Q&A: halfnoise Released Brand New Album, Zac Farro's Latest Installment of Experimental Tunes
HALFNOISE’S NEW ALBUM — City Talk, is infectiously light-hearted and wondrously adventurous. Founded by Zac Farro of Paramore, halfnoise has evolved drastically as a musical identity over the years. Their prior record, Motif, draws listeners in with all of its mysteries and jazzy spins of art pop. In comparison, City Talk is charged with a free-spirited nature and a wide array of musical influences. A collection of tunes that smoothly traverse from funky tunes to surf-rock, with playful experimentation to artfully melodies, City Talk is as ambitious as it is nebulous.
Beyond this album, Farro has spent the year busy touring with Paramore — though he also managed to play a few memorable halfnoise shows. He’s been experimenting with new techniques and sounds, fine-tuning the “trusting his guts” nature of halfnoise as his personal project.
Right ahead of the next leg of the Paramore world tour and the release of City Talk, Luna caught up with Farro to chat about everything and anything, from musical influence, studio time, to his innate love for the rhythm section and his visual art pursuits. Read the interview below.
LUNA: How’s it going?
FARRO: Good!
LUNA: What’s one song that you’re currently obsessed with?
FARRO: Hmm… If I’m obsessed with it, I would’ve known off of the top of my head — I might need to look at my phone… It's funny because I have different moods for things but I mean, when I was making this record, I was listening to a ton of city pop and Japanese songs. I'm not sure how to pronounce his name but I’d say [a song I’m obsessed with] is Hiroshi Sato’s “Blue And Moody Music.”
LUNA: I was gonna say that City Talk as an album gets very surf-rocky by about halfway into the album. But the first half actually reminds me just a little bit of Talking Heads. Is that kind of accurate?
FARRO: It's kind of up for interpretation. Everything with halfnoise, every song, is kind of its own world. It's the quickest answer, but there's definitely some more. First of all, I wanted the record to feel like an old radio station, like a ’70s through ’90s radio station that felt like a playlist that someone curated, [something] that's a little bit of all their favorite music or tunes at that time. Because halfnoise is a project able to just try things out in terms of writing. I was writing City Talk listening to a lot of NTS radio, where a lot of artists make playlists and they have their own infinite mixtapes. It's a cool thing to have whether you’re going to rehearsals or going on a tour or just running errands — it's kind of nice to have something to just put on and not have to pick or choose music, because it gets overwhelming when you're in the supermarket and you're like, “What am I gonna listen to right now?” and then spend five minutes trying to find a record.
It's cool to start something and it just sounds good, and it takes you on a ride, kind of like that radio aspect. Everybody's putting a new single out every month now — you can still go on such a deep dive and find things, but I think it's really cool to just have somebody curate something for you. So that's kind of the idea behind City Talk.
LUNA: I did feel like this album is a little bit more curated, but also less themed, in a sense. Looking back to Motif, it felt very cinematic. I actually described it as “drowsily in love.” Whereas City Talk to me feels like if halfnoise were to make a feel-good record. It would kind of be like this — because I don't expect halfnoise to ever be entirely “feel-good.”
FARRO: Right, because there's always some emotional capture, some feelings, but I've definitely thought about what it would be like to just make — I don't know if it would be under halfnoise, but what would it feel like if I just make an instrumental record or a house record? Because I do Paramore stuff and produce a lot of different things, I have halfnoise to be this blank canvas so that I can be super creative with it.
I think that’s a great way to put it: Motif was definitely a really rich and full record, [almost] like a love letter. It was very tree sap, very sticky. I think it's maybe just like an artist thing to do this, but every time I make something I kind of want to retaliate against myself and do something different. So I definitely wanted City Talk to feel a lot less dense — I think dense is a good word for Motif, too. And I don't think dense is all bad. I think there’s a lot of good qualities to it, but I wanted it to feel a little bit more mysterious, light-hearted, just kind of upbeat, and wherever it takes you.
I guess City Talk does start out kind of dancey, Talking Heads, and then into a more psychedelic surf-rock sound towards the end — it's kind of what I wanted it to be, again with the playlist thing. I wanted the record to just be something you can put on and it just feels good. If you wanted to attach to some lyrics, they're there. But if you wanted to just have it on and have a vibe, there's that as well.
LUNA: Yeah, it's really cool. I definitely feel that playlist kind of vibe, and I wrote down the word “liberating.” There's something very liberating about it, and that's not something I picked up from prior records.
FARRO: Oh, that's cool. Honestly really cool that you said “liberating.” I think for me, I just wanted to really lean into trusting my guts.
LUNA: I also wanted to ask, what did a typical day look like making this record in the studio?
FARRO: I would make demos at our house in LA and then bring it over to my friend's studio in his house in LA. I just wanted it to feel lowkey and effortless and not spend too much time on it, just so it felt inspired and leaving room for the listeners to still have their own imagination of something they can connect to, maybe that wasn't there but there's some space for them to have their own interpretation too. Because I feel like right now music feels very thought-out, sort of doesn't have its own imagination anymore.
So I think it was really cool to work with my friend Dan [Daniel McNeil]. We're really in sync with staying on theme and keeping the energy going and going with our gut reactions, instead of mulling over ideas until we just squeeze the life out of them. So I just booked a few weeks with him, and we went in and [worked on] my demo ideas — some were a little bit more finished than others. And a typical day would just be him and I unpacking the demo and rerecording things and adding things. And we mainly did it together until we needed extra friends to play on things that we couldn't play, etc.
LUNA: I remember the live show I've seen of halfnoise as one of the best live shows ever. I think it was also because there's a lot of space for interpretation. There were a lot of instruments for a lot of people on stage, but there’s an atmosphere that you can bring or create and just let people enjoy it. This might be a vague question, but how do you make sure you facilitate that in a live environment?
FARRO: That's cool. Do you remember what show you saw?
LUNA: It was the Nashville show back in 2021.
FARRO: Cool! Every record insinuates a different show, but especially for the shows we just did, which were some of my favorite halfnoise shows — especially the one we did at the Echo in LA. With the show you saw, we had our friend Tony playing saxophone over the whole thing, even songs that don't have saxophone recorded on them. It's cool to mix it up, like playing shows with string players who have violins, cellos, and things like that. The last show we did felt very rock ‘n’ roll, with keys players, drums, and guitars and bass — very rock band.
LUNA: I also wanted to bring it up that I hear so much bass in halfnoise. I'm very intrigued by that, because obviously the drums are such a crucial, Zac Farro instrument. The bass on halfnoise tracks is just so amazing and stands out a lot when you do pay attention to it. Is that something that's intentional with this project?
FARRO: I mean, the rhythm section is the thing I gravitate towards first. When I'm listening to music I like, the drums and bass playing together, or the bass playing off the melody of the guitar. I think it's kind of similar to live shows where I just like to have something that's like, if you want to pay attention to it, you’d notice it, like, “Oh, that's a cool part!” like the bass. Or if you want to just sit there and enjoy it. I think it's that kind of it's that it's supposed to feel good and let people kind of have their own interpretation,. Whether it's a show or bassline or a record or whatever, that's kind of the MO in general: to let people dive as deep as they want to, or just sit back and enjoy it.
LUNA: halfnoise is your own solo project. It is also a collaboration project, but it's mostly a Zac project. Do you feel like part of your photography brain and visual pursuits are incorporated into halfnoise?
FARRO: I have never really been asked that before… I mean, sometimes? That's a cool question. I think sometimes a certain synthesizer or guitar tone would feel like the feeling of a warm film photo or something. It's kind of abstract. There's textures and colors and feelings with music sometimes — it's all just what I hear in my head. Shooting photos is a lot of, “Okay, what's the ISO, what's the f-stop?” — it's very dialed into the practical side. Sometimes it's like, “Oh, cool lighting — this looks great.” When everything's working together, then you kind of turn off the mechanical mind. But shooting photos is a lot more mechanical.
With [music] writing, sometimes you'll get into a 20-minute, 30-minute trance session all of a sudden, and then it's like, “Woah, I've been sitting on my knees and realizing I'm so overtaken…” It kind of transports you sometimes. Photos kind of do that too, but not in the same way music does. But there are some similarities in terms of approaching a feeling or a vibe or whatever. Photography is more like the production of a song. I think that if they were so similar, I don't think I would have the passion for photography, because it does scratch a different itch. You know what I mean? But they're all art to me, so they're all important. That's how I can connect them, but if they all kind of did the same thing, I probably would only do one of them.
LUNA: I know this album is not out yet, but have you by any chance started drafting blueprints, ideas, inspiration for a world for halfnoise post–City Talk?
FARRO: I mean, what's funny is that I finished this record at the beginning of this year. So it's funny because by the time people hear it anyway, you've lived with it for so long. You send it to your friends, and do a photoshoot for it, etc. You heard and lived with at least some of the music for a little bit. But then when you share it with the public or when it gets released, it takes on its own life. It's kind of weird, but I definitely like to feel like I learned something new about myself [with] every halfnoise record, how I write and what I connect to, what I related to at that time, maybe a recording trick or something.
I've started delving into more synthesizers and more gear at my studio, trying to learn how to record better on my own. And it's cool because that really insinuates different kinds of writing, too. So I'm excited to see where I end up, having spent more time in my studio. The thing is I would always make records, keep writing, and doing the halfnoise shows that I can do when time permits. But yeah, I definitely always stay inspired. I think I'll be excited to see what I do next, but I'm hoping to learn a few new tricks that become the new identity for the next thing.
LUNA: Last question: What is one word that can summarize how you’ve been feeling lately?
FARRO: I would say busy. Paramore has a tour in Australia coming up, and the record is coming out. I’ve just been on tour the last year, and when you get home, you're trying to feel like you're at home, go to the grocery store, do normal things, wash your car, or put gas in your car, because you're gone for so long. By the time we have a whole routine going, we're leaving again. I'm trying to do some yoga in the morning, ride my bike when the weather is really, really good, and just enjoy this fall season. I think everything is so busy, and I can always busy myself even more than that, so busyness and balance are the two words. I'm busy, so I'm trying to encourage more balance in my life.
