Exposed Vocals just caught an exclusive interview with Friendly Fyre
Link to spotify artist page: https://open.spotify.com/artist/2tDzoOftsR26wTUbTEHuq7?si=BO1yvyV8TPaqgXRNPDbvxQ
Link to latest release: https://open.spotify.com/track/2t33bFGqHeBmTwhwQUQ8mN?si=IICC772XREazP4n7tSVnwg
Exposed Vocals: So tell us your story. Where did you grow up? What made you decide to become an artist?
My name is Daniel Halaas and i’m from a place called Stavanger in Norway. I grew up in a great part of town, with an incredible family. My interest in music sprouted early, and from the age of 10, I played the guitar, drums, and bass. I wasn’t any good, but it was a start. My parents are also very musical, especially my dad. Being the biggest U2 fan, my dad that is, i grew up listening to the great Dublin band. That’s when it all started i guess, playing U2 songs on the drums and guitar, i fell in love with music. And my musical skills grew parallel with my love for music. By the age of 12 i started listening to electronic music, and I figured out that everybody else didn’t have the same passion for music as I did. I listened to music all the time, in school, whilst doing my homework, even in my sleep. Biggest inspirations back in the day was probably Deadmau5, Audien, Tritonal, Porter Robinson, Zedd, and Skrillex.
When i first got my own computer, i quickly started messing around in FL Studio. I started off by remaking a few of my favourite songs but had no idea I was gonna make money some day by making original tracks. I wasn’t really going anywhere with music back then though, but that all changed when i started at a music school at age 16. I met a lot of great musicians and inspirations, who quickly became a few of my best friends. I ditched FL Studio and started working with Ableton Live. That’s when it all really began. I made a few original tracks, and soon after, my first track was released on spotify called “Vatikanet 2015”. It wasn’t really a serious track, as it’s only purpose was for parties. (By now, the track has reached over 240,000 streams on spotify and is my most popular track, despite the quality of production). So, by this time I had decided that i wanted to pursue this passion of mine, and become better at producing. It didn’t take long before I had a nice pool of songs in my discography, and my production skills grew better and better. I currently have more than 20 released songs, including one EP, out on spotify.
Present day, I am working on dozens of projects at the same time, and juggling two different artist pages, my solo career and my group called Friendly Fyre. I started Friendly Fyre with two of my Swedish friends, Jez Green and Martin Ekman. So far we have released three singles, with a lot more to come. Honestly, I can’t wait to tell you what we’ve got in store. Sick new tracks of amazing quality. Produced, mixed and mastered by yours truly, Friendly Fyre.
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?
To be honest, it’s all about the grind. You need to get in touch with as many influential people as possible, never give up. These things doesn’t happen overnight, and you just have to keep going at it, don’t give up. Other than that, having great quality content is a must. It is important to only release something you are pleased with, yourself, but getting feedback and advice from other, maybe more qualified people, is a very good idea. Get somebody else who is good with mastering, so they can correct your mistakes in the mix.
Exposed Vocals: Do you ever make mistakes during performances? How do you handle that?
Of course not! Haha, jokes aside, literally everyone makes mistakes during live sets. As a dj, and not a live performer, there isn’t as many things that could go wrong i guess, but mistakes can still easily throw you off and plenty of things that can go wrong. It happens more often when you play longer sets, especially at the end. You’re starting to lose focus and all of sudden you forget to press play one one track or your ears might be a bit fatigued and the beat matching might be completely off.
These mistakes can happen at any given time, even in shorter sets. Making mistakes is a part of the fun, it genuinely shows that we’re not playing a pre-recorded set and whenever these small fails occur we usually just shrug and laugh it off. Give the audience a wave and a smile and it will all be forgotten in the next song.
-Jez
Exposed Vocals: Do you tour? Anything interesting happen on tour that you think our readers would enjoy hearing about?
We have not been on tour no, but if we’re lucky, we wish to go on tour in the future.
I have to say though, meeting fans that truly care about your music, is the most humbling feeling ever. Hearing just one person tell you how much he loves your music, means the world, and all that hard work has paid off.
Exposed Vocals: Any planned studio upgrades? What are you working with now?
The studio is always expanding, and there is always another gadget i want to buy. Right now i’m craving an analog synth to be honest. I have always wanted one, and it would be sick to have one. Other than that i am going to invest in an ableton push 2, and ableton live 10 as soon as that is released. The Roli Seaboard would also be sick.
Exposed Vocals: How do you find ways to promote your music? What works best for you?
Social media in this day and age is the best to go, especially if you’re independent artists like us. We put a lot of work in social networking, getting to know people within the music industry is very important. But before we even started getting to know these people, we put a lot of effort in our advertising on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and even on Snapchat. Tell your friends to tell their friends, tell your family to tell their colleagues/friends. It takes some time, but it does the trick in the beginning. After that, the easiest way is to connect with people in forums and on twitter, where we have met a lot of other artists who are on the same page as we are.
I think we’ve had the most success with our Facebook promotion, considering it can reach out to the entire world. Sure, it costs a bit but in the end, it’s an investment. It’s definitely worth it in the long run, and we’ll continue to do most of our advertising there until we get our own management.
Exposed Vocals: If you could perform anywhere and with any artists (Dead or Alive) where and who would it be with? Why?
Perform with any artists… Well, it’s hard to DJ with multiple people in the booth. But I can tell you who we would love to work with. We’re three people of different musical backgrounds; we all have different artists that we love in all sorts of genres.
The likes of Porter Robinson, Steve Angello, Corey James, deadmau5, Jon Bellion, Rezz and many, many more have definitely inspired us. It’s a tough question, but for me personally, if I were to give you five names right now, I’d say Steve Angello, Eric Prydz, Mounika, Koan Sound and Porter Robinson.
The reason why we’d love to work with these people is because they are all testing the boundaries of with their new and fresh sounds. They are willing to do the bold and the weird, but in the end, the outcome is perfect. We look up to all three of these artists and we love everything they do.
Daft Punk is another group that we’d love to work, but I feel as if it is every producers dream to work with the group who revolutionised the electronic music scene.
There are obviously a lot of vocalists we’d love to work with as well, such as Jon Bellion, John Newman, James Vincent McMorrow, Ofelia K.
Their voices would definitely suit our productions and hopefully we get to work with one of them in a not too distant future.
But there’s one person that I would have loved to work with more than anyone else, and that’s Freddie Mercury. The man was a genius and is one of the, if not THE best singer ever. The way he could manipulate his voice was astounding and is rightfully considered as one of the best musicians of all time.
Exposed Vocals: So, whats next? Any new upcoming projects that you want to talk about?
Absolutely! In my solo work, @Daniel Halaas, I currently have 2 separate EPs and plenty more singles coming out very soon. It’s going to be sick. I am really putting my everything into my music. Got some different collabs and remixes coming up as well.
With Friendly Fyre, we are even more excited about our music coming up. We are currently releasing singles towards our upcoming album. Our first single, Melancholy Love, has gotten some amazing feedback, and some decent exposure. So we can’t wait to release more. The album is set to be released in the summer of 2018.
Exposed Vocals: If you werent making music, what would you be doing?
Wow… To be honest, I really don’t know. Music has always been a huge part of my life, and I can’t see myself ever stop making music. But if I had to replace producing with something, it might have been drawing or something. I could see myself become an architect. But i’m never going to stop making music, it’s my life.
Exposed Vocals: What should fans look forward to in the next year or so?
As i said before, Friendly Fyre is releasing an album. Release date is not set yet, but it’s gonna be in the summer sometime. We are super excited about this, and so should everyone else be too. It’s going to be epic, that’s a promise. It doesn’t just stop after the album, we are going to release so much stuff in 2018, it’s mental. Stay tuned for that.
Exposed Vocals: Any Shout-outs?
Well obviously, you guys need to check out our spotify, @Friendly Fyre.
Be sure to follow us, and stream the crap out of our new single, Melancholy Love.
I would Like to shout-out my colleagues, Jez and Martin too. This would not be the same without them.
My solo spotify is, @Daniel Halaas. Amazing stuff on there as well.
