Title: “We Are The Half-Moon Kids”
By: Riot! In The Boulevard
From: Wild Young Things (2013/2014)
Release Date: July 28, 2013
Length: 4:22
Format: Promo Single, CD Single, Digital Download, 7” Single, Weekly Airplay
Recorded: May/June 2013 – Half-Moon Studios, Las Vegas, Nevada
Genre: Alternative Rock, Power-Pop, Pop-Rock
Label: North Hill Records
Written: May 2013
Writer(s): Adam Benjamin, Amy Meyer
Producer(s): Riot! In The Boulevard, Avil Hartman, Julian Morello
“We Are The Half-Moon Kids” is a song written and recorded by the American pop-punk band ‘Riot! In The Boulevard’, it is taken from their upcoming fourth studio album ‘Wild Young Things’ and will serve as the first ever promotional single from the young pop-punk outfit. The song is also rumoured to make an appearance on an upcoming summer E.P titled ‘Fading Colors’ which is expected to be released from the group of musicians within the coming weeks, the version expected to appear on the E.P is a stripped down acoustic version rather than the full version that you’re hearing today. This single follows on from the previous effort from the band titled ‘To All Of The Names Written On The Inside Of My Arm’ which served as the lead single from their next studio collection ‘Wild Young Things’ and it has continued the bands remarkable run of hit singles, peaking at the number #1 position on the Airplay singles chart, making it the sixth number one single released in this bands still relatively short career so far.
‘Riot! In The Boulevard’ have spent the majority of 2013 on a worldwide tour in support of their previous studio album ‘Crossroads’ and during small breaks in the tour, the band have continued their hard work and have spent a large amount of time crafting the songs that they hope will make up their next album which is expected to be released later in the year. It’s the work ethic of the band and in particular lead singer Amy Meyer that has helped propel this group of “misfits and losers” to become one of the most successful music acts in recent memory, with now over 20 million albums sold worldwide in just over three years in the music industry, it’s a rise that has made these group of musicians, the oldest of which, twins ‘Justin Mullen’ and ‘Nathan Mullen’ only turned twenty years old in February one of the most respected acts in the industry. And perhaps most surprising of all is the reputation of each member of the band, there has been practically no real negativity that has surrounded any member of the band in their careers so far and it’s the work ethic and morals that the group live their life by that has helped them not only become worldwide icons to many but also role models for young people and more specifically young musicians, proving that you don’t need to create a whirlwind of drama in order to sell records, you just need to be good at what you do and this band have proven this each time they’ve stepped into the spotlight and this is why many expect this band in particular to have an everlasting legacy in the music industry.
‘We Are The Half-Moon Kids’ will become the second single released from their next record, an album that they continue to work on during small breaks in their world tour. Approximately five songs have been completed from the album with lead singer Amy Meyer recently telling fans onstage
“We’re working on the next album as much as time allows us, it’s a slow process but we’ve got five songs done. There’s still a lot more to come though … it’s gonna be a big one”. The release of this single also marks the fourth single released in 2012, a recurring pattern in their careers, as each year they’ve continually released four singles, it looks like a pattern that will be broken this year though, with another five months remaining. The track was written by Adam Benjamin in May 2013 and it was finished with a little help from Amy Meyer and was recorded in early June. It was the first ever song recorded at a custom made recording studio built for Riot! In The Boulevard, the studio which now shares a name with the song is called “Half-Moon Studio’s” and is located in the bands hometown of Las Vegas, Nevada. Production was helmed by the band alongside Avil Hartmann and Julian Morello. The single will be released in a number of different formats including CD Single, Digital Download, 7” Single as well as through streaming sites such as Spotify, Soundcloud, Last.FM and YouTube. It will be distributed through North Hill Records on July 28, 2013.
BACKGROUND AND RECORDINGThe song was written sometime in May 2013, the majority of the song was created by rhythm guitarist Adam Benjamin with additional help from Amy Meyer. It’s one of the rare times that the lead singer of the band hasn’t had such a major input into the song but she recently spoke about the song,
“It’s a great track, it perfectly hits the sort of theme that we’re going with for the next album. And the whole Half-Moon thing is something that Adam truly believes in, so it was a great opportunity for him to express his own styles and influences so heavily in a Riot! In The Boulevard track. It’s something that I like to encourage within the band, it’s a creative and collaborative environment and I love to see everybody putting a little bit of themselves into the songs that we’re recording and I’ve gotta say that this track is 100% Adam. It’s great to see so much of somebody’s style being put into a song and it was one of the most fun songs that we’ve recorded.”‘We Are The Half-Moon Kids’ also features a spoken introduction, it was initially going to be recorded by Adam but he quickly decided that he didn’t want his voice to be recorded in the introduction. The band threw around a couple of different ideas and even recorded a version that featured each member of the band speaking in unison throughout the introduction but felt that the words would sound slightly lost with so many voices blending together. It was three weeks without any progress on the introduction of the song and the band considered just writing an opening verse of the song and replacing the spoken version, but a change meeting between Adam and the young blogger Honor Wynter at a bar created an unlikely friendship between the two, they bonded over their shared hometown of Vegas amongst other things and within a week they had the spoken introduction finally recorded.
In a recent web chat with fans Adam spoke about why he asked Honor to record the intro,
“She simply has a much more interesting voice than me, there’s a strong authority there as well as a feminine quality. Also she’s a young and enthusiastic person that I think can fit in with the words and the theme of the song. Then of course there was the whole Vegas thing too, we recorded the song at own studio in Las Vegas and let’s face it, everything sounds better with a Las Vegas accent. It was just an easy process, she came in and she got along well with the band and it was recorded pretty quickly.”The song was recorded at the bands own recording studio in Las Vegas. This was the first song completed at the studios and therefore the band decided to commemorate the moment by naming the recording studio after the song. So the band recorded the song at Half-Moon Studios in Las Vegas, Nevada between May and June 2013. Similarly to their previous single, ‘We Are The Half-Moon Kids’ was produced by the band alongside Avil Hartman and Julian Morello.
SONGWRITER COMMENTSQuote:“This is a song about the importance of keeping a state of youthful exuberance. It’s something that I feel most passionate about because I have my own beliefs and mantra I guess. Too many times you hear stories about fifteen year olds getting pregnant or about eight year olds with depression and it’s staggering each time you read anything like that, it’s like receiving a punch to the stomach, certainly for me anyway. I feel wounded and it takes a while to catch my breath. It’s like every single day that you hear these things and it’s like there’s nothing happening to really take control of it. It’s down to society, it’s down to the way kids are treated now, they aren’t so much treated like children anymore and that is a bad thing. Children are now encouraged to grow up too soon, those trashy magazines are the worst. You have eleven and twelve year old children reading them and thinking that they should look like these stick thin famous people and if they don’t then the shots of a z-list celebrity on the next page with negative comments about how she’s looking sorta chunky these days are putting in their minds that if you’re not stick thin then people are gonna think bad things about you.
It’s always an image thing, it’s not right. These are young people who shouldn’t be looking at this as the way to be, they’ve already lost any innocence that they may have had simply because of the times that they’re living in. At such a young age they should be encouraged to have fun and instead you’ve got young kids being taught to grow up. It sounds very much like I’m going off on some sort of ego maniac rant but I’ve seen this at first hand. I have an eight year old sister who now doesn’t eat properly and whenever she attempts to eat properly she throws up, I asked her about it and she said “all of the fat girls get bullied” and she recently spent two weeks in a health clinic because of this, when I was that age, I was climbing trees and pretending to be Indiana Jones … and it’s not a gender thing before you think that, it’s a generational thing because girls did the exact same thing as us boys did back then, it’s just what we did.
And now, I have cousins who are nine and ten years old and they’re already dating, they’re already using facebook and twitter and they’re listening to pop music with lyrics that nine and ten year olds shouldn’t be singing. It is completely screwed up and it’s the fact that youth is so negatively looked upon, there shouldn’t be peer pressure at such young ages, children should be encouraged to act like children for as long as possible, it’s as simple as that and it should go beyond that, people in general should be encouraged to not grow up too fast, for all that we know, we only have this one chance at life and we should enjoy it as much as we possibly can.
That is what this song is all about, It’s about endless nights. It’s about reckless abandon, it’s about youthful innocence, it’s about living for the moment and creating lasting memories. Youth is an incredible thing and we should all do whatever we can to hold onto it for as long as we possibly can. Which is why I encourage everybody to become half-moon kids.”
- Adam Benjamin
SONG DESCRIPTIONThe song begins with a faded piano that can be faintly heard in the distance as the spoken introduction begins, the tender tones of the piano keys matching beautifully with the words and the vocal tone of Honor Wynter. Each sentence is spoken carefully and thoughtfully as the piano keys start off soft and slow. But as the spoken introduction reaches the part that advises
“So take your time to live/Be bold and be brave” the piano keys begin to become more prominent alongside the spoken delivery and as it reaches its climactic moment it’s now full volume stuff as Honor says
“This is our time now/Hold on to it tight/Don’t let go/We are the half-moon kids, tonight”A brief second passes before a driving electric guitar riff provided by Justin Mullen accompanies the piano and also included are the powerful drum beats and before you know it, the entire band has some sort of instrumental input into the song at such an early stage. All of the instruments clash together to create this almost crowded feeling and then just as you thought it couldn’t get any more energetic the opening lyrics are bellowed out by Amy Meyer
“Drop all of your plans because tonight this is all about us/We’ve got the whole of the world waiting to see what we’re gonna do/It’s almost midnight and we’re out on the street/No responsibilities tonight and it’s time to move out feet.” Which provides a slightly interesting change of pace for the band as they combine some very commercial pop-oriented lyrics with a noisy pop-punk sort of backdrop, a band clearly unafraid to do things exactly the way they want.
The music continues in a very similar manner, there is an ever noticeable repetitive beat in your ear when listening to the song and it’s Nathan Mullen that provides the main source of energy throughout which just seems to continue as Amy fires out line after line of upbeat live-while-we’re-young sort of lyrics,
“We are the half-moon kids/Turning the evening into an endless summer night/We are the half-moon kids/Take hold of a hand and we’ll be alright/So put your arms up to the sky and let your heart run free” and the music stops dead for a moment as Amy screams out the following line
“Because if tomorrow never comes then there’s no place I’d rather be.”The music combination matched with the lyrical and vocal delivery give the song a very anthemic summer type of feel to it, it’s the sort of song that will no doubt be worshiped by anybody less than twenty-four which is the majority of Riot! In The Boulevards fanbase. While the instrumentation remain very much rooted in the powerful driving pop-punk elements that the band have made a career out of, the repetitive lyrics particularly in the final verse of the song could quite easily make this a strong pop-punk/mainstream pop crossover, possibly even a nightclub anthem if it’s ever remixed. But all in all, it could very well be a song that divides the Riot! In The Boulevard fanbase, whether they’ll be particularly worried about that outcome seems rather doubtful considering they’ve always done what they want to do.
LYRICSKey – purple = Honor Wynter - Spoken Introduction“When you’re young, you’re encouraged to grow up too soon
To plan for the future, to plan for the great unknown
But life is brief and we have all of the time in the world to grow old
But youth, well it’s just a fleeting moment
So we should take our chances
Be brave and open to the possibilities and to the magnitude of a world full of wonder
Because we only get to live this life once
We should make the most of this time in our lives
You hear it all of the time
That you’ll end up regretting the things that you didn’t do
The things that you were too afraid to do
So take your time to live
Be bold and be brave
Don’t be afraid of the consequences
This is our time now
Hold on to it tight
Don’t let go
We are the half-moon kids, tonight”
Drop all of your plans because tonight this is all about us
We’ve got the whole of the world waiting to see what we’re gonna do
It’s almost midnight and we’re out on the street
No responsibilities tonight and it’s time to move our feet
Yeah, this is where it all will start
So move along to the beat of your heart
We are the half-moon kids full of love
We are the half-moon kids with hearts in the sky’s above
We are the half-moon kids with wonder and grace
We are the half-moon kids living in such a magical place
We are the half-moon kids
Turning the evening into an endless summer night
We are the half-moon kids
Take hold of a hand and we’ll be alright
So put your arms up to the sky and let your heart run free
Because if tomorrow never comes then there’s no place that I’d rather be
There’s something special in the air
No more fighting spilling over
Just an overwhelming feeling of love
Everybody is in this together
Throwing their hearts to the sky above
Because we are the reckless
We are the wild youth
And we’ve got it all in front of us tonight
We are the innocent and we are the carefree
Together we’ll be alright
We are the half-moon kids
Turning the evening into an endless summer night
We are the half-moon kids
Take hold of a hand and we’ll be alright
So put your arms up to the sky and let your heart run free
Because if tomorrow never comes then there’s no place that I’d rather be
And we are the half-moon kids
Shout it from the rooftops
We are the half-moon kids
Keep on shouting until our youth stops
We are the half-moon kids
Come join us, we’re in this together
We are the half-moon kids
And we’ll stay this way forever”
PERSONNELAmy Meyer – lead vocals, lyrics, composition, production
Adam Benjamin – rhythm guitar, lyrics, composition, production
Justin Mullen – lead guitar, backing vocals, composition, production
Jason Greenberg – bass guitar, composition, production
Nathan Mullen – drums, percussion, composition, production
Honor Wynter – spoken word introduction
Avil Hartman – production, mixing
Julian Morello – production, mixing, engineering
SOUNDS LIKEThe Summer Set – Lightning In A Bottle
