Have you ever been to an outdoor concert when it was raining?
I certainly have.
How about an all-out rainstorm?
Half Moon Run guitarist Conner Molander did just that last week, and tonight, he’ll be regaling his experience to me over dinner at a pub on Jean-Talon in our native Montreal, before headlining Sunday’s lineup at the Osheaga Festival this weekend.
Half Moon Run’s gig at last week’s Bluesfest in Ottawa was met with a relentless downpour, I was assured that he’d be damned before he’d let that stop him from playing his first gig in 18 months. Conversely, he’s also been subject to weather in other extremes.
“There’s been a few times in Australia where it’s just brutal, brutal heat, and the computers start malfunctioning, so that’s bad in a different way, but the rain at Bluesfest was crazy, it was coming sideways. It was running down my guitar and got all over the pedals and I’m shocked that nothing malfunctioned that night, it was crazy. But cancelling after 18 months of cancellation? Fuck that, I’m not stopping the show because of rain.”
Conner has been playing with Half Moon Run since they formed and began performing in 2009, right up until today alongside lead vocalist & guitarist Devon Portielje and drummer Dylan Phillips, and had been playing with Isaac Symonds since the release of their debut LP Dark Eyes in 2012, up until his departure in spring of last year.
Before moving to Montreal and starting Half Moon Run, I was informed of his attendance of a 2008 Radiohead concert in similarly rainy conditions, his favorite band at the time, only to be broken up with his high school-sweetheart girlfriend who’d he’d attended with. One such moment he vividly recalls is the 2nd bridge of Paranoid Android, hearing “rain down, rain down, come rain down on me” in the rain at the center of what was undoubtedly a whirlwind of emotions, but remains a moment which Conner can’t help but feel nostalgic over.
Fortunately for the band, Sunday’s forecast will be clear skies. I then proceed to tell him the only time I’ve ever seen rain at an outdoor gig was at the 2017 edition of Osheaga, particularly during Lorde’s set. As we settle into our table near the entrance, Conner and I get into a deep discussion over his music and that of his contemporaries, but also things like touring, influences, and what it takes to succeed in music.
Their first time playing Osheaga as headliners, I prompt Conner with his first true realization of properly “making it” as a musician. “Any measures of success, I’ve always found to be a sliding scale, basically like a continuum rather than a single moment. Certainly when I went to Europe I felt like this was legit, like with the tour manager and everything. I thought to myself, “okay, we are a band. We’re going all around Europe in 33 days.” When we did that I was 21, and I was honestly fine if that was as big as it got. Eventually they got bigger and bigger, but I think since we haven’t played shows in a really long time it’s certainly made me appreciative of that time in my life.” 33 days quickly became 200 shows for them, which I’m told was compounded by lots of heavy drinking and general craziness. Such is band life on the road.
After being signed to Indica Records through Kyria Kylakos, Dark Eyes was released, the demos being recorded at the Recording Arts Canada music academy from when Isaac was enrolled. Prior to the release, they toured a sextet of concerts in Ontario, one of which only had four attendees. As he mentions this, he quickly picks up on hearing “Call Me in the Afternoon”, one of the album’s singles, starting to play on the pub’s speakers.
Their latest release, their Onwards & Inwards EP, was recorded amidst the pandemic in their jam space just to, in Conner’s own words, “see how it worked”, which ultimately turned out quite well for them, so they’ll repeat the process for their upcoming LP next year. There were a few songs which they tried to record that didn’t end up turning out how they’d hoped, so it remains to be seen if those will be reworked for the album. The lead single, “How Come My Body”, I’m told was first written when Conner was just 19, likely inspired from his breakup with his girlfriend. Another song, “Fxgiving”, was written from an ongoing inside joke which Devon had started.
“When you’re in a band for too long, you start to become very sweary. We’d be all “I don’t give a fuck, he doesn’t give a fuck; he doesn’t celebrate Fucksgiving” and then one morning Dev was just playing his guitar and muttering the words “prison…isn’t…Fucksgiving” and the words would line up. We ended up having a bit of a debate over it because our family members got offended and would ask “why do you have to say those bad words?” In fact, I quite like Thanksgiving and
enjoy celebrating it, but you know, everything’s so heady anyway, and being isolated and on social media and you come up with instinctive wordplay just fucking let it go, y’know? I mean, isn’t it your job as a musician to let your negative side out?”
Later on, I’m told the guitar Conner played when recording Onwards & Inwards was a Gretsch Power Jet, which he also plays onstage, He’ll also use Fender pedals as his go-to, but it doesn’t always go to his liking between conceptualizing the song and going to record it, which tends to frustrate him, but he admits that there sometimes has to be a compromise on equipment due to its heaviness. Miking guitar amps, however, is a completely different affair entirely.
“In life, how do you hear an amp? Not where the microphone is. The microphone’s right up by the speaker or sometimes it’ll be a bit farther back. As soon as you start to investigate that thought process for the first time, you realize like, “in the way that I hear it in the room the space between me and my amp is something very nuanced to capture”, and like I’m doing a different thing by recording it than I am by hearing it.” I’m told the amp he uses is almost always a Fender amp, but when he performs in flyaway places like around Europe or in Australia, there’ll be stored amps in those locations to perform with.
Up to this point in his career of the approximate 900 or so concerts he’s performed, Conner tells me one of his biggest highlights was being joined onstage by the late Lou Reed at Radio City Music Hall when Half Moon Run was Metric’s opening act, performing their hit song “Pale Blue Eyes”.
“It was transcendent, it was so special. I loved The Velvet Underground when I was in high school and “Pale Blue Eyes” was probably my favorite song of theirs so it was just so unbelievably special.” Hearing that makes me look forward to the day when a few lucky artists who share the affection for Half Moon Run that they did for Reed get the same experience.
It’s not been without its tension, especially in the band’s initial stages. “When we were really fighting to make it, and everything was on the line, it was a different circumstance creatively compared to when we did have success. And then the reason to make an album was because that’s just what you gotta do. Before, the reason was because we believe in the group and we really want to but when the reason to make an album is because of the label and you’re expected to make another album, that’s what you do now. And I realize if I battle with that reality, what we make is going to be really mediocre. I know it’s cliche but you’ll spend your whole life making your first album and only three months to make your second.” This prompts us to wonder aloud about what can reasonably be considered a proper balance between a musician’s responsibilities and own personal management threshold compared to what a label will ask of them without proceeding to impinge on their well-being.
To watch and listen to their set at 9:20 PM, go to the Osheaga TikTok page or iHeartRadio station through their website https://www.osheaga.com/en
About Author
