Exposed Vocals Just Caught an Exclusive with ‘Haunted Echo’

Haunted Echo is the Coldwave project from Kris “Halo” Pierce. He has appeared on America’s Got Talent, programmed for Jennifer Lopez, held the audio helm for Whoopi Goldberg, Cyndi Lauper, and Steve Martin. Pierce is a three time Best of Manhattan For Entertainment Production award winner. The Wow Jones Mix of ShapeTracer is the Grand Prize winner of a remix contest hosted by Sony Creative.

Exposed Vocals: So tell us your story. Where did you grow up? What made you decide to become an artist?

Haunted Echo: I grew up in Muncie, Indiana, where my parents, a teacher and a pediatric intensive care nurse, saw some sort of natural skill in me for playing the piano.  They enrolled me in piano lessons when I was six and violin lessons later when I was ten at Ball State University.  In Junior High, I convinced my orchestra teacher to give me some theory books and I scored my first orchestral piece, which was publicly performed at the end of the year.  When everyone shot to their feet and started applauding, I knew that this was something I had to do for the rest of my life.

Exposed Vocals: How did you come up with that name? What was your inspiration behind it?

Haunted Echo: I came up with the name, Haunted Echo, in 2000 after the lyrics to the song, “Haunted,” by Poe.  “I’m haunted by the hallways and this tiny room; the echo of there of me and you; voices that are carrying this tune.”

 

Exposed Vocals: What do you think about online music sharing? Do you ever give your music away for free? Why?

 

Haunted Echo: I think music sharing is great.  When it happens.  Getting someone to share is a devil of a task.  I’ve offered many of songs for free but I’ll be honest, I found that other people viewed it as devaluing.  If someone asks me, or anyone else for that matter, for a track of mine, go get it any way you want, I say.  But my experience has shown that the opinion of everyone else seeing that happen is, well he can’t sell it so he’s giving it away for free.  It baffles me sometimes.

Exposed Vocals: Since everyone was a start-up once, can you give any smaller or local bands or artists looking to get gigs and airplay some tips?

 

Haunted Echo: Getting airplay is playing to the whims of some manager you know next to nothing about.  I don’t think there’s any real clear shot anymore to getting someone to play your stuff.  I guess it boils down to becoming an excellent salesman and then creating a great track record of work.  Or, release like 300 songs and just the shear quantity will get someone’s attention somewhere.

Exposed Vocals: Do you ever make mistakes during performances? How do you handle that?

Haunted Echo: Haha.  I think everyone makes mistakes.  The awesome part is when you realize that, in most cases, the audience has never heard the song before and genuinely has no idea you weren’t supposed to play something, so you play of it and get back on track.

Exposed Vocals: Do you tour? Anything interesting happen on tour that you think our readers would enjoy hearing about?

 

Haunted Echo: I don’t really focus on touring so much because I also do a lot of work mixing off-broadway shows and that means I’m still doing eight shows a week, even if it’s not my personal stuff.  I’ve been performing with Kim Cameron recently, and there are one off shows in the works, but not an extensive tour right this second.

Exposed Vocals: Where do you usually gather songwriting inspiration? What is your usual songwriting process?

Haunted Echo: For the last sixteen years, most inspiration has come from horror movie composers, like Charlie Clouser, or whatever Bill Leeb and Rhys Fulber (Front Line Assembly, Delerium) are doing.  This last album, ShapeTracer, was the first time I allowed myself to be inspired by the personal experiences I was dealing with at the time.  Every song starts as a doodle.  A sound effect or drum beat or melody line.  I’ll build around it until I have this series of ideas going then I go back and structure it into a song.

Exposed Vocals: Do you have a band website? What online platforms do you use to share your music?

Haunted Echo: www.HaloAskewEnt.com is the best place to get the scoop on things other than what you can listen to, although you can do a lot of listening there as well.  I’ll share on Facebook, Bandcamp, Twitter, and MTV, but now that we’ve teamed up with some great partners in London, we have world wide distribution and have been messing around with doing exclusive stuff on Apple Connect.

Exposed Vocals: What are some really embarrassing songs that we might find on your mp3 player?

Haunted Echo:  That made me have to go look again and I gotta say, I’m not embarrassed by anything on there.  Maybe Michael Jackson “Don’t Stop ’Til You Get Enough (Gigamesh Remix)” but whatever, it’s a great song.  I don’t think people should be embarrassed of their music choices.  Whatever gets you off.

 

Exposed Vocals: If you were given half a million dollars and a year off, what would you do? How would you spend it?

Haunted Echo: Ha!  I’d buy a PR firm and some artist music catalogs.

 

Exposed Vocals: Any planned studio upgrades? What are you working with now?

Haunted Echo: Because I do a lot of mixing work in NYC, I have the opportunity to work on so many systems and consoles and gear that it’s just too hard to memorialize in an interview.  My work horse is Logic.  Everything else is a constant tide of gear.

 

Exposed Vocals: How do you find ways to promote your music? What works best for you?

Haunted Echo: Something I learned while managing No FiLTr with Freddy Bastone was that you can maximize store front page exposure by having a regular schedule of releases.  With Halo Askew, we release two albums every seven weeks.  I also curate a weekly chart of electronic music at Beatport called 10 Pieces of Earcandy, Facebook boosts, press release newswires.  Stuff like that.  When you invest in a lot of time to promote and curate other people, your personal stuff gets the exposure too if you do it right.

 

Exposed Vocals: If you could perform anywhere and with any artists (Dead or Alive) where and who would it be with? Why?

Haunted Echo: I think my dream would be to perform with Front Line Assembly at a M’era Luna Festival.  I write the kind of music I do because of them, and all their performances at that festival have be spot on.

Exposed Vocals: So, what’s next? Any new upcoming projects that you want to talk about?

Haunted Echo: I’ve really gone into fifth gear with publishing music this year.  I recently signed the Industrial Rock band, Aversion Theory, to the label, and I’m recreating all the original tracks from my first band, Mind Static, which I’m looking at a late November release for.

Exposed Vocals: If you weren’t making music, what would you be doing?

Haunted Echo: I’d be pushing daisies if I wasn’t making music.

 

Exposed Vocals: Do you remember buying your first album? Who was it? What was going through your head?

Haunted Echo: Ok.  Now maybe this is embarrassing – ish.  My first CD purchase was Mozart’s Symphany No 40 in G minor.  Followed by Debbie Gibson’s Out of the Blue album on cassette.

Exposed Vocals: How do you juggle the rest of your responsibilities while trying to stay ahead in your music life?

Haunted Echo: The trick has been to make my whole life revolve around entertainment.  Even if I’m not working on music, I’m working with some very talented and famous people in stage performances.  I really do eat, sleep, breathe, and work entertainment.

Exposed Vocals: What should fans look forward to in the next year or so?

Haunted Echo: I’m developing a very special live performance show that involves some innovative puppetry work.  I wan to make a show that people want to come back and see again and again that isn’t some dudes on stage playing music.  Give ‘em a show.