DIVING INTO CONDITIONS OF A PUNK WITH HALF•ALIVE
We got to catch up with Californian alt-pop trio half•alive about their latest album, the concept behind their live shows, and the importance of the interaction between artist and audience.
You recently released a new single, ‘Beige’ - Could you briefly introduce the song and the process behind it?
Josh Taylor: Beige is the most intimate song that we’ve released, lyrically. It came out of a writing trip - we were pretty discouraged one day, there was some last-minute change of plans of who we were writing with. We got to work with this guy Ryan, who we knew from long ago but hadn’t worked with since. He just helped bring out this really special song from a very intimate place, through a writing trip to New York – far, far from home for us. It ended up being the most vulnerable, talking about the memory of a breakup.
That’s something that you guys spoken about in general in regard to your new music, that it’s more emotional, more intimate. Was that already your intention going into making the record?
Josh Taylor: The writing process takes place over two or more years. There’s a lot of time spent with the songs, and over that time we came to the realization that we could dive into this subject and dive into more intimate emotions, love and heartbreak. It ended up making itself, that that’s what could be an essential theme of the record.
Brett Kramer: I don’t think we had a conversation about it, but I do think some of the people we were working with pushed us in directions. ‘Make of It’, for example, allowed us to express anger and that type of emotion. I think when we went in with Ryan, we were a little burned out, and it allowed us to be pushed to be vulnerable, which we maybe would have been hesitant about in the past. It allowed for something really amazing to happen. I feel like that was the theme of this whole album process – just trying everything. Having a huge body of work allowed us into new spaces, because we had already tried so many things in other directions.
It’s also a really long record, with quite an extensive array of songs. How did you come to the decision to release Conditions of a Punk as one album, instead of the two-part concept you were initially planning on?
Brett Kramer: Conditions of a Punk just felt bigger, it felt monumental - it felt like more than just a second part. Creatively, it felt inspiring to rename the album, to encapsulate everything that had happened with Give Me Your Shoulders. It was something that fell into place, less of an intentional decision, although I think we were going back and forth on what it should be. I think the entire body of work just felt so big that we wanted to celebrate it in that way.
How has the reception to all the new material been on tour so far?
J. Tyler Johnson: It seems to be pretty positive overall. It’s fun to see the show, and what songs people respond to more to in a live setting. We spent a lot of time trying to create an experience that has a lot of huge ups and downs, lots of dynamics. We were really particular about trying to make sure the experience of the show has those rides along the way. It’s a long show, and we knew it was going to be a long show, so we had to make space for people to breathe and not just keep hitting them like “you gotta stay hyped the whole time!” Let certain songs be more mellow, and then go back up. It seems that overall people really enjoyed the shows, people seem to be very excited. Thankfully no one’s been like “that show was way too long, I need to get out of there ASAP!” I think it’s been received really well.
Do you have a song that you especially like playing live, either because of the performance itself or because of the reception from the crowd?
Josh Taylor: We just started playing Beige during the last week of tour, so that’s been really fun to have a fresh song introduced to the set.
Let’s dive a bit more deeply into some of the songs from the album.
The record opens with the title track, ‘Conditions of a Punk’, which features the line “wrapped in plastic, love ain’t what I thought it be”, which is reminiscent of the imagery used in the music video for ‘Hot Tea’. What does this image symbolize?
Josh Taylor: I had this image for a while, that ‘Hot Tea’ and ‘Move Me’ came out of some sort of filament or plastic on my skin that I just wanted to scratch off, in order to get to something deeper. Sometimes, the feeling of longing feels like that. A deep longing, in the sense of needing to do something that could be painful in order to reach something that could be more real. So that’s the connection to the ‘Hot Tea’ music video.
It also has this sense of love being wrapped in plastic, as a commodity, as something to purchase or something to sell or market, even. Believing in that image of love instead of believing in what love actually can be – that’s a large part of the album. Letting go of this image of love being to serve myself and emotional based and taking hold of a very self-sacrificing version of love, to will on other’s good above my own, no matter the cost to myself.
The song ‘Never Been Better’ features the amazing Orla Gartland. How did that feature come about?
Josh Taylor: We hit her up on Instagram and she said yes, so we were like cool! We’ve been a fan of hers for a minute – I think her vocals are awesome, and she rips on guitar too. We wanted someone who could match that indie-feel vocal that the song needed, so she was a great addition.
The album ends on the song ‘Lost’, which is a more mournful song grieving the end of a relationship. Since the album chronicles basically all stages of a breakup, why did you decide to end it on this more solemn note?
Brett Kramer: I think we use the seasons a lot as a guide, which we do with our set as well. For this, we wanted to start on a bright note and end on a darker note, going with the end in winter and the start in spring or summer. That was how we constructed the entire flow of the album. It was something that felt really inspiring at the time, to just end there and see where we could do next with it.
Josh Taylor: There are a few songs before ‘Lost’ that are like in the depth of heartbreak or winter. ‘Lost’ is like a reflection on that super dark time – I’m realizing now that when I was in it, I was lost, and now I’m looking back at that and into what can become – which is the restart of the album. Love ain’t what I thought it was, we’re back in Summerland, the cycle returns.
What do each of the seasons represent in regard to the course and ending of relationships?
Josh Taylor: Everything starts in the noon hour in summer. That’s where romance is at its peak, romanticizing life itself and the season of life. You can enjoy the fruit of the land, the sun, even just a more youthful energy. In a relationship, that then leads into the slow dramatic dying of autumn. Things become real and the high of the summer starts to fade. Then, the death of the relationship has to be accepted in winter in order to have reflection and new life in spring, and to return back to summer. What every person is sort of looking for is for it to be Summerland all the time. The ultimate ending of eternal summer.
Did you specifically focus on this concept for this album?
Brett Kramer: It’s something that we started with ‘Summerland’ on Give Me Your Shoulders. After developing that song, the concept came into its full fruition. With Conditions of a Punk, starting from Give Me Your Shoulders, it’s something that I think now is kind of our cornerstone, or at least what we’re using for roadmaps.
Did you have difficulty fitting older songs into that division for your live shows?
Brett Kramer: I think the main difficulty was simply the length. That was the first challenge - if we play the whole album, this is the longest set we’ve ever played, now we’re going to try to figure out which of the older songs we’re going to add. I think luckily through our experience of touring with Twenty One Pilots and doing our headlining tour, interjecting Give Me Your Shoulders songs into our older songs, we already had a bit of a relationship with that. It definitely was difficult to figure out which ones we can play, but I think at the end of the day with having played them so many times, the older songs that we wanted to play kind of raised their heads immediately. It was fun trying to pick which ones to play.
Josh Taylor: Lyrically, all the songs can be placed on that map, since it’s such a standardized template for so many aspects of life and expression. Even a really old song like ‘RUNAWAY’ feels like spring, because it’s hopeful, looking forward to something, and a reminder that I don’t need to stay in winter and I can embrace the new thing.
I actually went to the Vienna date of your tour myself, which was incredible. During the show, you said something about the importance of the interaction between the performer and the crowd. Could you elaborate on that a little bit?
Josh Taylor: I think any show that I’ve been moved by, I will dissect that and try to understand what happened in that interaction. And it’s with any art that interacts with a person. It’s sort of that classic question – is art art without the person interacting with it? Can it be art just on its own?
In the sense of a live show, there’s something that happens with the audience and the performer and the interchange between them. It’s why every show is different, I think. Because something different is created each night of the tour, which is why it’s not just us playing the set to a template and it being the same every night. It’s always this reaction and inter-reaction to the people in the room that are responding in their motion and in their emotion. There seems to be something really important about that stage boundary, of where the audience touches the stage and where that interaction happens that creates more than what either party can do on their own.
In addition to the music itself, your releases always have a huge visual aspect to them as well, both through music videos and live shows. As you’re writing, can you already picture the kind of visuals that are going to go along with that, or is that a separate process for you that comes later on?
Josh Taylor: It’s kind of both. Some of it is feeling based, certain songs have a particular mood. There are things that obviously won’t work for a certain song. That takes shape, but it’s not really top of mind. It’s more focused on the song itself, and how that can be a completed step before we move into the next part.
This has been incorporated into your live shows for some time now, and you’ve been working with the same choreographers throughout. How did you first get the idea?
Josh Taylor: The first interaction was in the ‘Aawake at Night’ music video, where Jordan choreographed something on me. I liked how that worked out – I’ve always liked how dance and music are together. A lot of my favourite artists integrate them both, like I remember really looking up to Christine and the Queens for a long time, and how they were able to interact those two worlds. Even looking at Beyoncé, how in the videos and in the live context there’s something to the movement that makes the music come alive even more. It really wasn’t a core element of the live shows until we did ‘still feel.’ and that really worked, I guess! People seemed to like that, so afterwards we were like okay, this is part of our thing now.
Is there anything in particular that you want people to take away from this era of half alive?
Brett Kramer: I’m really proud of how monumental the show and the album are. Coming out of 2020 was kind of an interesting patch for artists, and I feel really proud of our output. I’m really excited for fans to be able to get lost in these worlds that we’re building and surprising them with how big they can be. I think that’s really reflected in the show, so I’m just really excited and inspired to continue to play these songs for more people.
Josh Taylor: I’m looking forward to people interacting with the depth of the album and the songs. We put a lot of depth into anything that we make, so it could be an endless journey to discover what’s in the art – maybe it’s even outside of what we thought it was. I think that the album and the shows and the videos all have that right now, so I’m looking forward to just more people interacting with it, and for people to go deeper into that world.