging
out with the Kings Leon Boys and Jared and Nathan
Followell in their living room and my brother and I
(30:43):
are there and our song's about to be on Saturday
Night Live. And when it came on, they were freaking out.
They're like, dude, you're on Saturday Night Live. And I'm like,
you're in one of the biggest bands in the world,
like you would have thought, like you know what I mean.
They were excited about that for us, you know, which
was really cool of them. But I just thought it
was so funny. I remember that moment of seeing it
because I was with them and they were so excited
(31:04):
for us, which was really cool because they, you know,
they placed out of your friend succeeds. Yeah, it was.
It was really cool. It was a good time in
our in our lives for sure.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
And then she's put it on something else, right.
Speaker 5 (31:15):
Unless she re recorded it for the Taylor's version. Yeah,
so yeah, she recently did that, and uh, I just
won't go away. It won't go away, yeah, which I'm
fine with.
Speaker 1 (31:24):
I like that. Please. Yeah, it's such a good song.
If if you all out there, I haven't heard it,
which is probably just a handful of people at this point,
but please go listen to it. It's so good.
Speaker 5 (31:34):
The Luna Halo version and the Taylor.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
VERSI yeah both. I sent him to my son, actually yeah,
because I don't have the I was showing my kids
the CDs, the Luna Halo CDs in the car, right,
and I told him about that song. I was like,
you know, Taylor Swifts cut it and all of the stuff.
So I sent both of them and he liked her version.
Speaker 7 (31:52):
Yeah, he's gonna be most people do, I think so.
Speaker 1 (31:56):
But I like your version. Thank you, Luna Halo fan.
So you why restart Luna Halo? After I say restart,
I feel like it never went away, But you know,
you guys had a career, you have families, you have
all this stuff going on between the four of you. Yeah,
(32:16):
why come back? I know you were supposed to do
something right around the time COVID hit, right right, Yeah,
like a show A So we were.
Speaker 5 (32:25):
Doing a reunion show just for fun, and then COVID
hit and so then obviously that put that off a
year and a half or something like that, and we, uh,
I can't remember if that was like an anniversary of
like it might have been twelve year and some kind
of anniversary thing for us. But so we ended up
(32:46):
doing that show and we hadn't played a show in
seven years or something. And what was amazing is that
first rehearsal we just sounded like Luna Halo. It wasn't
We hadn't been in the room together, you know, and
all those years, same same original guys, and it was incredible,
and so we all got excited. And then we do
this show and sell out Mercy Lounge and then the
(33:08):
show goes great, and you could feel this underlying like
we should put out more music, like because we still
got it, we still sound good and people still want
to hear it. So it just felt like something we
should do. So we discussed it like, hey, is it
would you guys be in if we did an EP?
(33:29):
And they're like yeah. So I then had to go
about what what would we sound like now? Like would
we are we still emulating Lunahalo from two thousand and
seven or thirteen when that you know that era? Or
are are we supposed to sound like older guys that are?
You know what I mean? It is really hard and intimidating.
(33:52):
So I didn't start writing a song for six months
or so because every time I wanted to, I would
get my own head and I'd be like, right, I
can't do this, like yeah, and you don't want to
taint something that's got a good reputation. And then it
was my brother again comes in with this riff that's
(34:14):
oddly or not oddly but similar to the untouchable kind
of vibe, and it became Hollywood Faded and that's the
first song we wrote for it, and I knew as
soon as we had that, I was like, this is it.
This is the path, this is where we you know.
Speaker 1 (34:28):
Yeah, because the new stuff is not a total rip
of your old stuff, right, but it's also it's still
that right, you know, like it's got like a modern
like a twenty twenty five modern.
Speaker 5 (34:42):
Asque, slightly more mature.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
I don't know what to call it. Yeah I don't.
I'm not like a top forty guy, but like at
least current top forty guy. So I don't know what
to call it, but I hear like it. It could.
It could one get to me your old fan, uh
and get to a new generation, right, kids, that are
(35:05):
that like all the other influences that you're pulling.
Speaker 5 (35:08):
Yeah, I'm really happy and I'm proud of proud of
what we.
Speaker 1 (35:11):
Did, which leads us on to feed your feelings, which
is a great song. We'll go ahead and listen to
the work tape of that and then we'll kind of
break that down.
Speaker 2 (35:23):
Heavy Abby.
Speaker 3 (35:32):
Who the Babby Heavy Heavy saved the bodyby the moment nob.
Speaker 2 (36:01):
Ho no mob the b b be so loves and
raise and reason holl loveth.
Speaker 4 (36:21):
So hab.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
I'll do in the way you.
Speaker 3 (36:36):
Maybe you're notving no live.
Speaker 4 (36:45):
Said, says says wing Reed living.
Speaker 6 (36:59):
Something in.
Speaker 5 (37:06):
You re mem.
Speaker 3 (37:20):
Love me ex.
Speaker 2 (37:30):
When nod like, why are you changing your man?
Speaker 5 (37:35):
Something in me?
Speaker 1 (37:36):
Was this time you say.
Speaker 4 (37:40):
We got you got your raisons reasons three since sure,
leave me in pass ba serious basis, you're just walking up.
Speaker 5 (37:59):
Cool hands.
Speaker 1 (38:38):
This is a great work tape. So what I've done
on this work tape is I'm putting two together. So
you've got what I appreciate about the work tape that
you sent is, uh, the first one has no lyrics.
It just says you making noise the melodies. Is that
how you generally write? Yes, melody first. That's like the
(39:02):
old age question.
Speaker 5 (39:03):
Right, Yeah, I am. I am sometimes music and melody
at this same time. Sometimes music first and then I'll
you know, but it's usually pretty uh, simultaneous.
Speaker 1 (39:16):
Well, what's interesting about this because I do this a lot.
I mean, I'll write lyrics all the time, but that
have nothing. They're just ideas, right, kitschy phrases or whatever.
But if I play a riff, I stumble on a
nice riff or whatever, then I'll start making those noises
like you did, and then certain words fall out.
Speaker 5 (39:37):
That's what happened.
Speaker 1 (39:37):
Yet, like Matt, it's like this weird thing where like
you hear a word and then you write around that.
Is that? Yeah, that's what happened.
Speaker 5 (39:47):
I mean, that's what happened with this where I you know,
this was late at night. The story behind Feed Your
Feelings was that we thought we were ready for the
EP to go in and record, and something was bugging me,
like we're missing one moment.
Speaker 7 (40:04):
You know.
Speaker 5 (40:04):
We had great songs, we had more upbeat stuff, we
had the you know, I was like, we need like
an emotional song. We don't have that, and it was
bothering me. And also I didn't feel like vocally I
had really shown what I could do on the other songs,
even though they were good songs. I was like, I'm
not really like going for it, you know. So the
(40:26):
idea that I brought to my brother Carrie and my
buddy of ours, Mike Fiorentino, was we need to write
this emotional ballad thing that blows up. We had a
song called Haunted that kind of like does a similar thing,
but obviously I wanted this to be a more sophisticated
version of that. But so we had planned to get
(40:47):
together in a couple of days, and then that very night,
I think I'd had a couple drinks and that I
went up to my studio and I just went into it,
you know, But like you said, I just I'm playing
the p I know, and I'm mumbling and I'm like zunds, zunds,
and like that ended up being the actual lyric that
(41:11):
made the record. And I think it was Mike that said,
what sounds like you're saying reasons here and what that's cool?
Why don't we just start with that or you know?
And then I came up with I guess you got
your reasons and yeah, so we we we just kind
of talked the three of us when we wrote it
and Carry's studio and we're like, you know, what if
(41:33):
it's like a you know, a vampire sucking kind of
relationship where it's, you know, she comes back to feed
her feelings, you know, so that's a yeah, thank you.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
Yeah, it's kind of off center for like a love
song breakup kind of thing, right, like the you know,
the buzzwords now it's like a narcissist, yeah vibe I
got when I heard listened down to the lyrics like
your feelings that goes right yeah right into it.
Speaker 5 (42:03):
Worked out too bad? The what's the Kristen Stewart Vampire
Show is and still a thing.
Speaker 1 (42:09):
Yeah, maybe they'll do they always make remake.
Speaker 5 (42:11):
Maybe they'll do another movie.
Speaker 1 (42:13):
Yeah, I'm sure there's vampire stuff you can Yeah, definitely
all day. What do you have? What do you have
coming up? So we actually haven't you have newfound freedom
right now? Yeah?
Speaker 5 (42:29):
I do, I kind of do. I'm I Two days
after I got that call from Keith, I got a
call from someone else to play with them, which I can't.
I don't want to jinx and don't want to mention yet.
But I'm currently learning twenty five new songs and going
to Europe in March to play with another country artist.
(42:52):
So I'm looking forward to that and I'm really excited
about the opportunity. In the meantime, when we tracked that EP,
we track some extra songs and we didn't tell anyone
and haven't mentioned it but on I don't know when
this is going to air. This will be after okay,
(43:14):
So February seventh is when we have a song coming
out called The Real Thing, which is great Luna Halo,
and you're one of the very few people that have
heard it.
Speaker 1 (43:23):
So yeah, I heard the intro and it was like,
huh yeah. I got into it and I was like,
this is a rat Yeah cool it hits man, yeah great,
and you can play it on the outro of this
if yeah, absolutely snippet of it and that'd be great,
let's do it. I'll do that.
Speaker 5 (43:38):
So, yeah, that's that's coming out. And then we've been
trying to get a Luna Halo show together here in
Nashville for five months now and it's just been all
our touring schedules because everybody's doing different things. Our bass
player works for Brad Paisley now, and our our drummer
is married to Hank Junior's daughter, Holly, and they play
(43:59):
together and he plays a Hanksome and and my brother
is a songwriter and you know, so it's we all
have kids and you know, families, and so it's it's
been hard to get us in them. And then any
date we locked down, you call the clubs and Nashville
is like hot shit now all of a sudden, it
wasn't back in the day. Yeah, they were begging people
(44:20):
to play on them Thursday night or whatever, and now
you can't get it.
Speaker 1 (44:24):
What was your favorite venue back then, like late nineties,
early two thousands.
Speaker 5 (44:28):
I feel like twelfth Importer was always our home.
Speaker 1 (44:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (44:32):
I liked the size and the sound of that room.
And even when we got to where we could have
sold that out two or three nights in a row.
I just wanted to play it that one night and
cram people. And it was like uncomfortably hot in there.
Speaker 1 (44:46):
And one of the drunk I'm not proud of this,
but one of the drunkest I've ever been was.
Speaker 4 (44:51):
There.
Speaker 5 (44:52):
You go, oh my gosh, that's a common story. Yeah,
that's a common story.
Speaker 1 (44:57):
Wild. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (44:58):
We uh, we didn't. We left no stone unturned. We
definitely lived that the full thing. It was like, you
go to this great, energetic rock show and then it
just keeps going, It keeps going. The show is over,
but it's not really. Yeah, And we prided ourselves in that.
We were like, oh you think it's over, No, come here,
(45:19):
come to this bar.
Speaker 1 (45:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (45:20):
We'd be on tables and DJ and you know.
Speaker 1 (45:23):
I was done for for like three days after that.
That's it was bad. That's why I remember it.
Speaker 5 (45:29):
Hangover in your forties.
Speaker 1 (45:30):
Yeah, yeah, And I can't do that now, right man.
Speaker 5 (45:34):
Thanks for being here, Yeah, thanks for having appreciate its fun.
Speaker 1 (45:37):
Making the time. I feel like there's one hundred more
things we could talk about. Yeah, but I don't want
to keep you all day, So I appreciate it and
thanks for having me man. Good luck on everything coming up.
Speaker 5 (45:50):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (45:51):
I think you'll be fine, Thank you, Thank you. Work
Tapes is produced by me Brandon Carswell, filming and editing
(46:14):
by Sean Carswell. Special thanks to Nathan Barlow and Luna Halo.
Learn more about Luna Halo on their Instagram page at
Luna Halo Music. Thanks for listening to Work Tapes. Don't
forget to like and subscribe wherever you listen to your
favorite podcasts
Speaker 5 (46:31):
Sat tell Me In
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