Interview with The Halogens

by Alison Wood

Of all places to meet a hot Boston band ... Sparta, NJ? But that's where I first encountered The Halogens, a quartet of young men who rocked Krogh's Restaurant and Brew Pub harder than it's probably ever been rocked ... and certainly louder. The show was energetic, entertaining, and thoroughly enjoyable, though I do recommend seeing them someplace actually intended for loud rock music, rather than a small, family-oriented eatery. Before they unleashed their own particular brand of rock on the small town of Sparta, I was lucky enough to sit down with The Halogens and find out that they're as much fun off stage as on.

Dreams Awake: So my first question for all of you is: how did you become The Halogens?

Taylor Barefoot: How did we get the name? Or how did we become the halogens?

DA: Both.

Jason Dunn: There are definitely two answers.

Slider: You've been to prison, right? [all laugh]

JD: The name: it was back in like, mid '98, when I was trying to form this new band, in Vermont. Actually, I was living at my parents' house at the time, that's how fucking horrible things were, at that point. And I remember I had a little pad of paper next to my bed that I used to write lyrics on, or whatever I could come up with, and I woke up one morning and "halogen holiday" was written out. And I was like, "What the hell is that?" and I realized that I must have woken up at some point during the night and written it down. We were trying to find a name for the band, at that point, and I was like, "What about Halogen Holiday?" and everybody was like, "Eh, it's all right, it's all right ..." And we kept trying out people. None of these guys were around yet; this was very, very early.

S: God saved the band from that name.

[various interjections from Slider, Ryan, and Taylor]

JD: Yeah. Well, actually, our first guitar player, Casey, saved the band from that name.

S: No, he did. Right.

JD: Although Sean Flannigan had a great quote once, when he realized he was joining a pop band, he was like, "You know what? Screw it all, screw coolness, eat the pop. We're Halogen Holiday." I was like, "That's fucking excellent." And then Casey joined, and he was like, "Well, what about just The Halogens? It sounds better in a British accent, any band with "the" before their name is automatically that much cooler," and the ironic thing about this was this was long before The White Stripes, and The Strokes and like, all the "the" bands that you're dealing with nowadays.

TB: The Blink 182.

JD: The Blink 182, exactly.

S: The Rolling Stones, for God's sake.

JD: The Rolling Stones, The Beatles. I mean, what were they thinking?

S: [simultaneous] Way before the Stones. What the hell'd the Stones ever do?

JD: So we had that, we had that "the" edge.

S: The Who. Anyway.

JD: Casey straightened us out on that. And then we started playing shows. And luckily we were named The Halogens before the first show. In terms of this band lineup, it has to do with a lot of people moving. Slider and I were in the band in it's, what do you call it, the pupa stage, I guess?

?: Larval.

S: Bless you. What?

[all laugh]

JD: It was a good enough pupa to put out a fucking record. We formed in Vermont, and had a completely different lineup, and Slider joined shortly after the formation of the band. And we released one album, recorded another album, and then came down here to, well, not here, but we moved to Boston—

S: And that answers like six, seven questions on your list.

JD: Yeah, it probably does. We're coming along though. So, we lost our guitar player when we moved, and then our bass player decided to go in different directions. He's in a band called Moki, in Boston, which is a fucking excellent band; actually just played with us last Friday. And we found him [Taylor] first, under the pretense, "There's no way I'm joining your band," because this kid is endorsed by like three companies, has been teaching guitar since he was thirteen; just basically like a guitar wizard. I showed up at his house, felt immediately hopeless. And then he listened to about half of our CD and was like, "I'm joining your band." So that was cool.

TB: You went to the bathroom, I put on the CD.

JD: Yeah, I was in the can, he was listening to the CD, and I was humiliated, actually, because I was like, "He's gonna hate this."

TB: No. I had been trying to find a band, or people to form a band with.

JD: For a year.

TB: And you go to these people's places and hear their CDs, and you know how you know within two seconds whether you can work with these people or not. And then you have to sit there like, "... it's a good beat ..." So I didn't want to set it up like I was even too interested, I was just like, whatever, you know. ..

Ryan Peters: I lived in Boston for two weeks, and I found this band.

JD: Lucky bastard! Actually ...

TB: He just called the ad that we put up.

JD: We put up an ad, and actually I didn't know how to set up like a (line ... WHAT?!) in Photoshop yet, so the borders were jumbled together and everything. We were like, "Oh, screw it, put it up anyway, I don't know how to do better." And uh ... [unintelligible]

S: [unintelligible]

[JD and S laugh]

He found the ad, and he found us, and we had been considering other people, just like we had with Taylor, but like with Ryan, the second he showed up, the second Taylor showed up, it was like, there was really no reason to keep looking. So now, what I am, at this point in my career, is what I consider to be a fairly decent singer-songwriter, and definitely a mediocre guitarist, surrounded by geniuses. And I'm very happy about this. [all laugh] They're all laughing, but you know ...

S: I'm the best drummer in the band.

JD: Yeah! [laugh] When people come up to me and are like, "Oh, your songs are great, your singing is great," I'm like, "You know what? You wouldn't even be noticing that if I didn't have Taylor, and I didn't have Ryan, and I didn't have Slider." Because if you're a good singer-songwriter in a bad band, the songs don't get across at all.

RP: We're a very well balanced band.

TB: Somehow it works.

JD: I love these guys. These guys make me look good, every time.

RP: We just travel the roads of Sparta ...

[all laugh]

S: We'll let you ask another question.

JD: Yeah! Go ahead.

DA: So can you tell me how you all came to your various points of musical genius? How you got started in music in the first place.

S: We just answered that question.

[all laugh]

DA: So you were all born brilliant?

[all begin talking simultaneously]

S: I had various transplants.

JD: [laughs] Now that I've filled five minutes of your tape, let's go clockwise, or something. [points to Ryan] First.

RP: Um, music, yeah. Started when I was twelve or something, started playing bass when I was twelve. Started, in high school, Jazz Band, and shit like that. Had a couple friends that played rock and roll. Went on to play guitar, writing out songs. You know, guitar was better for that. ?? Went to, everything, and went to school at Berklee, that was, like, what brought me to Boston. So I play like, a bunch of instruments, but like bass... I'm kinda like, "All right, this is my time to do bass." So I saw a bass ad, and ... answered it. I'm into all kinds of ... studied bass horn, and ... ??

JD: I'm a bastard love child of the seventies, and my parents were musicians, that's how they met: through sex, drugs, and rock and roll, and that whole thing. Luckily, I came to my adulthood and ... my parents had been a huge inspiration to me since I was little, in terms of creativity in general, but my dad got both sides of my family to pitch in for a keyboard for me when I was eleven years old. And I got that, and just didn't stop. And then I kinda got bored with it so I started singing along to Def Leppard, and then I realized I could kinda sing. Then, along with Def Leppard also I picked up the guitar, at fourteen. Then I got into Pink Floyd almost immediately, which saved me, in a sense (although I still love Def Leppard). And then it was just kind like, learn everything else. Learn whatever you can, 'cause this was the only thing I really enjoyed. I picked up bass at sixteen, picked up penny whistle, mandolin, recorder, all these other various instruments. Picked up drums at about nineteen or so. [inaudible comment from someone] Penny whistle. I can play a penny whistle.

RP: Didn't want to know about that.

JD: Hey. It'll happen. Next album. And then, roughly around fifteen or so, I started getting involved in teenage bands, mostly playing Kiss, Black Sabbath covers: nothing that I was into, but like, what they were doing, and I just wanted to be in the band. And then eventually I started dishing up my own horrible, horrible songs, that didn't get anywhere near good until I was like twenty years old. And we actually still play a couple songs written when I was twenty-one, so I guess I was already kinda going along this road at that point. And here I am. Taylor.

TB: All right. I think I was like five, I think my parents bought me a stereo or something for Christmas. I don't even remember what it was, but I heard a guitar solo, maybe Journey or something. I don't know.

JD: [laughs] You're eating the Gerber baby food and you're like "Journey, yeah!"

? [sings] "Don't stop ... believin' ..."

[all laugh]

TB: I gotta watch my mouth around these guys. [all laugh] Anyway, I just remember that sent chills up my spine, hearing that guitar solo. I was like "I gotta do that." So I lobbied for a guitar, and when I was six, got one. Kinda futzed around with it for a few years. Then I had a really good teacher when I was nine, who was already in a rock band, doing what I wanted to do. I had had these boring teachers that were showing me out of a book, like exercises ...

JD: Nine years old. Wait, Steve?

TB: Yeah.

JD: Oh, no shit!

RP: Beyond comprehension.

TB: So anyway, I started taking with this guy, Steve Harris (not of-Iron-Maiden Steve Harris), when I was about nine. And he just kind of took me under his wing, and I studied under him for a while and joined a couple local bands, and just got started that way. Like they said, I started teaching when I was thirteen, 'cause I could play cool songs, you know, like Ozzie and Metallica stuff, and people were like "Oh, show me that!" So I started teaching. Then the Greensborough music scene -- I'm from Greensborough, North Carolina -- it was just kind of lacking. And after seeing my guitar teacher, my mentor, try so hard and just get nowhere, it's just such an incestuous, backstabbing, small music scene, I decided to move up to Boston ...

JD: ... another incestuous, backstabbing music scene.

[all laugh]

RP: We're going to Homesdale [PA] tomorrow, it's gonna be like, the best music scene ...

JD: [laughs] I can't wait!

S: What about the incest?

[all laughing]

JD: Oh! Oh! Tape's rolling right now, sir!

S: Sorry.

TB: So that's it for me. Slider.

S: What was the question?

JD: Music: how do you love it, and when did you start?

TB: What got you started on this journey?

S: I don't have a story like Taylor. Taylor was born to play his instrument. I don't know. I stumbled into playing drums. First time I ever played was, my uncle Henry up in New Hampshire had a snare drum and ... My family has a house that's been in the family for over a hundred years, up in New Hampshire, that we go to, and Uncle Henry's house is next door. So I'm hitting his drum, you know ... I don't know. I'm not really good at drums, I just ...

[much protestation from the other three]

S: That's the first drum I hit, though. That's the first drum I hit. There you go.

TB: We gotta remember to thank Uncle Henry tonight.

JD: We'll thank Uncle Henry. Okay.

DA: Now you [Jason] mentioned that you're a singer-songwriter: do you do most of the songwriting for the group? Or is songwriting for the group a collaborative process? How does it work?

JD: It depends on your definition of a song. What I consider a Halogens song is what comes out when it's done, and that has never been just me.

TB: He does all the lyrics, though.

JD: Yeah, I can do the lyrics, and I could take a lot of the songs, like, just the chords, just the ones that I've written, and I could perform them in a subway and I could call them Halogens songs. But when it comes down to it, this band would not sound like it does without these guys around me. And that's been the way it has been even before these guys were in the band. Even the very beginning lineup, which was completely different, it was all the other people around me having confidence in me and me having confidence in them, and us putting songs together. I can sit in my room and play songs on my acoustic until my fingers bleed, and ... [in Texas drawl] I might sometimes do that.

S: Like that Bryan Adams song.

JD: Yeah, exactly. [quizzical look from Taylor] Summer of '69. But it's not what you're gonna hear when you see us. When you come out and see us what you're gonna hear are songs brought to fruition by this collection of musicians. So I am a songwriter, and I do write ... If you were to break it down into, say, Tracy Chapman performing our songs, I would say probably eighty percent of it could be done with just one person, one guitar, with just what I did, but it wouldn't sound anywhere near as good. And that's why I don't do very many solo acoustic shows.

RP: I think that the majority of our material is definitely inspired by the songs written by Jason. Lyrics, chord progressions. We have some new material that's like, then ... We've kinda gone off on a tangent, lately, I think.

JD: Yeah.

RP: We've done this thing, like -- it's not even out yet, but it's gonna come out soon -- where we've done like riffs, and drum beats, and bass lines, and stuff like that, that are gonna start to show and come out.

JD: Yeah. And then the challenge to me is to write a song over that.

RP: But before that, I mean, I think it has been exactly what he said. Like, songwriting, lyrics, taking the song and then making this chemistry around it. And to me that's very important, even when we start doing this other stuff. Because it's not like we baseline the stuff, baseline the bass line, but the song is the most important thing.

[phone rings]

S: Sorry, guys, I gotta take this.

[all laugh]

RP: We're always very, very conscious of that. We come up with ... We play in the rehearsal space or whatever we do, make up something; if it doesn't start to sound like a song, we're like ...

TB: We do quality control.

DA: Okay. Now, these songs that you write have been described as having sort of a Brit-rock root, with an American "attitude."

S: It was all about the beer comparison. That's the only reason that ...

JD: I like that comparison!

DA: Well, who would you say are some of the influences that have brought you to this sound?

JD: We had to answer this in a previous interview, and I got to answer it last. I had the luxury of answering it last, and what I came up with was that all of the bands I've ever listened to in my life have been influenced by either The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, or Pink Floyd. Either that, or they were The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, or Pink Floyd. So that and all the bands that they spawned have kind of brought us to where we are. Even when you come around to bands like The Flaming Lips, doing tons of beats and like weird psychedelic shit, they pulled all of that stuff from bands like Pink Floyd and The Beatles. All of it. Even when it comes down to just ... Take all of their gear away and give them just one acoustic guitar and a voice, and it's gonna come back to that whole idea of the very beginnings of rock and roll, the very beginnings of riff rock, and stuff like that. And that's, I dunno ... I'm proud to be at this far-reaching level of whatever it is that I'm doing.

RP: I would agree. Led Zeppelin is my number one favorite band. My number one favorite bass player is their bass player. And it's just amazing what they developed when they were doing it. It was back, like, twenty-five years ago. But at that time it was just amazing. They had such an effect on everyone that was gonna come after that. Same thing with The Beatles and Pink Floyd. All the stuff that's coming out now, like The Flaming Lips, Tortoise Head, Wilco, stuff like that, it's just, it's all like icing on the cake, but at the same time, it's like, it creates this ...

JD: Someone gave them the key to open that door to freedom. Like, that whole idea of just fucking opening everything up.

RP: But it's continuous development. It's not just those bands, it's a continuous development.

S: Well, I agree with that and I disagree with that at the same time.

JD: Oh really?

S: I think walking down the street is as important as any of those bands. You know, if someone's a songwriter or something... There's a history of music but, I don't know, I shy away from giving a history of rock and roll. I don't know. I mean, there are these very important bands out there, but if someone's gonna write a song, you know, they wrote it because they went to the park that morning, you know, and they saw something and so they wanted to write a song. But it's, it's tempered, you know, it's altered ...

TB: For me it's just been a cumulative thing. When I started playing guitar I got into progressive stuff pretty quick.

JD: That's the way you learn how to play.

TB: Yeah, I was learning a lot of technical stuff, so I kinda wanted to, not show that I could do it, but I was like, "This is really cool, I'm pushing the envelope." Then I kind of realized that it's not really doing that too much. I kinda ... I felt stupid. The night I felt stupid on stage doing that, I was like fifteen, maybe, or sixteen, or whatever. It was a really good band, it showed a lot of talent, but we were all pretty young. So that broke up and I joined a band that was like the complete opposite. It was like a cross between Beastie Boys, Rage Against the Machine, and Tool: real riff oriented, heavy, sloshing stuff. And I got really into groove-oriented stuff that way. And then I started kinda missing the melodic element, and it kinda centered somewhere in the middle. And I've been working on that ever since. So I've got my influences, like everybody, and that's kinda what brought me here.

DA: So in the van, on the road, do you find yourselves listening to a lot of Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd? Who'd you listen to on the drive down from Boston?

JD: On the way down from Boston we listened to Flaming Lips and then Boston bands. Because Boston's music scene ...

S: We know all the good bands.

JD: Yeah! That's the thing. We moved there knowing that there were a couple of really good bands that we wanted to play shows with. One of those bands broke up, and played their last show with us last Friday. That's Miss Pigeon, and we're gonna love them forever. Unbelievable, totally inspirational. The other one is The Red Telephone, when we moved here; I haven't seen them play a live gig in like eight months. I'm hoping that they're gonna put out another record, but I don't even know. But we moved down here with this idea that like, this is where really good bands that are doing stuff that we want to listen to are coming from. And since we've been in Boston, we've discovered that there are a lot of really, really good bands there.

RP: There's this one band, Reverse, that have all of a sudden come out and taken over the entire Boston music scene, and we played with them last week. We had this fortunate opportunity to play with Miss Pigeon and Reverse in the same show, and it was like a culmination of the best.

JD: It was Miss Pigeon's goodbye show, and at the same time it was a time for us to become acquainted with Reverse. We knew that we liked them, but they hadn't really heard us yet. By the end of the night we were all shaking hands and downing beers with each other and being like, "We're gonna do this again, like, very soon."

RP: So that was very cool. They're like Boston's up and coming band, so we'll be ...

JD: Not yet, but like May, it's gonna happen.

S: I wanna listen to NPR, but they won't let me. We have to listen to rock music, of all things.

JD: Every once in a while I ask Slider a question about world politics, and I always get a really solid answer.

S: No, I just make things up.

JD: Really?

[laughter and unintelligible speaking over each other]

JD: I have a very contorted view of the world because of you, thank you. I go around telling everybody I know what I'm talking about and it's just him. Oh god.

DA: So now I have for you the requisite random trivia questions, that have to be in every interview. If the band ... If you all were to wake up tomorrow morning and one of you were to have a super power, who would it be and what super power would they have?

S: Wait, who would it be ... what do you mean?

DA: Of the four of you. You wake up tomorrow morning, one of you suddenly has a super power. Which of the four of you would it be, and ...

JD: That's the best question we've ever gotten. Wow.

S: Wait, you mean, which super power would you have, if you could have any super power?

[much confusion]

JD: No, this is all of us thinking about this. One member of the band wakes up with a super power, who would it be and what would it be.

S: So we have to choose the super power and the person.

JD: [overlapping] ... and the person.

S: I'm a little slow.

[all laugh]

RP: It would be me, and the super power would be that I'd actually be funny.

JD: Oh, shut up! [all laughing]

S: You can't choose yourself!

[laughter ... silence]

RP: Um ... next question, please.

JD: [laugh] No, no! We gotta try to answer it.

S: Taylor already has a super power, so.

[laughter ... silence]

TB: I have the power of flight.

JD: That's levitation, homes.

S: It would totally be Taylor's ability to slaughter a yak.

[unintelligible]

JD: We're just quoting Tenacious D, though. I don't think we have a good answer for that.

[silence]

JD: Okay, wait a minute. Wait a minute. Me. Mind control. Put me on TV with mind control, this whole fucking situation with Iraq would just, like, it would wash itself away in twenty-four hours. Absolutely. Put me on TV, with mind control.

[skeptical looks from the other three]

DA: Well, if anyone has a better answer ... they can think about it, and ...

JD: No, it's me, mind control!

[all laugh]

DA: Okay, next question. Who's the most image-conscious in the group?

[three point to Jason]

JD: [simultaneous] Peters. You think it's me?

TB: Every time you pass a mirror you crouch down, and ...

JD: Oh, you know what your girlfriend told me ...

S: If anyone wasn't vain they'd be walking around in sweatpants, you know? Everyone is vain.

JD: And I do walk around in sweatpants. So I resent that!

S: That's a double cross.

DA: Next question! Who in the group would you consider to be most like a real "rock star"? Whatever your idea of a real "rock star" is.

S: Now, are these questions ...

[much laughter and unintelligible speech]

S: I'm just wondering if these questions are meant to drive wedges between members of rock bands ... ?

[laughter]

DA: You're allowed to veto the question.

S: It's not me. You play drums for a reason.

RP: I don't think this band has any of that shit in it.

TB: I'd have to say it does, a little bit. I've said that my singer is like a real rock star, because he doesn't try to be.

JD: See, that's the thing, I don't try to be anything other than maybe an exaggerated version of myself. Because I think ...

TB: He drinks a lot, he's socially and financially retarded ...

JD: Totally financially retarded. But the thing about stardom is like, what is that? I don't fucking know. What I know about me is like, it's my fortunate position to be actually appreciated for being an exaggerated version of myself. And that's awesome. I get to just be as ridiculous as I want, for sustained periods of time, around this band, and that's awesome. And they keep me in check when I fall out of line ...

S: Nobody in this band is a rock star. But the closest ...

JD: Okay. The closest would be me. But only when I'm really taking liberties.

DA: Easy question: what's everyone's favorite color?

JD: Blue.

TB: Blue-green.

S: I don't have one. His jacket [points to Jason], that's a nice color.

RP: I have three, but one's not a color: black, green, and blue, are my favorites, but black's not really a color.

DA: And my last question for all of you: what is the one thing you really want our readers to know about The Halogens?

TB: Go to thehalogens.com. Listen.

JD: Yeah, just fucking listen to it.

TB: Just listen to it, that's all I can say.

JD: We do everything we can do to produce the songs that we produce. I mean, give it a chance, listen to it.

RP: Everything we do, we travel, it's for people to enjoy it. It's not for our like, fucking self-indulgence.

S: God knows I'm not cool.

[Jason laughs]

S: So, none of the money laundering ...

JD: What? The money laundering?

TB: Slider, shh!

S: See? They keep me in check.

RP: No seriously, we're doing this because we enjoy everything about it.

JD: And everything that's been pointed to us has said that people do like. And we'll keep doing it as long as people like it, and as long as we're enjoying what we're doing.

For more information on the Halogens, visit their website at www.thehalogens.com.