We had the pleasure of interviewing Handsome Ghost over Zoom audio!
Handsome Ghost is the Massachusetts duo of Eddie Byun and Tim Noyes. Their 2014 breakout single “Blood Stutter” racked up 20 million streams, and their debut album Welcome Back followed in 2018. Their second album, Some Still Morning, will be out on Photo Finish Records on September 18, 2020.
When the noise of the world subsides and everything else goes quiet, emotions grow louder.
With nothing to compete for attention and no distractions, the quietude enables honesty. Upheld by acoustic guitar, transmissions of ethereal production, and vocals that often barely register above a whisper, Handsome Ghost hover around this stillness on their 2020 second full-length album, Some Still Morning [Photo Finish Records].
The Massachusetts duo—Tim Noyes [singer, songwriter] and Eddie Byun [multi-instrumentalist, producer]—thread together eleven songs steeped in longing and nostalgia, loss and love, and darkness and light, all at once.
"This record is about that moment at dawn right as the sun is coming up, when you’re able to look at everything -- good or bad -- with a fresh perspective. It’s that moment before all the stresses of the day really hit that you’re able to look at things from a place of calm.” says Tim. “To us, this record is about trying to harness that feeling.”
In 2014, Handsome Ghost initially captivated on the breakout single “Blood Stutter,” which racked up over 20 million cumulative streams and introduced the 2015 Steps EP. It also began the story of one period of Noyes’ life that drove much of his writing for Handsome Ghost.
A year later, The Brilliant Glow EP yielded “Eyes Wide” [16.5 million Spotify streams] as the band tirelessly canvased the country on tour. Receiving acclaim courtesy of OnesToWatch, Culture Collide, Relix, and more, their prolific output continued on 2018’s full-length debut, Welcome Back. Boasting the single “Fool,” Atwood praised it as “a raw, intimate exploration of vulnerability and space—an emotional and ethereal journey.” It addressed those old hurts head-on. Welcome Back was, for Noyes, his attempt to move past the story that began with “Blood Stutter.”
After unveiling the acoustic companion piece Welcome Back: The Acoustic Recordings and touring extensively, the pair turned their attention towards recording the follow-up in 2019.
Having closed the chapter on a period of time that wove through Handsome Ghost’s previous work, Noyes wrote the songs that would eventually become Some Still Morning with a fresh perspective and a new sense of clarity, one that interpreted the past and the present from a place of peace and, at times, acceptance.
However when the duo set to record the songs, the process presented a series of unforeseen creative challenges.
“It was a bit complicated,” admits Tim. “The new album was a completely different experience from Welcome Back. After our last tour, we felt like we were trying to make a statement, which went awry at some point. We spent six months on six ideas and then scrapped all of it.”
“We didn’t even know if we’d go on,” sighs Eddie. “We were initially trying so hard to take the sound of the last record and shift it in different ways...and it didn’t work. We got frustrated and it showed in the music.”
As the band considered drastic shifts including ending the project altogether, they finally broke through during one late night session, as the sun was coming up and the glowing light was peeking into their home studio.
“We realized at that moment, that the world we created around these songs needed to be completely different from our previous sound.” Says Eddie. “We needed to compartmentalize the past sonically, and move forward with a different vision.”
“We tried to keep everything intimate,” affirms Tim. “We were really delicate and deliberate in what we wanted to include in terms of the arrangements. We cut away any excess. Each part serves its purpose. Our hope is that this record makes for a quiet time with your headphones on.”
“We didn’t try to write hooks or any ‘jams’,” exclaims Eddie. “We really just wanted to capture that feeling of the morning.”
We want to hear from you! Please email YT@BringinitBackwards.com.
#podcast #interview #bringinbackpod #foryou #foryoupage #stayhome #togetherathome #zoom #aspn #americansongwriter #americansongwriterpodcastnetwork
Listen & Subscribe to BiB
Follow our podcast on Instagram and Twitter!
