Halley’s Apparition

At the risk of sounding self-indulgent, let me tell you about some of the experiences we’ve had.
We’ve been making music for a while now. We’re not rich and famous, and we wouldn’t pretend to be, but we’ve been on stage in front of hundreds of people, all singing their hearts out. Singing lyrics that we wrote in our bedrooms while cracking up laughing, singing loud enough that we could stop singing and let them carry on, then singing loud enough that we didn’t have to stop singing to be able to hear them.
When we started we were awful, but we enjoyed it. We knew a good song when we heard it, and we played music that we liked listening to. When a singer left, we learnt to sing so that we could carry on. When a bass player left, we learnt to play bass so that we didn‘t have to stop. We played to our friends, we got better and we partied a lot. We had all of the usual bullshit from record label wannabes and we had a lot of ‘opportunities’ come to nothing, but we still enjoyed making music.
Through college we started getting recognised in the street, and more people started showing up to gigs. We started getting death threats, polite requests to ‘eat anthrax’ in e-mails and we got shouted at in the street by people who didn’t like the music we were playing, but we liked the music, and eventually we laughed it off. The only real compliment a college lecturer once gave our band was that we knew how to promote ourselves - everyone in town had at least heard of us, for one reason or another.
We kept writing, playing, recording and getting better. We met a studio engineer, musician and friend who changed the course of our music forever, and realised that we’d grown a hell of a lot in the last two years. Our attitude changed, and our songs changed along with it - we recorded more albums and had some of the best nights of our life so far playing songs to people who enjoyed the music as much as we did. We had some more of the best nights of our life laughing at people who truly believed that we cared if they didn’t like us.
In the, what, six years now that we’ve been a band, the people in our lives have changed. We’ve made new friends, we’ve found and lost girls, we’ve had drummers move on (the way the first told us meant we only lost a drummer, not a friend; the way the second didn’t tell us unfortunately meant otherwise) and the people that had asked us to die bought us beers and shook our hands. The only constant? Enjoying what we do.
So here we are. A new band and new songs. This isn’t the past, but the past has shaped it. It might not turn out to be the future, but neither did the last six years. As for that experience - we‘re better for it, it was a whole load of fun, and we sure as hell don‘t regret a second of it. We don’t have the cash to hire image stylists and book flights, but we love what we do, and we’re happy to share it with you if you want.
- Halley’s ApparitionIt’s the same old starting place
With enough belief left for another try
These tattered ‘stars are fitting better now
It’s only one more trust, not one last time