Halo

Rock & Roll is a lottery. Some bands get the luck of the draw and receive front covers galore, yet then they fade away 12 months later when they fall out of favour. Other bands, such as Halo, do it the proper way of gigging endlessly round the country and building up a crowd of devoted disciples. As the band release their debut album "Lunatic Ride" we caught up with frontman Graeme Moncrieff to discuss the cult of Halo, which make sure they're well fed with jam sandwiches and feel at home with Halo Baby Dolls while they're on tour.

Q: The album "Lunatic Ride" seems to have been in the can for ages. Does it feel like a relief to finally have it in the shops?
A: Yeah, it's really good to get it out now. The last song to get written for it would have been "Incinerator" which was one of the last two songs we recorded, but we finished most of the album about a year ago. Now were doing headlines tours it's giving people chance to hear the quieter tracks which people don't really associate with Halo because the last 2 singles have been real rockers. It's quite a varied repertoire of songs on there from piano ballads to rockers like "Vampires".
 

Q: Throughout the past year on the endless tour supports you've been doing and of course your own dates, you've built up this really obsessive cult. Did you expect to gain such a devoted groups of Halo disciples?
A: You never really expect to be greeted by people waiting outside your bus everyday. It's a bit weird, especially when it's the same faces every time, its like oh my god!!! But it's good that people are passionate about us though.

People give me jam and jam sandwiches all the time because I once went on the message board and left a comment that I really like jam sandwiches. And they make little models of us out of Salt Dough. They're like these little plastic trolls with the right hair and necklaces to make them look as much like us as they can.
 

Q: When most bands release the album, they'll head out and tour and talk about the joy of having the fans singing the lyrics back to them. When you talk about Halo, the fans are singing them before they're even committed to tape. How strange is that?
A: It's weird. I've seen people sing songs and I don't know how they could have got a copy of it. It's like were playing "Incinerator" and people are singing every word down the front - we haven't ever released that on anything ever!!!

Q: As a band with two brothers amongst you, yourself and Iain, you don't seem to have the argumentative brother thing going on. Was it always the plan to form the band with your brother or did it just come together naturally?
A: Not at all. We've both got really laid back personalities so we don't really conflict with anyone that much. I think Iain just came up with the idea that we were both playing guitar so we might as well get a couple of people in. And we've just stuck with it since then. The first band was Chaser and we split up from them cos it works well with us two. We both have the same musical aspirations and taste's in music.
 

Q: When you listen to Halo it's not just your archetypal rock influences shining through. A mix of harmonious pop vocals and then the heavier rock backing. What did you listen to growing up?
A: The first bands that come to mind are the Doors, U2 and then I really got into Nirvana. But anything from that to Simon and Garkfunkel, Sigor Ros, The Pixies and even stuff like Garbage.
 

Q: As you were saying before a lot of the songs now are over a year old. Even though the debut albums just hitting the shops are you thinking about the next album already?
A: We haven't really had any time so far this year because we've been touring al year. But the last couple of days I've been writing again and I'm going to have to get a new collection of songs together fairly shortly. I'm really looking forward to the next album because it's been so good to just sit down and do some writing again.
 


**********

The album "Lunatic Ride" is out now
For more info
www.halomusic.com
**********

**********
Post your Halo reviews / comments on the Message Board
**********