Rolling Stone story: Halfway
A story for the October 2010 issue of Rolling Stone on the Brisbane-based alt-country/rock band Halfway.
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Halfway: Between Alt-Country and a Rock Place
Brisbane collective embrace pared-back approach, Forster wisdom on third LPby Andrew McMillen
Three albums into a ten-year career, Brisbane alternative country act Halfway have hit their stride with An Outpost Of Promise, released in July through +1 Records. If you’re unfamiliar with their earlier work, fear not: their latest is “definitely a good place to start,” according to Halfway’s John Busby, who alongside Chris Dale forms the band’s core duo. “It’s the least country record that we’ve done before, so maybe that makes it more accessible.”
Put Dale and Busby in the same room and you’ll soon find them finishing each others’ sentences. Both in their late 30s, their friendship was forged in the central Queensland city of Rockhampton in the 1990s before they relocated to Brisbane and formed Halfway in 2000. But while the pair are the heart of the band, they are bolstered by an extended family – all Halfway’s eight band members meet twice a week at ‘Halfway House’ (a room underneath Busby’s mother’s house) to “have a beer, play music, and just talk,” says Busby. “It’s never really toil. I love hanging out; it’s the best part of being in the band.”
The country tones that coloured their first two albums – 2004’s Farewell To The Fainthearted and 2006’s Remember The River – are marginalised on Outpost, which features 10 songs played “straight up, with tension and drama,” according to its producer and former Go-Between Robert Forster.
Forster’s wisdom triggered a shift in the pair’s approach to songwriting. This time, the pair ensured that every song worked with just guitar and vocal first, before soliciting embellishments from their bandmates. Busby suggests Forster gave them confidence by exposing each song’s acoustic core; “rather than just trying to make a lot of racket”. “That’s how we ought to go forward,” Dale concludes.
“Just let the songs do their thing.”
For more Halfway, visit their MySpace. I reviewed An Outpost Of Promise for Mess+Noise earlier in the year. It’s ace!
Mess+Noise Mid-Year Report 2010: my top five
Mess+Noise asked their critics to pick their top five Australian releases so far this year. I chose these:
The Gin Club
Deathwish (LP, Plus One Records)
With nine songwriters in the mix across the genres of rock, folk and pop, The Gin Club’s fourth full-length could easily have fallen victim to too-many-cooks syndrome. It didn’t. Instead, it’s one of the best Australian albums of recent memory.
Read Andrew’s review here.Halfway
An Outpost Of Promise (LP, Plus One Records)
This Brisbane alt-country act contain as many members as The Gin Club, but on this release, the songwriting of core duo John Busby and Chris Dale is informed by the direction of Go-Betweens co-founder (turned album producer) Robert Forster. The result is 10 finely-honed songs that bear a homely, barroom feel.
Read Andrew’s review here.Nikko
The Warm Side (LP, Tenzenmen)
Another Brisbane band – swear I’m not biased. Post-rock with vocals done well.
Read Andrew’s review here.Faux Pas
Noiseworks (LP, Sensory Projects/Heroics)
Outrageous, otherworldly electronic pop written in a Melbourne bedroom. An outstanding debut.Parades
Foreign Tapes (LP, Dot Dash/Remote Control)
This one was overwhelmingly dense upon first listen, and took a few listens to reveal its genius. Unconventional pop songs dressed up in the always-awkward “art rock” tag. I’m glad I gave it time. You should too.
Visit Mess+Noise to see the rest of the critics’ picks.
What are your top five Australian releases of 2010 so far?
Mess+Noise album review: Halfway
An album review for Mess+Noise.
Halfway – An Outpost Of Promise
Call them alt-country, call them roots-rock. The accuracy of genre identification matters not, as at the heart of the matter lies a simple fact: Brisbane’s Halfway are damned good songwriters. That the key writing duo of John Busby and Chris Dale are past winners of the Grant McLennan Fellowship – a $20,000 Arts Queensland grant – is not surprising given the strengths of their third LP.
Recorded by Wayne Connolly and featuring a Robert Forster production credit, it’s their most ambitious and considered work to date. Even at their most scintillating – ‘Sweetheart, Please Don’t Start’, a five-minute long, achingly beautiful epic – Halfway are characterised by a rare kind of understated cohesion. There are very few sharp edges on ‘Sweetheart’, and I don’t mean that as a backhanded compliment: it’s the most gripping song here by a long way. Built on a recurring refrain (“Not like some old love/You’re more like the sea/A heart’s coming home, love/And they wash you to me”), it’s only in the final 90 seconds that the song is injected with a sense of urgency through an increase in tempo and the appearance of softly-distorted guitars.
Full review at Mess+Noise, where you can also stream two tracks from this album. More Halfway on their MySpace.
