The original music of halie and the moon traverses themes of dreamscapes, love, mystery, and celestial images. Each song is brought to life by lush vocals wrapped in the warmth of cello and acoustic guitar, lifted by lyrical and powerful rhythms, building texture-rich layers and stripping them away to create worlds within worlds of sound.
halie and the moon found its way into the world when internationally-acclaimed vocalist/songwriter/pianist Halie Loren and songwriter/guitarist Daniel Gallo found a musical chemistry with each other that propelled them to chase big musical dreams. “Daniel’s songs spoke to my soul in such a deep way, in the way that exquisite poetry does, that I knew this music would be my medicine – and probably someone else’s as well”, says Loren. They, along with drummer Beau Eastlund and bassist/vocalist Bobby Stevens, began their adventure as a band by immediately entering the studio to bring their songs to life. They crossed paths with cellist/vocalist Katherine Dudney, the perfect fifth element for The Moon, last fall. The five-some has been working and creating tirelessly ever since on their tight and dynamic arrangements of dozens of original songs, four of which are featured on the brand new groove-a-licious summertime EP release A Million Suns: vol. 1, a warm and earthy collection that expands upon and plays harmonious counterpoint to the band’s debut EP, the cool and crystalline Blue Transmissions: vol. 1.
In this interview spotlight, we chat with Halie about the newest project, influences, navigating the digitized music age and more.
Q&A along with links and streams can be found below.
Where are you from and what style of music do you create? (In your own words, not necessarily in marketing terms or by popular genre classifications.)
Our band is based in Eugene, Oregon. The music we create could be defined as “acoustic poetic dream pop” – many of our songs root themselves in themes of love, beauty, nature, and celestial imagery, woven into dramatic musical topography that travels from hushed simplicity to almost-symphonic moments of lushness featuring swirling layers of vocals and instrumentation.
What led you down this path of music and what motivates you to stay the course?
We are all life-long musicians who share a bright passion for creating. We have all worked on our craft for many years in a multitude of different bands and contexts… our motivation for putting our energies into halie and the moon is a shared sense of belief in and deep love of the music we are creating, as well as very close friendships with one another. We are motivated by our belief in the goodness and beauty that music can bring into the world.
Who or what are your biggest influences when it comes to your creativity?
Poetry, nature, the night sky, love, melancholy… and sonically, our music has been greatly influenced by symphonic music, Eric Satie, Sarah McLachlan, the Cocteau Twins, Mazzy Star, The Beatles, Imogen Heap, Beck, the Sundays.
How is your new release different than previous ones? Did you set out to accomplish anything specific?
Our newest EP “A Million Suns: vol. 1” was consciously created as a sort of counter-point to our debut EP “Blue Transmissions: vol. 1”. “A Million Suns” is the first of a series of planned releases that delves into the more pop-centric, rhythm-drenched part of our sound as a band, with a decidedly warmer and sunnier vibe, whereas the “Blue Transmissions” series is more ethereal and introspective, with crystalline and (for lack of a better word) “blue” qualities. The two are conceptualized as expression channels for the yin and yang elements of our music, both revealing markedly different–and symbiotic–aspects that are equally present within our musical identity.
Do you face any challenges as an indie musician in a digital age? On the flip side, how has technology helped you (if it has)?
This is quite a complex question to answer, but in extremely simple terms, yes – and the challenges of the digital age are, in so many ways, the flip side of the advantages of the digital age. For example, it’s only because of the incredibly improved accessibility of recording technology and music release platforms that an indie band can create high quality recordings on a very low budget and release it out into the world (via the internet) for people to listen to and to buy… the ease with which a recording can be not only created but shared with the public is an AMAZING leap beyond the hurdles indie musicians faced in getting their music out there only 15 years ago. The flip side of this particular aspect is that there is now such an unfathomably deep ocean of music out there for people to discover that being a new indie band with music it wants to share with the world and to draw the ears of listeners is a hugely daunting prospect. Luckily, we are slowly but surely finding an audience for what we create… and the entire reason we’ve been able to do what we’ve done thus far is thanks to technology. So, in our view, the pros outweigh the cons by quite a lot.
How do you feel about streaming services? Any romantic attachments to the physical formats: vinyl, 8-track, cassettes, CDs?
We love how “discover-able” music is on streaming services – we’ve found a lot of great new music to inspire us via Spotify and the like, and we love that our music is finding its way to listeners that might not hear us otherwise. That said, we have an intensely romantic attachment to the idea of music as not only an audio experience but a tangible and visual one as well, and we’ve put a lot of thought and effort into the artwork and imagery that go along with the physical CDs we’ve released… even in this digital era, which sees the value of the physical album (or, in our case, EP) diminishing rapidly, we treasure the ability to pair the music we so lovingly craft with artwork that, we feel, brings greater life and dimension to the worlds we paint with our songs.
Where can we follow you online and hear more music?
We are on Facebook, Instagram (@halieandthemoon), Twitter (@halieandthemoon), Tumblr, SoundCloud, and YouTube, and our music is available from our Bandcamp store (halieandthemoon.bandcamp.com), iTunes, Spotify, and Amazon… we also have an official website, halieandthemoon.com, which is a great hub for information about us and for finding our music and following our social media links.
Anything else before we sign off?
We’d just like to thank you and MiddleTennesseeMusic.com for this opportunity to share a bit about our art and our band with new audiences – it’s been a pleasure
