Nightchoir - An Accidental Band
Author: Karl Puschmann
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Mike Hall didn’t intend to start a band. Or, rather, another band. As bassist in the much-loved Auckland outfit Pluto he already had an incredibly successful outlet for his collaborative tendencies. But during the year-long process of putting the Nightchoir album '24 Hours of Night' together, another band is exactly what he found he had. A revelation that surprised him as much as anyone.
“This thing didn’t start out with any expectations to be anything really,” Hall relates over a cup of coffee at his Grey Lynn home. “It didn’t start with any intention of being a band or a solo project. All I wanted was to get the songs down. I was pleasantly surprised that it ended up forming into a band unit. I’m glad it did because I think the songs are better for it.”
The Nightchoir story begins with a bunch of four-track demos that Hall had put together at his home “just for fun”. He played these to a few friends, including singer/songwriter Steve Abel who encouraged him to take them out of the bedroom and ready them for the world.
“Steve said to me, ‘Why don’t you record these songs properly? Save the money and just do it for the sake of doing it’. I needed someone in my ear to do that. To say, ‘You don’t have to just concentrate on one band of your own and then session for everybody else. You can actually do your own songs that might not fit the Pluto project’. He reminded me of the ethos we had when I was playing in punk rock bands, where you just made music because you wanted to make that music.”
After getting the nudge from Abel, Hall decided that if he was going to follow through on the promise shown in the demos he would need help to record them. In order to get cracking Hall called in some of his close friends, drummer extraordinaire Mike Franklin-Browne and keyboard maestro Matthias Jordan – both fellow Pluto bandmates – as well as Pluto’s live sound engineer Kerry Furlong. When Jordan and Furlong turned up to the initial jam sessions with songs they too had been privately working on it was another surprise for Hall.
“It became a band because of everybody’s input,” he says as he tells of the group knuckling down, crafting the songs and jamming out all the kinks. “I recognised early on that my songs needed tweaking.”
He then gives the example of the journey the record’s title track underwent.
“24 Hours of Night didn’t have a chorus, [but] it needed someone like Mike to go, ‘Dude, this song has no chorus’. And I know it sounds really crazy but it’s that little bit of influence that makes the difference.”
“There were a couple of songs that were even more that way because I sort of indulged, as you do when you do things at home. I indulged with a lot of overdubbing, doubling and tripling vocals and adding extra harmonies. There’s a song on the record called Go Back To Him, and the first time I played Mike the demo he said it sounded like Peter Gabriel. And it was a bit like that,” he concedes with a laugh.
“There was a quiet muffled drumbeat in the background that was peripheral to the thousand backing vocals and other shit that was going on. But when it came out [at the end of the jam sessions] it ended up being one of the more rockier songs on the album. It was a cool journey to do.”
The recording itself was another journey, one Hall describes as “piecemeal”. The album took almost a year to complete with recording going on at myriad different studios and etched out in grab-bag sessions whenever they could rustle the time to do so. The sessions mainly took place at night, which is one of the explanations behind the record’s title.
“It was all spread out,” Hall says before giving the full studio rundown. “We started out at Roundhead B and did the 15 or 16 rhythm tracks. Then we did lots of vocals and guitars at Auckland Audio. We did heaps of stuff at Kerry’s house; he’s got a studio. We also did some stuff at Milan’s [Borich, Pluto’s frontman] and some stuff at Murray Fischer’s [Goodshirt] house.”
Hall’s solo bedroom demos had, by now, become a full collaborating band. The album’s production duties were mainly handled by Hall and Furlong, with input from Franklin-Browne and Jordan. For mixing they roped in Jol Mullholland, booking out eight days at the Lab and mixing two songs a day, before sending it over to Sterling Sound in NYC for mastering.
From his humble original goal of just wanting to record a few songs Hall now finds himself fronting a fully fledged band with a startlingly accomplished debut album on the shelves and a nationwide tour in the planning. Surely, I ask, he must have learnt a lot over the past year?
“In many ways it’s confirmed for me that this is a positive thing to do,” Hall answers. “Rather than learn a lesson like ‘Don’t do this’ or ‘Do that’, I’ve learnt that you should follow your head and say to yourself, ‘There is a good reason to do this’. Even if it’s not anything yet it could become something. It’s worth following your head and taking a bit of a risk and trying something. Even if it’s just for the sake of doing it.
“I’m really stoked that what started as just an idea to get some songs out has become something that people will hopefully have in their homes and come to shows. That,” he says finishing his coffee, “was beyond my expectations.”
“This thing didn’t start out with any expectations to be anything really,” Hall relates over a cup of coffee at his Grey Lynn home. “It didn’t start with any intention of being a band or a solo project. All I wanted was to get the songs down. I was pleasantly surprised that it ended up forming into a band unit. I’m glad it did because I think the songs are better for it.”
The Nightchoir story begins with a bunch of four-track demos that Hall had put together at his home “just for fun”. He played these to a few friends, including singer/songwriter Steve Abel who encouraged him to take them out of the bedroom and ready them for the world.
“Steve said to me, ‘Why don’t you record these songs properly? Save the money and just do it for the sake of doing it’. I needed someone in my ear to do that. To say, ‘You don’t have to just concentrate on one band of your own and then session for everybody else. You can actually do your own songs that might not fit the Pluto project’. He reminded me of the ethos we had when I was playing in punk rock bands, where you just made music because you wanted to make that music.”
After getting the nudge from Abel, Hall decided that if he was going to follow through on the promise shown in the demos he would need help to record them. In order to get cracking Hall called in some of his close friends, drummer extraordinaire Mike Franklin-Browne and keyboard maestro Matthias Jordan – both fellow Pluto bandmates – as well as Pluto’s live sound engineer Kerry Furlong. When Jordan and Furlong turned up to the initial jam sessions with songs they too had been privately working on it was another surprise for Hall.
“It became a band because of everybody’s input,” he says as he tells of the group knuckling down, crafting the songs and jamming out all the kinks. “I recognised early on that my songs needed tweaking.”
He then gives the example of the journey the record’s title track underwent.
“24 Hours of Night didn’t have a chorus, [but] it needed someone like Mike to go, ‘Dude, this song has no chorus’. And I know it sounds really crazy but it’s that little bit of influence that makes the difference.”
“There were a couple of songs that were even more that way because I sort of indulged, as you do when you do things at home. I indulged with a lot of overdubbing, doubling and tripling vocals and adding extra harmonies. There’s a song on the record called Go Back To Him, and the first time I played Mike the demo he said it sounded like Peter Gabriel. And it was a bit like that,” he concedes with a laugh.
“There was a quiet muffled drumbeat in the background that was peripheral to the thousand backing vocals and other shit that was going on. But when it came out [at the end of the jam sessions] it ended up being one of the more rockier songs on the album. It was a cool journey to do.”
The recording itself was another journey, one Hall describes as “piecemeal”. The album took almost a year to complete with recording going on at myriad different studios and etched out in grab-bag sessions whenever they could rustle the time to do so. The sessions mainly took place at night, which is one of the explanations behind the record’s title.
“It was all spread out,” Hall says before giving the full studio rundown. “We started out at Roundhead B and did the 15 or 16 rhythm tracks. Then we did lots of vocals and guitars at Auckland Audio. We did heaps of stuff at Kerry’s house; he’s got a studio. We also did some stuff at Milan’s [Borich, Pluto’s frontman] and some stuff at Murray Fischer’s [Goodshirt] house.”
Hall’s solo bedroom demos had, by now, become a full collaborating band. The album’s production duties were mainly handled by Hall and Furlong, with input from Franklin-Browne and Jordan. For mixing they roped in Jol Mullholland, booking out eight days at the Lab and mixing two songs a day, before sending it over to Sterling Sound in NYC for mastering.
From his humble original goal of just wanting to record a few songs Hall now finds himself fronting a fully fledged band with a startlingly accomplished debut album on the shelves and a nationwide tour in the planning. Surely, I ask, he must have learnt a lot over the past year?
“In many ways it’s confirmed for me that this is a positive thing to do,” Hall answers. “Rather than learn a lesson like ‘Don’t do this’ or ‘Do that’, I’ve learnt that you should follow your head and say to yourself, ‘There is a good reason to do this’. Even if it’s not anything yet it could become something. It’s worth following your head and taking a bit of a risk and trying something. Even if it’s just for the sake of doing it.
“I’m really stoked that what started as just an idea to get some songs out has become something that people will hopefully have in their homes and come to shows. That,” he says finishing his coffee, “was beyond my expectations.”
