Neil Haverty Shares Brooding & Introspective Debut Solo Single, “Man Down”
Canadian artist Neil Haverty, generally known as the frontman of Bruce Peninsula and a movie/TV composer, returns with “Man Down”—his first solo launch in over a decade. Darkish, intimate, and deeply private, the monitor displays on his 2011 leukemia analysis and the difficult street to therapeutic.
Mixing ghostly vocals, analog synths, and stirring strings by Mika Posen, the music was produced by longtime collaborator Leon Taheny. “Man Down” doesn’t glorify survival—it wrestles with it, providing a uncooked meditation on trauma, transformation, and the fragility of self.
First off, care to introduce your self to our readers?
I’m Neil Haverty. Thanks for taking the time to examine me and hearken to my new music. You would possibly know me from my outdated band Bruce Peninsula, or if I’m fortunate, you’ve saved up with my composing and loved a film I helped rating like Wildhood or Sleeping Big. I’ve been singing solo since I used to be 16, however Man Down is without doubt one of the first songs I’ve launched broadly. I’m trying ahead to sharing extra all year long.
“Man Down” is a surprising mix of analog synths, orchestral textures, and area recordings. What drew you to that particular sonic palette for telling this story?
I’ve at all times been fascinated with studying new devices and making music with applied sciences I don’t perceive at first. I began making digital music with the primary model of Fruity Loops, and ultimately found Ableton Dwell, which opened every thing up for me. All of my music begins there now, and I’m drawn to music that blends the artificial and the natural.
For Man Down, I had mainly programmed every thing earlier than attending to the studio with Leon, after which one after the other, we changed the midi mock-ups with actual devices. We ran my programmed arpeggios by way of many analog synths, and all of the sudden every thing felt so heat. Once we changed the piano, the music was all of the sudden lively. The strings and the drums made it bigger than life. Over the course of a few weeks of experimenting, we ended up fairly distant from that demo, and the monitor grew to become this form of mountain, beginning actually small and constructing as much as a excessive peak.
The monitor stems out of your leukemia analysis in 2011. Wanting again, how did that have reshape your relationship with creativity?
Totally and fully. There are tales of musicians who go into the hospital and are all of the sudden impressed to make a magnum opus. I went in the other way. Beforehand, I had lived as if music was the one vital factor, however after I bought sick, I began to assume it was totally insignificant. Within the yr and a half it took me to get into remission and on the best way to restoration, I barely touched an instrument and sorta satisfied myself singing was a foolish factor that people do. I used to be centered on surviving, then on getting the extra tangible points of my life again on monitor, and music felt like a luxurious for some time there.
Within the subsequent years, although, that very same pondering has been a supply of quite a lot of gratitude for artwork and art-making. It’s a privilege and a luxurious to spend any of your time on this earth pondering deeply, creating, and sharing artwork with others. How fortunate am I to get to sing and categorical myself? When your primary wants are threatened, you rightfully do must focus up and get actual. Now that I’m again to spending time within the artistic sandbox, daydreaming and creating, I’m simply so grateful to be afforded the time and power to do it.
You reunited with Leon Taheny and Mika Posen on this launch. What did their contributions unlock within the music that may not have been there in any other case?
Leon has helped to unlock the music-making course of for me for nearly twenty years now. Within the early days of Bruce Peninsula, we had all this power and a way of route, however we weren’t certain the way to virtually get the concepts out right into a format you’ll be able to hearken to. By the second or third recording session, he grew to become greater than an engineer and had joined the band, taking part in drums and actually serving to to form the imaginative and prescient. He grew to become a secret weapon for us over three information and a ton of reveals.
Popping out of the fallow interval after I bought sick, he was a extremely vital facilitator for this solo music. We had a well-known and constructive working relationship, and getting began creating was a lot simpler as a result of he was there. Each day, he’d be pushing me out of my consolation zone, asking me to sing one thing in a different way or forcing me to attempt some fallacious notes for the vibes. The music actually got here to life as we collaborated and picked it aside.
Equally, Mika is a genius and may create large orchestral worlds, seemingly effortlessly. She had moved to the Ottawa space by the point I used to be asking her to contribute to those songs, however she would simply ship these zip recordsdata with violin/viola stacks that sounded unbelievable each time. I’m continuously astounded by the quantity of musical expertise there’s in Ontario, and Mika has been killing it since method again to the Forest Metropolis Lovers days.
The lyric video is haunting and exquisite—how concerned have been you in shaping its visible language?
I shot the Man Down visible in my yard a couple of week earlier than I put it out. I wrote out each phrase of the lyrics for six frames every after which assembled them in a primitive little animation app. I dragged all my devices out to the yard and shot with a bit low cost drone I bought on-line. It was very sunny that day, so I used to be sweating the entire time, and after I reviewed the footage, my fly was down for just a few of my greatest photographs… LOL. Gotta make do with what you get, I suppose. I spent the weekend earlier than enhancing all of it, and bought the video exported the night time earlier than Man Down hit the streaming platforms.
For the previous 13 years, my day job has been serving to to run the Prism Prize & MVP Project, that are initiatives devoted to celebrating and supporting the Canadian music video neighborhood. I actually imagine in music video as an inventive format, and the lyric video and among the adjoining social content material have been my try at supporting the discharge with some visuals with out spending a lot/any cash.
I love anybody who places {dollars} and power into their music movies. I relied on the latter this time, and it took quite a lot of effort to drag collectively, however I’ve been getting quite a lot of nice suggestions about it. Every thing I’m saying at work on a regular basis – that your visible id is a vital a part of releasing music in 2025 – has confirmed to be true. I’m taken with video-making as an inventive apply of its personal, and I’m trying ahead to bettering my solo manufacturing model with every new music drop.
For listeners who’re struggling—bodily or emotionally—what do you hope this music helps them really feel?
After I bought sick, I might generally say I want I may maintain folks by the arm and impart all of the silver linings I discovered about again then by way of osmosis, or some type of telekinetic switch. Clearly you’ll be able to’t do this, however what I can do is communicate truthfully about my expertise and discover these emotions inside my songwriting.
Music presents an opportunity for a listener to take a seat with their very own feelings for a couple of minutes at a time. I’d love if listening to Man Down may encourage folks to think about how inconceivable and miraculous their very own existence is, however that’s a lofty aim. After my very own wrestle was relieved a bit, within the first years of remission, I got here to understand that the issues I believed have been extreme or disturbing have been actually not that vital. I discovered to worth relationships with the folks I liked, I used to be capable of refocus on what I needed to do with my time on earth, and I discovered to not sweat the small stuff an excessive amount of. Perhaps the music doesn’t say these issues overtly, however should you’ve learn this far, I’ve bought to speak to you about it immediately 🙂
The music is strolling the road, considering what separates us from being right here and never being right here. I really feel fortunate to exist. Realizing that you just imply nothing and every thing, unexpectedly, is a liberating feeling. I wouldn’t count on a music to make somebody go deep and take into account their very own existence, however wouldn’t or not it’s cool if it may?