They haven’t quite hit the status of boy band One Direction, but Halfway to Hollywood is logging enough kilometres to generate a buzz amongst their female followers.
“I don’t know if we are quite like them,” laughed Grant Walker, lead singer and guitarist for Halfway to Hollywood, at the One Direction reference. “It is for sure pretty cool that we have a lot of dedicated, serious fans. It is awesome to see that many people getting excited about what we are doing. We hang out with a lot of our fans during ticket meet ups and stuff so we know a lot of them on a personal level, so its not like there is hordes of screaming girls at our shows. It is more like friends coming to see us.”
Coming off a cross-country tour in the summer and a Western Canadian tour in the fall, the Vancouver-based band is wrapping up another Western Canada trip in Penticton on their Back to the Futour where they will be playing at The Elite on Sunday. They are bringing an upbeat, positive party sound to the crowds coming out to see them during the mid-winter trip. The band consists of the trio of Walker, Brendan White on bass/vocals and Roman Zugarazo on drums. On this tour they also have added Chris Siglos on guitar.
While Walker seemed taken aback by the reference of being a heartthrob pop singer, Halfway to Hollywood did test out the waters with a One Direction cover. That was followed by covers of some other pop musicians, Kesha and Taylor Swift.
“A lot of our fans have been on Twitter asking for us to cover the One Direction song, What Makes You Beautiful. I think it was half-joking but we figured we had some time, so why not?” said Grant. “Then we did a few other covers and YouTube videos covering Kesha’s Come On, which seemed like a song we would play so we just put our own spin on it,” said Walker.
The One Direction cover has generated over 7,000 views in this last year and in two other covers they posted on YouTube last month have been viewed well over 3,000 times. But those are all primers for fans dying to hear something new from the band. Their five-song EP, Party Like It’s Prom Night is due out in February of March. They have been working with Default drummer Danny Craig.
“He is a producer that was just the right fit for us. He has taught us a lot,” said Walker. “The new EP will be a pretty similar style to what we have already put out, a little more synth-bass though. Our fans will like it because it is still all about having fun and producing upbeat pop songs.”
Craig also helped the band flesh out their newest single, available on iTunes, Green Lights. Walker said the idea for the song came from wanting to write something about getting ready to go out to a party on the weekend.
Halfway to Hollywood plays The Elite Jan.13 at 8 p.m.