At Collingwood's The Tote, Naarm-based four-piece The Halves headlined a thrashing and energised set on Friday 7 August. Having embarked on the east coast stretch of their “Grace” tour in July, tonight was the homecoming victory lap. Upstairs on the wrinkled and beer-soaked seats of the beloved venue, I chatted with the band about how they’re shaping their sound into its gritty and richly cathartic form. With an oddly nostalgic edge to their musicality, The Halves burrow into the crevices between post-punk and alt-rock, taking a tinge of indie along with them too.

Strongly influenced by the timeless hardcore energy of acts such as The Prodigy, they found themselves listening to a lot of ‘90s and ‘80s music when it came to forming their lead singles “Trackstar” and “Grace”. References such as The Smiths and The Stone Roses came to mind when asked about their influences. Noise-punk and experimental acts such as Deftones and Enola Gaye have also contributed to the band's kinetic and shadowy alternative feel.

There's an obvious emulation of Johnny Marr in the guitar music section. Yet their drums and rhythm clearly have roots in their late ’90s breakbeat influences. Tonally, The Halves lean into the hardcore, their sound a post-punk pastiche of their idols. A spider web of diverse emotive and melodic influences is realising itself as something that bites with emotional intensity. Its raw and often dark lyrics pour over a soundscape of daring guitar music and overlapping death-drums. The rhythms granted by The Halves' strong sense of creative synergy egg you on with a promise of absolute catharsis.

During our pre-show chat, I was granted a glimpse into their off-stage banter and playful group dynamic. It felt like taking the piss with your brother’s mates in the beer garden. Straight out of sound check, nerves were bouncing with the news that tonight was sold out. One half of the group's prolific guitar duo, Chris, anticipated “it’ll be a nice way to finish the tour, I think.” As instruments could be heard being tuned in the background against the distant hum of another gig downstairs, frontman Tim followed up with, “We just have the anxiety of like, it's gonna be full.” 

Their previous stops had included Brisbane, Wollongong and Sydney, as well as a sprinkle of local headlining performances for Good Music. The band was keen to be celebrating alongside their friends and creative kin.  

Openers chick and Propaine would later set the energetic pace for the night. On their fellow performers, Tim said, “I’d been listening to Propaine for ages. I think they released something when I first moved down to Melbourne,” he continued, “and then chick we saw live a couple months ago, we played a show with them, and they were awesome. It was kind of a perfect match.” The two local acts are fronted by powerful female vocalists, chick an indie-rock five-piece and Propaine an alternative and post-punk four-piece.

With a brimming crowd attending all performances a sense of community and mutual admiration seemed to reach beyond the synergy of the individual bands and was in fact all round.

With the majority of The Halves members hailing from the warmth of Brisbane/Meanjin, now solid in the cool concrete of Melbourne/Naarm, the band discussed their southerly migration. Having met Tim in Brisbane and setting up the band up there, Chris cited the wider access to creative opportunities offered by Melbourne’s illustrious music scene as the main reason for moving here. He said that aside from music, “We were just sort of looking for something a bit more exciting,” adding “We thought we wanna pursue music and Melbourne is the spot to do it, the amount of venues down here, the variety of bands… it's a lot more exciting to be a part of that.” 

Starting music young, it was early concert experiences that made The Halves want to make music. For Sam “... it was always gonna happen. I gave up on my dreams of being a soccer player to become a guitarist instead.” After seeing the cult-classic Aussie rock band Midnight Oil at age 13, he reminisced, “I was like I wanna do that.”

Being an emerging act, The Halves were laid-back in the face of an unsure but exciting future in the Australian music industry. In terms of “ground breaking things” they felt as if they were “not there yet.” It seems that the group are still weaving the tapestry of their influences, with their latest releases exemplifying the possibility of its matured form. I’m sure they are trekking a steady and promising upwards slope, bringing an untapped energy to their musical niche. Something they might not yet be aware of. 

The band's symbiosis and chemistry was clear onstage and off. “We’ve always had a pretty good connection friendwise,” Tim mentioned. “When we get in a room the music kind of flows really quickly.” 

Delving into their creative process, the group's “strong connection” is at the heart of how they develop their songs. Sam proposed that the band's willingness to always try things “helps a lot with the writing.”

“If someone comes up with an idea even if one of us thinks it's gonna be shit we’ll still play it to see if it's good or bad,” he said.

“Just to prove it's shit,” Chris chimed in.

Tim emphasised the importance of performing and how it influences the experiences they want to create for their audiences. “We always wanna sound pretty similar to how we play live on recorded stuff,” he continued, “When you’re writing you're seeing how this will kind of translate in a live setting.”

Performing live for The Halves is about embodying the cathartic and ravenous energy of their songs, letting it infect the crowd too. The prospect of encouraging a moshing audience got the band excited, a common feature of their live shows.

“We’re hoping for a mosh tonight,” they said. “You better start it.”

A cacophony of mischievous suggestions as to how to get it raging rushed in. “You can just push someone in and run away. It's like a domino effect, you’ve gotta be the first,” said one voice. “You push someone in and then you crowd surf out to the back,” suggested another. “You’ve gotta push the right person too,” they concluded. 

I asked whether tonight––as the finishing blow of the tour––perhaps called for a crowd-surfing moment. “I've got a lot of fears of just falling,” Tim confessed. “And I've been dropped before as an audience member. Maybe people will try to catch me, or hold me.”

Bassist Rory urged him with “end of the tour bro,” to which Tim pondered, “It won't be forced, if I do it.” 

“If it failed and it went viral, it could be worth it,” Sam joked. “Or no one had their phones out.”

Although going somewhat viral on a “fails” page would be a rapid means of exposure for the group, it's the music they're here for. The Halves know firmly what they want. Their shows are about a journey with the audience, inviting us into an “up and down” experience.

Tim considered “It's like drawing on––creating a bit of a build-up in the songs and not going to 100 all the time. We like to kind of dip down and then draw back a bit so that when we have big moments there's lots of energy.” 

Aligning with this, Chris echoed that the band wants us to “embrace it when it's loud and pull back and think when it's quiet.” Sam captured this as an “introspective catharsis,” adding with a grin, “simple terms.”

Reflecting on the east coast tour, I asked if there were any crazy moments whilst performing. 

“There was a pretty hectic guy in Wollongong, and he was very expressive of his views of the world,” Tim said. “During the set I went into the crowd and he made a beeline for the mic to say something and he tried to grab it. I think I was worried he was gonna express some of the ideas he had in the smoking area.”

Often plunging himself in and amongst the rowdy and elated crowd, I wondered if navigating the unexpected was their version of an encore. 

“I have this scar on my chin from going into the crowd again, there was a little bit of a mosh but I was tryna get it really going, and I pushed some guy and I don't think he liked that. He pushed me back and the mic went straight into my chin, and I was bleeding” Tim recalls.

At this early stage of their music career, excitement is the dominant emotion, something invigorated by the demands of their hard-paced sound. Remaining grounded in the face of what's to come is also a priority. “I think at the moment we have a lot of time to recover… And I think having so many people in the band, you're not really having to do everything yourself, so you're able to kind of relax a bit more…  Lean on each other” Tim explained. Chris added that since touring for them has been in “short bursts” the band treats it “more like a sprint.” 

“We kind of go a bit harder because it's like two days,” he said. “Maybe we shouldn’t do that tonight.” 

To this, Sam clarified, “But I feel like we’re all pretty responsible, regardless. We never miss any flights or anything.”

“I reckon with this tour in the last month there've been four flights missed from the guys in this band” Tim said, singling out Sam. “Him twice.” 

In their defense, there had actually only been three missed flights, one an extreme close call for Tim. They joked that this was caused by some overambitious pre-planning and early morning flights, something any skint backpacker can relate to. Returning to a more serious tone, Chris noted the resuscitating magic of a “cheeky redbull” and Tim discussed his vocal warm-ups. 

A voice that might be comparable to that of Ian Brown from The Stone Roses or New Order's Bernard Summer, Tim's coarse but powerful vocals are strung somewhere between a sense of rage and release, rising above his collaborators instrumental and tonal volatility.

With singles “Grace” and “Trackstar” their most daring releases yet, the band was quick to say how proud they are of the songs and how excited they are to keep getting to play them live. “‘Trackstar’ was really good for us because it was the first time we ever tried to paint a definitive story, something that's not super true.” Tim said. “It wasn't so much about reflection or personal experiences it was more of a story we were trying to tell.” 

Rory agreed with this sentiment, saying that “Trackstar” was less introspective and more relatable, but “not really about anyone.”

For “Grace”, the song was intended to be “very nostalgic and reminiscing of you know we’ve gotten to a certain point and looking back with fondness.”

Tim continued, “It was cool to sort of use those songs to start off this little run. Because they're very different in terms of lyrical content and meaning.”

Playing them later that night, I could see how The Halves might capture a new generation of musicality fixated and responding to a darker and grittier landscape than artists that came before them.

With small goals of sustaining their music careers and continuing to work with other creatives such as their music video collaborators“Loue and Riley”, they “are all really keen to make a career out of this,” Chris said. The Halves also have big ambitions to take their music over to the UK and Europe in the near future. 

Tim dreamed, “We’d be keen to have a track over there, maybe get on some festivals around Europe.” I could definitely see them making seamless and valuable contributions to the well established Manchester scene. 

The shimmer of a tambourine cued the end of our talk and anticipated the upcoming performances for the night. Their later set would prove to be a bold last “sprint.” Highlights included their latest single “Replacement” which is now out as of 19 August and “Opus” the title track of their upcoming sophomore EP releasing on 9 September. A wicked cover of “Breathe” by The Prodigy killed the night with a death blow, leaving both the band members and the audience on an adrenaline induced high. Already trackstars on-stage, it's exciting to see where they might take this.

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Photography courtesy of Mia Grace Photography.