HALCYON WAY plays HOB/Anaheim Jan. 8
Halcyon Way, in support of their album Conquer, is heading out on a month-long tour in the U.S. alongside Queensryche, reaching the House of Blues in Anaheim on Jan. 8.
The group likes to grasp from all metal music spectrums, capturing intricate instrumental riffs and symphonic vocals, backed by gut-wrenching death vocals and heavy beats. Halcyon Way took the techniques from 80’s metal and redeveloped it with a progressive metal twist.
“We started as a progressive metal band, and when you’re in that genre, you’re kind of expected to write a lot of wanky passages… seven riffs here, and the bridge, and whatever,” lead guitarist, Jon Bodan said. “That’s cool, but we didn’t really want to do that so much. We wanted to write songs that just had big hooks and were straight to the point and they were catchy and people were going to bang their head to it. We wanted to just go straight to the throat with the new songs.”
Conquer started out with the typical lock-themselves-in-the-studio attitude, but resulted in a Billboard-charting album with songs such as “Web of Lies.”
“What we tried to do on that album was, we sat down before we finished writing everything, kind of when we had the skeletons of the songs, and we basically said, ‘Well, what’re we really good at as a band?'” Bodan said. “We felt like we were really good at writing big choruses and good riffs and things of that nature, so what we did was we said, ‘All right, let’s focus on the stuff we feel we’re really good at, and let’s cut out all the fat.'”
After becoming known in the European metal scene, the group is heading out on a much-needed U.S. tour. The group is also working on their fifth album that already has 10 songs demoed out. They don’t just take opportunities for granted, but instead work hard to develop a fanbase and keep them intrigued with new releases.
“We don’t take anything for granted, we don’t take any opportunity for granted,” Bodan said. “We don’t have the attitude that we’re going to wait on somebody to do it for us. We don’t play the type of music that’s ever going to be an overnight sensation.”
Even without the “overnight sensation” type of popularity, Halcyon Way creates music that doesn’t only hold true to the metal music sound, but introduces mature lyrics with topics such as society, war, politics and personal struggles.
“If you don’t feel strongly about your material, then I don’t think your fans are going to either,” Bodan reasoned. “They have to feel the blood, sweat and tears that you put into it.”
Although their set may not be long, the five-piece group is sure to put on a high-energy performance that will help the crowd remember their name. In addition to Bodan the band consists of Steve Braun (vocals), Ernie Topran (drums), Max Eve (rhythm guitar / backing vocals) and Skyler Moore (bass / vocals).
“We’ve only got a 30-minute set, so we’re just gonna go out there and get really sweat and go hard. Just try to pummel the crowd as much as we can with our time. We’re just gonna put on a high-energy show and go out there and take no prisoners.”