Getting to know Halcyon Drive
Melbourne-based indie-rock trio Halcyon Drive have released their new single ‘Agnosia’. Michael Oechsle from the band tells us more:
We are… Halcyon Drive, a three-piece band from both sides of the river in Melbourne. Max and myself met at Uni studying design about 8 years ago, and after playing in various other bands – and as two piece Halcyon Drive for quite a few years – Basil joined in around 2016 to round out the live show. We love writing subversive, genre-bending pop tunes with lyrics that don’t just rhyme, and in our spare time we like to… wait who are we kidding, we don’t have spare time.
Agnosia is… the third single from our upcoming album. It’s definitely the ‘rockiest’ tune on the record, and something a little different for us. I’m not sure how exactly, but we ended up channeling Wolfmother or something on this one. It’s also lyrically one of the most potent songs we’ve ever released, and is essentially centred around the idea of truth and responsibility in the media. It was written around the time Trump was (rather laughably) becoming a serious contender for president, and I still remember how insane the frenzy of emotions was around all of that. So many people caught up throwing opinions around with no real perspective of what kind of damage it was doing.
Our upcoming shows will be… bursting with energy. To suit the Agnosia vibe, we’re intentionally just playing a couple of tiny little venues in a kind of ‘house party’ theme. It’s something a bit different for us, but should be a hell of a lot of fun!
Home is… definitely Melbourne. We love this city and its energy. I think one thing that I take for granted, but occasionally still startles me, is just how many amazing artists there are here to inspire and force you to lift your creative game every day.
We spend too much time… on our phones! Forget writing and recording songs, basically the most time consuming part of being in a band these days seems to be social media. When touring there’s also plenty of time spent staring into the black mirror – the industry standard airport time-killing exercise.
We’ve never… played to crowds as big as on our last tour. We were super lucky to be supporting Brit-pop legends Stereophonics all around the country from Melbourne to Perth. It was such an insane buzz to go from the tiny rooms we were used to playing, to huge, 2000+ capacity venues like the Forum. The crowds were insane, the music never felt better live and we’re so excited for what’s next.
It might surprise people to learn that… we all work full time day jobs. I think people sometimes have this perception that artists spend all their time in a studio ‘being creative’ or something, and can make a living from it. Sadly in this day and age that’s hardly the case. That being said, I think it’s that act of going to work and dealing with other humans each day that actually helps feed into the music, I mean, what else would you write about otherwise? Some people do ask how we manage to get anything done, which brings to mind a quote from Joseph Heller. He said “I gave up once and started watching television with my wife. Television drove me back to [writing] Catch-22. I couldn’t imagine what Americans did at night when they weren’t writing novels”. Safe to say we don’t watch much TV.
…
HALCYON DRIVE – AGNOSIA LAUNCH PARTIES
FRI 10 AUG | OTTO’S HOUSE PARTY @ WORLD BAR, SYDNEY NSW
SAT 18AUG | SECRET LOCATION, MELBOURNE VIC
Keep up to date with the band on Facebook.
