The Band…
The Farewell Circuit
The Music…
Download The Farewell Circuit on iTunes – 
The Preview…
The Farewell Circuit Moments…
“The soundtrack of my life”. It’s a phrase often used, but it’s never cliché to the 4 of us girls, because the bands we love, and the songs they create are living, breathing characters in our life stories.
Krissie is a contemporary dancer, so she does this thing where she turns on a song, and just dances whatever she feels…but she’s shy, so the rest of us rarely see her in those moments. One day the other 3 of us girls went to pick her up from a dance session, and she had The Farewell Circuit on, so we talked her into freestyling for us to this song called ‘Things We Lost’. Halfway through it we were all teary eyed mesmerized because it was a moment where we saw a piece our best friend’s soul completely exposed. It was this moment like no other moment in our lives, and it was so perfect because that song was there in that moment.
Another night one summer in Nashville, we were all dangling our feet in Percy Priest lake, watching the sunset, and The Farewell Circuit’s ‘Like A House On Fire’ was playing from our car. Like a scene straight from a movie, the breeze was blowing, the sun faded, and none of us said a word…but all of us felt everything each other was thinking. It’s because in that moment we were all connected by a song.
Those moments in our lives wouldn’t be the same without those songs, and our lives wouldn’t be the same without this band, because their songs envelop so many of our moments.
The Interview…
Their music is filled with beautiful images, intricate layers, perfect tones, unpredictable arrangements, and we’re so stoked they gave us an interview. They boys recently had a live performance video featured on Coldplay’s website in the Exhibition Room, this spring they successfully raised money to make their new record through a Kickstarter.com Project, so we asked them about all that business, the upcoming music, and about a little bit of randomness too…
The TAS Kids:
We’re so excited you guys made your goal on Kickstarter! 
Things like Kickstarter are kind of a sign of the times of the music industry. We actually think it’s awesome that by pledging, as fans we almost get to feel like we have a little piece of our hearts invested in the record. Even though it would be a lot easier to have a record label come in and pay for everything, do you guys think there is something kind of empowering for you guys, and special for your fans about music being developed through that kind of community DIY method?
The Farewell Circuit:
DJ House: I’d hope it’s just a natural extension of us as people and the people we try and surround ourselves with. Turns out, a lot of people were interested in the fact they could pre-order an album that wouldn’t exist without that very help. It’s all at once humbling, pressuring, and a little odd I guess. Once you get over wrestling with the whole feeling that you’re digitally panhandling, its pretty outstanding people gave what they gave. It also manifested itself into a nice boost of confidence to finish writing the new record.
**Danny O’Brien (hereafter referred to as DO): Absolutely. The homegrown/communal method of raising the necessary funds for the record gives us great pleasure. Community is very important to us and we are so grateful to have such devoted and generous people around us.
Geoff Harnell: Kickstarter is a great example of a community of people coming together to invest their resources towards a project they believe in. This community has taken another step in the progression of independent artists who desire to be independent from the record labels of today and it’s an extremely exciting and encouraging environment knowing that every individual involved is using their voice to say they believe in the project and want to play a vital role in the creation of art.
The TAS Kids:
Congratulations on having “Guard” on the Coldplay exhibit! How amazing was that? Did it geek you out at all? Like…”Coldplay is totally staring at my face in a video right now. Chris Martin is watching me play guitar on this flowered couch. Sweet.”
The Farewell Circuit:
DJ: I remember submitting it and thinking.. well we have had absolutely no luck with just sending our stuff out cold to places/radio/blogs… So nothing is going to happen. I was napping one afternoon and Danny texted me about it rather surprised as I forgot to mention to them that I had done it. It was funny to see my basement up on a website that thousands of people visit daily.. Also, we should have edited out the beginning.. but that’s just how off the cuff the whole thing was.. I’m pretty sure the band doesn’t have much to do with the content and that in fact, its probably a low level intern at Parlophone Records who we owe a beer to whenever we make it to London. Either way, it certainly was cool and if they did see it.. I’m wondering why we aren’t pegged to be their opener on their next tour yet… .
**DO: Yeah, it was really great! When I first saw it I thought someone was pulling a very cruel and unusual prank on us. While I doubt that Chris (or any of the band members) actually watch the video, it’s encouraging to know that some 3,000 other people did as a result of coldplay.com hosting it!
GH: Thanks! Having our video for "Guard" on Coldplay.com definitely put a smile on our face Having your work affirmed and displayed by an artist you respect is encouraging, especially when in the midst of creating a new record and fleshing out songs that you are fine tuning. We were not informed of this nod by Coldplay however, and found out through a fan which was quite humorous.
The TAS Kids:
Your video for “The Inexorable March of Time” is so brilliant. We obsessively repeat it on YouTube. First off, how many “takes” did it take?! haha! Also, the way you guys play that song, it almost seems like a jam session that naturally evolved into the perfect song. It just seems really organic, like you all tune into each other’s instincts really well. In general is that how you guys write and develop music?
The Farewell Circuit:
DJ: I think that was the second run.. we had pretty much just bought all of our modest recording gear, tested out levels, set up our laptops and said GO. The song actually came together really quickly. Danny and I had just repaired the vibraphone and he starting playing that little riff and began singing.. and I hit "R" pretty quickly after hearing it. I think 90% of that song was done in 30 minutes. In fact, if you search myspace you can hear the very first draft of that song somewhere. That last few months have been like that for writing this new record.. getting into our rehearsal space and playing through all the new ideas. The core ideas come very quickly but the analyzing of parts/dynamics/arrangements can take months and sometimes deflate the original ideas themselves and they trickle into the cesspool of farewell circuit b-sides… There’s certainly a level of comfort with those two that I don’t have with many other people. I end up writing some parts because I’m not afraid to hit 999 bad notes on the way to the good ones.
**DO: The "March of Time" video was done with two MacBook video cameras in one take (however, as there are more than two camera angles in the video, we took short "fake" shots of the stick clicks, kick pedal, some vocals, and marimba in order to give the video some more variety. The audio is just from one take. As far as our songwriting goes, we definitely have lots of jam sessions that turn into songs. Geoff, DJ and I have been playing music together for over 4 years now (Geoff and I for 10 years), so we are able to really lock in with each other, there are many times when the first 30 min of rehearsal are spent playing some random chord progression and each of us improvising (this helps get the good vibes flowin’). "March of Time" in particular was written, structured, and completed in around 30 minutes! This, however, is rare for us. One of us will typically come to rehearsal with an idea and we’ll jam it for a while; if we like it we keep reworking it, if we don’t…well…it gets put in the masses of unfinished songs that we currently have.
GH: The video only took one take. We had a few different camera’s set up and it was simply a one-take. Our practices are many times "jam sessions" as we feel creativity is best cultivated through an environment free of structure as we are able to move with the notes, melodies and flow of that particular moment. We have collectively been playing together for 3 years as a whole and Danny and Geoff have been playing together for 9 years so our chemistry and dynamic is finely tuned to where we are beyond comfortable with each other and know what each other are creating.
The TAS Kids:
Everything we know about you guys is through your music, so we could easily get the impression that you are all pretty deep, thoughtful, and intense. But we figure you guys can’t be 24-7 intense… there has to be some weird and funny happening. So if each member of the band had to pick a female celebrity to play your character in a movie, who would play each of you, and why?
The Farewell Circuit:
DJ: Hmmm.. Because the crush factor is really high on her character at the moment I’d choose Lizzy Caplan (from the brilliant "Party Down") because she’d make me way wittier and much more attractive than Danny and Geoff and their faux female doppelgangers.
**DO: Velma from Scooby Doo…she’s great. BUT seriously…maybe Gwyneth Paltrow (and I hope you realize that I am bound by contract to say this, because after all, Chris Martin and I are friends and our kids play together…it only makes sense).
GH: Meg Ryan would play my character. She is that charming that I believe she could make me seem far more wonderful than the truth holds.
The TAS Kids:
While your songs are personal and intimate, you also seem heavily affected by the bigger picture of the world around you. Since you guys are in the middle of creating the new music right now, what’s the vibe of the record as a whole so far, and what in your life is inspiring the new songs? Also, we want everyone to be exposed to your awesomeness, so once the new record is out, will it be on Amazon, iTunes, Bandcamp, etc?
The Farewell Circuit:
DJ: Well I think Danny is really developing a personality in his lyric writing on this record and we are just trying to cater to the moods and imagery in it. It’s full of humanity and hope even though sometimes it FEELS hopeless. If you pay attention to things enough you start to get really pissed off and frustrated and almost just want to stick your head in the sand because you can’t change the momentum of the machinery at work in the world. But you can change your day to day reactions and interactions with everyone and especially with those who can’t do anything for you. You can be a decent human being just to be a decent human being no matter what the incentive is. And maybe that’s a start… I don’t know. There’s a terribly affecting story about Ignaz Semmelweis in "A Man Without A Country" by Kurt Vonnegut that articulates that sentiment far better than I ever could. Check it out. Or google it I guess. That works too.
The record should be out in all major outlets and for sure on our Bandcamp site too. We also accept loads of cash at ALL of our concerts.
**DO: Lyrically, the vibe of the new record is life and hope, not in the sense of ‘life in general,’ rather in the direction of giving life to all people. That is, empowering the marginalized and the poor to live life to it’s fullest and purest. This record is by far our happiest record yet (both lyrically and sonically). We have come to a point where we can choose to give up on humanity as a lost cause or we can make it our life’s ambition to, in the words of Ghandi and the actions of Mother Teresa, BE the change we want to see in the world. Thus, the influences for the record’s lyrics are Geoff and my experiences in developing nations as well as our cumulative experiences with the orphan and widow here in the US and how these interactions direct the way we live our lives. Ultimately, this record leaves us with the challenge of living for ourselves or living to restore dignity to those who have had it robbed from them. Sonically, the album is a bit more up tempo than our previous recordings and has a more "major" sound as opposed to some of the darker "minor" songs of past records.
GH: Over the last two records we have wrestled with issues of injustice around the world that we have been awoken to and the new record is shaping to be an even more beautiful, mature picture of humanity and the issues we are faced with. Many of these songs come from the oppressed lives in India and Africa that we have seen and our cry for the reconciliation and redemption of ‘the least’ and humanity. We desire our music and lyrics to ring of a truth we are desperate to proclaim to a world that has long forgotten that those dying and suffering to injustice and oppression around the world are our brothers and sisters.
The TAS Kids:
Thank you so much guys, and we can’t wait for the new stuff!!!
The Farewell Circuit – The Inexorable March of Time
!!! we can’t get enough of this !!!