It’s not a riddle it’s a stepping stone

I first heard Half Moon Run’s 21 Gun Salute and the intensely dramatic beginning to that song with lead vocals by Devon Portielje on the CBC at a live show, just a couple of months ago. It was meditative even ambient – and I was entranced –instantly inspired – including other songs like Full Circle.

Although I had not heard of them before, I felt it was a new mission of mine to share the gift of music with my family (including my preschool age children on some certain tracks (Call me in the afternoon even by one by one [x2 ]is sung around the hosue like a Christmas Carol substituting some words in for the obvious) and all my friends and social network so they too could enjoy this gift. That being said there was something sacred in hearing them for the first time. It was so different yet modern but there was a comfort in it that seemed to be missing in most modern music, and not felt by me personally, since artists like Bob Dylan, and Ballads from Simon & Garfunkel, I was introduced to in my youth.

That same day after discovering and enjoying the first album on iTunes (Dark Eyes Released June 2013) My musical journey with HMR led me to discover the second album which coincidentally was released that same day!

Sun Leads Me, Released Oct 23, 2015

It was a groovier sound and a more uplifting album than the first. It assisted in my creativity and put me in a greater mindset, having just emerged from the writing depths, after 10 years and creating again myself personally.

In researching the journey of the band, from recording in the desert (Texas) to California (For some seaside inspiration, leading up to the Second Album, and living in a dome shaped Oceanside house fit just right for a inspirational surf all day and late night magic sessions ) To experimenting in Europe in what appears to be a bit of a Rave Scene – road testing songs like Trust - it all lines up triumphantly.

I was lucky enough to experience this live set of troubadours on Dec 7th, 2015 at Sugar Nightclub in Victoria BC to a sold out show where some fans paid 9 x the door price just to get in. After staying late and meeting the eclectic mix of supporters, including a High School French Teacher and his wife who also thought their sound was as transcendent and made the journey to support them from up Island (Where most of the band hails from in Comox), to the sprawl of young woman who clearly were there for the "act" to the Lead Vocalist Devon Portielje who you could say in my excitement of après show and with my slight nerves "When a sip of gin saved an hour of speech - Nerve " I didn’t quite get the interview I thought I would - instead Briefly – you could say I found speaking with Devon clearly exhaustive from his end.

This band tours and plays almost nightly I would have asked him who "stole his Sunny Day" – but I could tell he was wiped. I asked him if the band would emerge on the Island again soon (Returning to play Rifflandia in 2016 like in 2014 but he didn’t commit to that.)

I spoke to his interests and would he get a chance to Surf the Jordan River on his visit to the Island but he said they only had 8 hours in the city and then off to Vancouver for the next nights sold out show at the Imperial.

This Band works hard – you forget sometimes when you haven’t seen an emerging act for awhile ( My last show was UB40 in the summer at the Commodore in Vancouver ) that to really put yourself forward you have to put in the hours (years ) on Tour (They actually toured Dark Eyes for three years !)

Just the fact that the Lead from the opening act for that nights show (Nick
Vallee from Folly & The Hunter) was assisting behind the counter at the merchandise booth after a long night and travel… well that’s a team of working mans bands.

More on the Music, there is huge variety in sounds on the current album, Sun Leads me – with the gritty Narrow Margins - There is a hint of Flamingo music that quickly folds into a somewhat Hip Hop beat – the sound not found anywhere else on the album, speaks like a story its very cool and soulful. It wasn’t played in the show, as I had anticipated – it’s a story of sorts that sounds very introspective.

Highlighting the further talents of Connor Molander (Harmonica being my favorite) one can find a cover done of the modern, Chvrches –The Mother we Share on the BBC Radio 1 (01/2014) then found again in the finale to the current live show touring with the Cover to Bob Dylan’s , Shall be released – seeing it live is spectacular - it was clever and mirrored the original art but with a tang of HMR.

There are confessional tones and a little sadness on both albums – and stories of what appears to be glimpse into the world of addiction – Music is a challenging business for anyone who has had this in their lives – this band however appears to live clean and is into a very healthy lifestyle from surfing to organic gardening mentioned to me by a family friend at the show about Issac’s Symonds (Mandolin extraordinaire and haunting vocalist) wishes for at organic landscaping book for Christmas.

I have heard Dylan Philips (Drummer – who has a great timing and a soulful sound as a professionally trained pianist – and always rocks the keyboard) said in other interviews that in terms of personal struggles that they have had the music guide them as a group – I noticed words formed around the struggle with being saved and loss of faith - perhaps even a loss of hope there – I hope they will continue to explore some further element of faith and that this translates to even more extraordinary music from this talented group, I am proud to call Canadian and will continue to share as their talents that will be sure to surprise us with further gifts in the future.

I clicked the you tube link on HMR’s website and watched some videos they had favored and found: TORA : and now I feel like the gifts just keep giving.

In the next feature story coming in January 2016:

　

Artist Profile: Half Moon Run

Singer Devon Portielje on vocals, guitar and percussion;

Conner Molander on vocals, guitar and keyboard;

Dylan Phillips on vocals, drums and keyboard;

Isaac Symonds on vocals, percussions, mandolin, keyboard and guitar.

Sunday

ZEDS DEAD

Sunleadsme

Charlotte Day Wilson

BONOBO

WE ARE JGRGRY   Ryan Levya / bass, keys, vox, Robert Cheek / guitar , vox, engineer, Davey Brosowski / drums, percussion, Joe Gregory / vox

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J GRGRY

J GRGRY produces emotional electro-pop ballads reminiscent of New Order and Depeche Mode and he has released an amazing album Gold Teeth + Glass Eyes which comes from a tenured musical career echoed with dark personal past. The self-released 9-track EP includes all of the elements of both pop radio and confessional dramatic tracks perfect for long drives of self-reflection.

I caught up with Joe Gregory just before Christmas holidays and we dig deep into the new tracks, a difficult past and the revolution of positivity that has served this ARTist well in creating this most recent project. He has had tremendous success on the Festival circuit and with radio play and we are really excited for this time together.

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It Just Floats Me Away

 

  SLM :  I know you guys just did Deck the Hall Ball, (The Killers, The Lumineers, ODESZA, Portugal. The Man), in Seattle.   How was that?

J  GRGRY : We did. It was so amazing, it was seriously one of the best nights of my life! It felt like a homecoming, a hometown reunion show.

SLM:  For those new to J GRGRY music, can you tell us a bit about how you guys came together?

J  GRGRY :  So, it's been a project, basically, I've been working on for about two years now, and the first show was two years ago, in December, in Seattle, at the Crocodile Cafe. Since then it's been kind of a rotating cast and musicians that I'm putting together to work on this EP, Gold Teeth + Glass Eyes that we put out in February (2017) and it's just been such an amazing year. All of these wonderful festivals, like, Bumbershoot, Rifflandia ( SLM Featured Festival #YYJ #RIFF10), and then Deck The Hall Ball It's just been an amazing 2017 leading into 2018, now, with this new record that I'm working on. I've got about, today, well 28 is the running count of songs that I've written.

For this new one that I'm super excited about, I just hit this stride with it  last  couple of months, and I think a lot of had to do with just how exciting this year has been and I've been so invigorated by traveling, meeting all these new people, and seeing all these wonderful places, and the fans have been just super awesome, engaging on Instagram and Facebook and all these different places. It's really lifted my spirit and I've been in this wonderful zone of just writing every day and now I'm getting set to go in and track them, here in LA, and hopefully have a record out by March or April 2018.

SLM:  Gold Teeth + Glass Eye, it's such a great album, and the name is so cool.  Tell us about this new music and how it all came together.

J GRGRY:  Gold Teeth + Glass Eyes was a work in progress from a couple of years ago that just culminated with coming together with a dear friend, Robert Cheek, we made the record down near San Francisco, and just put a lot of heart and soul into it. There was a decade of recovery from a lot of struggles and disappointments at the major label industry in the music world, and that kind of exacerbating my alcoholism, which just led to a real struggle for about 12 years. Four years ago I quit drinking, and that was a real catalyst for this new joyful period of my life, which is been just amazing and the music is flourishing because of that.  This led to the nine songs on the EP. It was really cool to be able to release that EP and then, even without having the shackles of labels and different people. That decade of trauma had kind of controlled my ability to travel and tour my music and do all that kind of stuff, so it was really liberating this year to be able to go and sing those songs to people about overcoming that and, you can believe in yourself and make your dreams happen, you know?

SLM: Yeah, absolutely. Well, it's all kind of serendipitous when it all does come together. Your record, mixed with Mark Needham, he's worked with The Killers, and Moby (See our 2017 interview with MOBY from Rifflandia) What was this collaboration like?

J  GRGRY :  He is one of the most amazing people I've ever worked with. He works up at this beautiful mansion, in LA, and he's just a genius really. He hears things that you didn't hear, obviously, but that you couldn't even imagine, and he's such a down to earth guy. Which for me and the music that I make, I need that kind of connection from every step of the production, the engineers, the mixers, and the players. I'm a really emotional songwriter and there's lots of tears and laughter and everything in the studio, so to work with someone like Mark who has this exceptional  A level  talent,  it was  just such a joy to work with him.

SLM:  The album art is really cool too, who designed the cover ART?

Joe Gregory:  I'm glad you asked about that.  It's  a dear friend of mine? I was a barista for many years and she was a customer and became a dear friend, and her and her sister they're these beautiful Filipino women that are just such talented ARTists and tey got to know me over the years and they saw this real metamorphosis, this real transition that was happening in front of them, where I was actively drinking initially and then quit drinking and my body was changing. I was getting healthier, and anyway, I just kind of told her, "Hey, would you be interested in doing artwork for this album?" And I sent her the songs, and so she came up with this avian character removing this mask, and it just spoke to me so deeply, and I was like, "All right. That's the cover for sure." 

SLM: I feel like it all goes along a little bit with the body art, which I find really amazing too, and I read that it takes you like two hours to get it sort of on, and then you just don't bother taking it off afterwards, which I totally would understand.

J  GRGRY :  I mean, literally, like, it's been a couple of weeks since that show and the final remnants just came off a couple of days ago. It does take a long time, but it's a really cool part of the process too. My makeup artist, Jon Barber, is really talented and such a great spirit, and it's just a really therapeutic part of the  pre-show . We kind of get into this zone, and it's very calm in our backstage, and just a lot of harnessing energy because we really, with music, and entertaining on this level, it's about making people feel good, and it's about connecting and sharing positive energy as far as we're concerned, and so we really try to gather that and the makeup's a part of that, bringing that energy together.

SLM: Definitely, I've read you say too, that you write in the "stream of consciousness", and that's the same for me. What does this mean for you?

J  GRGRY : It's really interesting, I've been writing for 20 years now, and you learn every week something new. It's a constant state of development, but for me with these last 28 songs, I've basically just been seeing what would happen and having no agenda, and no idea, and it's been really astounding this time, I mean, songs are coming within five minutes.  I find that if I allow myself to not have any preconceptions, or any prejudgments, or criticisms about what I'm going to do, then I can sit with it and a week later, I'll be like, "Wow." This is really what was happening and it's an unfiltered way of learning about myself and learning about how I connect with other people and how I observe and how I walk through life. It's been an interesting way to write, but I like leaving it open and not saying, "Okay, I'm going to write about this event, or this person, or this concept." I like keeping it open.

SLM:  Let’s talk about some of the tracks on Gold Teeth + Glass Eyes, “eFlower”, a very cool track and appears first on the album. What inspired this song?

Joe Gregory: So, this one definitely has a lot to do with my alcoholism, and just, I mean, I was a fifth a day drinker, drinking a bottle of whiskey  everyday  just for maintenance and then on top of that, whatever else. So, I was the kind of person that my hand would shake before I could get the first drink in, and so  there's  these thoughts of how much I thought that I needed alcohol to get through and to make music. I mean, I couldn't go to the movies without a bottle of alcohol in my bag. I mean, it was just everything that I did.  I needed it, you know?

SLM:  Was that a little bit about “Rare Poisons”, too? Was that sort of the same?

J  GRGRY :  “Rare Poisons”,  kind of does have a little bit about that also. I was trying to write a happy song with that one. reminiscing back about, growing up in Seattle, and there's this  neighbourhood  called Capitol Hill, which is where all the LGBT community was kind of safe in the '80s and '90s, and early 2000's, and is where musicians and artists flourished. So, I have like teenage memories of partying in the streets there, and having good times, but yeah.

SLM:  I felt like "Porcelain Doll" had a New Order and Depeche Mode- esque  vibe to me, that sort of era. We just saw Depeche Mode in 2017  in Vancouver and I am very into that genre of music as well. Are you influenced with by these ARTists?

J  GRGRY : Depeche Mode is one of my biggest influences. Their  song writing  and Dave Gahan is such a huge hero of mine.  "Porcelain Doll", I'm glad you picked up on that though because that one definitely was my nod to Depeche Mode initially. I love those elements, the sonic elements they incorporate, I really gravitate towards that.

SLM: Definitely. One of my  favourite  tracks is definitely “Cave Birds”. The video is super cool too, and it feels more like poetry when I was reading the lyrics back, which I thought was cool. What about the video for this one what collaborations worked on the video with that one?

J  GRGRY :  A big part of what Gold Teeth + Glass Eyes in this last year was the live show, and we had these visual projections and these elements with the makeup and the stage performance, and I wanted that to kind of be the lead representation. Our light designer, has been an integral part of the show for the past two years that we've been a group.  So, I kind of just sat down with him and, he designed this beautiful thing in our warehouse that we were rehearsing  in , and it ended up just being a really cool day of shooting and yeah, bringing that song to life.

SLM:   I was noticing with the "Bees", too, that you can really hear your passion for music. What is the song about, Bees?  You can really feel the hurt in it.

J  GRGRY   It's interesting because it's like this depression, it's like, it is a physical hurt. It's a physical pain and I think sometimes it gets that misperception that it's just like, "Well, you can overcome that with your mind, just think differently, or just shake it off," and it's not like that. I think my alcoholism was a real attempt to get over my depression and shake it  off,  and drink through it. But I think "Bees" really personifies that. It's a guttural, visceral, depression is, a feeling inside of your body like a broken arm, you know.

SLM:  Well, I'm glad you've gotten through it and it has really generated some powerful music. Amazing ART can come from dark places.

J  GRGRY :  Thank you. Yeah, that's true.

SLM:   “Erase The Shore” is a really cool track as well, as is Giants. And “Ships” really stands out to me as a very positive sounding music, and very radio friendly. You've got lots of support from Seattle from the radio scene, tell me about me about Ships in particular.

J  GRGRY : Yeah, you know, “Ships”  that's my  favorite  song now that we're playing it live. It's just become this really special track and  actually  at Rifflandia to be honest, that was like the moment of the year, where Ships just coalesced. At Rifflandia (Lucky bar) we did that one set as a  two piece , with just myself and Aaron Benson on drums. I was playing keys in fact, and when we got to do that song,  something clicked and the whole room just felt like it was floating.

SLM:  tell us about "Floodlands". It's such a cool bookend to this album. It's also a very cool track.

J  GRGRY :  I love "Floodlands".  I can write that song very comfortably because it's just where I feel safe and warm in that kind of world and song, you know?  I feel, it's weird, because we closed the set with that song this year, and it really did, always just take me to a different place where I felt like I wasn't there, and I would open my eyes and like, "Holy shit, there's all these people here," you know? "I thought I was alone." But it has that transcendent quality to me where it just floats me away.

  More to come and we will keep you posted of upcoming tours and new music from this incredible ARTist.

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12.21.2017 P.Tinham