5 Questions
with...
1. If I knew absolutely nothing about Midnight Falling,
how would you describe the group’s music to me?
-- Midnight Falling is a songwriting and live performance
group based in New England. Our songwriting is progressive rock at the
core, often flavored with tinges of other genres. The music tells stories,
reflecting both the lighter and darker sides of life.
2. If I were to buy your new album,
what songs should I pay particular attention to and why?
-- Well we’d like it if you paid attention
to them all! But if you could only listen to 4 songs, we’d have
you listen to “I’m Outta Here”, “Beautiful
Pearl’, “Comfort Me”, and “I’m Dyin’ Inside”,
as they best reflect the direction we’re headed. “I’m
Outta Here” is a hard-edged defiant rocker of a tune, a song
that seems to rock harder each time we play it. When you’re just
so completely done with a hateful situation, and have finally decided
it’s just not worth the overhead to continue dealing with it
anymore…“I’m Outta Here”.
“Beautiful
Pearl” is a hard rock ballad, an edgy song about rediscovering
the beauty of music that stands out as a favorite with a lot of fans. “Comfort
Me” is a reflective song about sad lost soul, looking for relief
when nothing seems to be right, whose life continues to perpetuate
itself in badness. “I’m Dyin’ Inside” depicts
how your soul feels when someone supposedly close turns out to actually
be the complete opposite of what they led you to believe they were
- in the worst of ways.
3. When and where did the band form, and where did the
name come from? Stacey met Silvio
in the least likely of places, a cold windowless room in a random office
building. We became friends,
and learned we had a shared love of music. We first started writing together
in 2003 under the name “Midnight”’. We weren’t thinking
of forming a live band so much as a songwriting partnership, composing songs
as a duo.
Our original intention was to write a lot of tunes
and try licensing them, which also explains the vast array of genres on “Beautiful Pearl”.
But due to the overwhelmingly positive response the release is receiving,
things evolved in a different way from what we’ve planned and we couldn’t
be more excited. We started recording and playing gigs, and Midnight Falling
grew from there. When we met Sebastian & Billy, we all had an instant
connection both musically and personally. They both added a creative, explosive
power to the music, and we all just knew we had to write songs together.
As for the band name…Midnight is an instant in time, marking both the
height of darkness and the onset of something new. That may sound epic, but
it seems things always happen when Midnight comes. And we are no exception
- we make our best music when we’re all wearing black, and most often,
after Midnight.
4.
What was your worst on stage experience? What was your
best?
Worst: We had a gig at this local hotspot. And the rain. Oh the rain. It was
just bucketing. Naturally, there was no covered entrance, so we were
moving our brand new, not-yet-paid-for audio system into the venue covered
in plastic tarps. The tarps might have helped had it not been so windy.
Horizontal rain gets everywhere…we were soaked. We must’ve
looked pretty sad, as everyone was running over and handing us whatever
random bits of cloth they had to try to dry ourselves.
Now this was supposed to be an outdoor deck gig, and once inside, we
realized the venue didn’t really have a plan for an indoor show.
They cleared a tiny spot for us, but with ourselves and our rig, it was
like trying to fit a gorilla into a tutu - not very pretty. The fact
that no one got smacked with a guitar headstock or a microphone remains
a mystery of physics and chaos management to this very day.
Best: We had an outdoor summer concert held in the middle of a major downtown
area. The weather was nice and the audience was fun that day, people
were literally dancing in the streets. People were hanging out of passing
cars waving at us. It was already a good show. But what made this show
really great was a little old woman named Betsy.
In the midst of all the chaos, Betsy was slowly walking down the street
alone, slightly bent over. She wasn’t really paying attention to
all the hoopla and she stood out from the crowd like a sore thumb. As
she got closer, she glanced up at us and we saw this deeply sad look
on her face. It’s that heartbreaking look…we’ve all
known or seen older people with that same painful look. And we couldn’t
stand seeing her so sad and isolated in a crowd of happy people.
So as we kept playing, we went over to her, smiled, and handed her a
maraca. Well Betsy came alive…she stopped and just shook the heck
out of that maraca with a big grin. The crowd went wild and was very
kind to her. It was so moving to see her painful look dissipate, to see
this twinkle come to her eye. It was clear this was the best thing that
happened to her in quite a while. She forgot her troubles for a little
bit and just had fun, walking away with a smile…and she did that
listening to OUR music.
5. Do you think that the Internet (whether it be Internet
radio, legal downloading, MySpace, streaming audio, etc.) is a good tool
for musicians or is it a bad thing because it hinders profits?
-- Well that certainly is a hot topic. We believe
the internet is an outstanding tool for musicians and listeners alike. For
us, the internet is a cost effective vehicle which allows us to reach a global
audience. We have fans in locations like Germany and Sweden and Brazil, despite
having never played in those places. With the limited funding of a small
new act, we could never accomplish that without the internet. The internet
allows people to find and listen to music from smaller yet very talented
musicians, music they would likely have never heard otherwise. Plus they
have the instant gratification that has become the expected standard, with
access to the music instantly, 24x7, with just a click of a button.
Clearly, the internet has completely changed the music industry landscape,
creating both new opportunities and very real challenges to the status quo
of how things were traditionally “done”. For large music corporations,
it has caused a lot of stress. But for independent artists like ourselves,
having the ability to connect with people and sell music globally is quite
the boon, both artistically and financially.
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