Fraternal Twin
It’s been ten years since Fraternal Twin released an album. It was a challenging decade for songwriter Tom Christie, but the band’s latest record signifies the triumph of coming out the other side.
“Halo Fell Forever” came out Sept. 4 – not long ago, Christie spoke about what it took to get to this point and what’s in store for the future of the band.
Listen to this interview anywhere podcasts are available.
Photo by Yamile Abuid
The following transcript was generated with transcription software and reviewed for accuracy. Minor errors or omissions may remain.
YY: Your new album, "Halo Fell Forever," came out just a few weeks ago. It was your first proper album in 10 years, but some of these songs were already around or in the works when your last record came out back in 2016. So naturally, I have to ask, why now?
TC: It just kind of happened this way. I was slowly kind of coming back around to some of the material. There's like a few older songs on the record and I was writing some new material, like as kind of Covid was, the pandemic was winding down and I was moving to New York City and yeah, the songs just kind of fit really well together. I just kind of had like this demo playlist of these tracks together, and I just felt like the sequence actually came together pretty quickly. I mean, the album sequence honestly has been, I decided on it like three years ago at this point. It's crazy. Yeah, they all just, like work really well together and kind of inform each other, and it just kind of feels like a real full piece, honestly. Yeah. I'm really happy with the way it turned out.
Yeah, it's a great record. Obviously, there was some writing going on, you moved to New York City; what did the last 10 years look like for you from a creative standpoint?
Well, 10 years ago, yeah, I put out our last record, "Homeworlding," and playing shows around that did a tour and then just kind of like hit like a really rough spot in my life and pulled back from music for quite a while and went through some mental health stuff. And yeah, the pandemic started and yeah, it's just kind of been a whirlwind. And I can't believe it's already been 10 years since the last record, but it's kind of felt like a big learning experience and also just like kind of like a full circle moment where I it feels like everything's sort of just like has like fallen back into place and I've like learned what I want for myself in my life and the people I want around me. And just like all the things I want in my life. Namely, like, yeah, being around music and being around my friends and being around the community of people that are just like inspiring each other and moving to New York is something that I wanted to do. I'm from upstate New York, and I moved around quite a bit 10 years ago, and then ended up in Kingston, New York, not far from where I grew up and moved down here to Brooklyn three years ago now and have sort of like come back to like maybe the life that I imagined for myself or maybe I didn't realize at the time, just like all the things that I really enjoyed about my life and kind of just like finding them, finding it all again. And and also just like feeling like I found my creative identity again after feeling like I lost it or didn't, you know, just felt like lost for quite some time. And yeah, it just feels really good. I'm just happy to be back doing this and in the way that I want really now. I just feel like wiser and like more confident in protecting the life that I want for myself.
Do you think having arrived at this point, you've got this new record out that's really a combination of older songs, some things that you've written over the past few years as well, a little more recently. Has that allowed you to sort of look back on that point in your life with a little more clarity?
Totally. And weirdly enough, a lot of the older songs looking back on them feel like almost like foreshadowing or premonitions of like what was going on in my life. And I didn't plan for that at all. It was like maybe 10 years ago, I wrote a song, like the last song on the record, "Tip of Everything," it just felt like a good way to finish the record. But it also feels like I mean, that's like, I think the earliest song, maybe the second earliest song, I think maybe "Whirlpool" might have been written right before that, but just there's like lyrics that I wrote about like, maybe just like not knowing like what the future holds or just like not feeling like I can see. It's confusing, but like the last song, there's a lyric about "took a minor break from my place in time, but it never left my sight." And it's just like, I guess it's just kind of about wanting to feel like myself and be creative and, and have these things in my life that I just, you know, I just told you about, but like not knowing at the time that I was going to lose them. So it felt like a good way to end the record and be like, yeah, you know, I'm here again. And I feel much more strong-willed in like keeping all this stuff around me and not compromising my values for anyone or anything because I just like, I know what I want now and I, and I believe in it, you know. And I trust myself more. I don't maybe put my sense of self-worth onto how other people perceive me or treat me.
Yeah. And that's reminding me of something that you said about the title track. It's about learning from your mistakes and not worrying so much about trying to be perfect for others. And it was actually your bandmates who convinced you to name the record after this song. Was the general consensus that it's a representation of the album as a whole?
Yeah, I think so. And also, it's just a really personal song. But also that title just kind of feels very powerful. And sort of poetic in a way. Yeah, everyone was just like, "that's the title." And I'm like, "I guess you're right." But I was kind of afraid of like centering that song because of how personal it is. And it's funny seeing sort of like the people writing about it and talking about it and like analyzing the lyrics in this way of like, maybe from their point of view, like I, the writer, am the one that's making all the mistakes. But I wrote it sort of like in the point of view of like a relationship between two people, both making mistakes and as tragic as like, maybe things unfold or how badly things go, or it was almost just like not wanting to villainize anyone. The phrase itself "Halo Fell Forever" kind of felt like wanting to be perfect, but knowing that you can't be and that, so the halo falls and that's okay, because it's just human, you know, I don't want to sound preachy, but it's also just been a profound kind of like coming back around to accepting all of this and seeing maybe this is all this was all supposed to happen for me to feel this way.
Right. And you don't want to downplay those experiences either.
Totally. Yeah. I mean, I've seen it described as existential and it definitely is. But I think it's very helpful for me. For me, that's like the point of making music and why I enjoy it so much because it just helps me like talk to myself and have a relationship with myself on a different level.
The whole record I read was essentially recorded before the current lineup of the band came together. But now that you've had a chance to work together and, you know, to play these songs for some time, have you started to maybe hear some of the record differently than before?
Yes and no. I mean, like, it's been really cool to hear the songs evolve in real time. I really enjoy how we've interpreted the songs and they're still changing, you know? Try not to play it totally the same every show, and I've gotten really comfortable with my bandmates. We've been playing together for over a year now, and we got together for this tour last summer, and we just finished another one and then, you know, put out this record and did some really shows. So we played a lot of shows together at this point, and I hope to have more documentation of like, the way these songs sound, because I realized we don't have any video footage or anything really on the internet. And yeah, I'm trying to just document all that more. I mean, we rerecorded like a couple old songs for the deluxe version of our first record that came out in 2015. And we put that out back in May or June. And then we announced the new record like a month after. Yeah, it's just really exciting. I mean, we gel really well together and I feel like we have like a lot of creative chemistry and I'm excited to work on new material with them. I have a lot songs that because yeah, since this current record has been in the works for so long, there's a lot of stuff that I'm excited to get back to now that this record's out in the world. And just honestly, to collaborate with my bandmates and like, write together and throw stuff at the wall and see what happens. Like the bones are there, you know, of the songs, but I tried to leave a lot of room for new ideas and stuff. So just trying to find time to do that. Like hopefully we'll be able to bring a couple new songs out with us on the next tour that we do. I think that will be in the spring.
You've basically started like a new era for the band, and I think you said somewhere that we can expect a lot more music from the band in the future. And so where are you in the process of that new music, and is it looking more collaborative so far than the last few years were?
Well, we haven't been able to touch the new material yet because we've been focusing so much on this record. But like I said, I would love to just try to get a couple new songs into the set and see where that goes. But I mean, essentially there's a another record that's been written for quite some time. When I moved to New York, I wrote a lot of music, and this was me and our drummer Marco moved here together. And then I guess two years later, basically, we started this new lineup. So they've been sitting, which is kind of exciting to like revisit that material with fresh ears. I've been kind of looking into it, listening to it a little bit more and finishing up a couple other ideas to bring to the band. But yeah, I'm hoping that we can make a really special record together as soon as possible, really, I mean, sometime next year, I'm hoping that we can record it, and hopefully it won't take two years from recording it to release it, you know?
That would be great.
I'm really excited about the next chapter.
Photo by Yamile Abuid