#187: THE MIDNIGHT | Tyler Lyle: Unlocking the Secrets of Synthwave Songwriting

In this episode of Inside The Mix, host Marc Matthews engages in a profound conversation with Tyler Lyle, the singer-songwriter and one-half of the synthwave duo, The Midnight. Tyler delves into the enigmatic nature of songwriting, describing it as "a well-narrated hallucination," and likens the creative process to "trying to start a truck sitting on a block of ice." 

Drawing from his folk storytelling roots, Tyler shares how he seamlessly integrates evocative lyrics into The Midnight's nostalgic synth-driven soundscapes. He contrasts the tangible aspects of music production with the abstract challenges of lyric writing, emphasizing the importance of consistent dedication—what he refers to as the "ass-in-chair method." This disciplined approach involves daily studio sessions from 10 am to 5 pm, complemented by morning routines of journaling, exercise, and meditation to foster creativity.

The synergy between Tyler and his production partner, Tim McEwan, is highlighted as a harmonious blend of prolific idea generation and meticulous refinement. Despite geographical distances, they prioritize periodic in-person collaborations to capture the irreplaceable energy of shared creative spaces.

Much of the discussion centers on Tyler's transition from confessional songwriting to crafting lyrics rich in archetypes and universal symbols. Inspired by Carl Jung's philosophies, he aims to create a shared mythological space within The Midnight's music, allowing listeners to project their meanings onto the imagery. 

What You'll Learn:

• The abstract nature of lyric writing and strategies to overcome creative challenges.
• The importance of consistent routines in fostering creativity.
• Balancing prolific idea generation with meticulous refinement in collaborative settings.
• The role of archetypes and universal symbols in crafting resonant lyrics.
• Insights into blending folk storytelling with synthwave aesthetics.

For aspiring artists, Tyler emphasizes creating work that embodies truth and necessity, encouraging authentic expression over external validation. He reminds creatives that they are conduits, "ferrying ideas from one realm to this one," and underscores the significance of producing art that resonates fundamentally.

Join Marc and Tyler as they explore the depths of the songwriting process, offering invaluable insights for independent music producers and artists seeking to elevate their craft.

Links mentioned in this episode:

Follow Tyler Lyle

Chapters

• 0:55 The Essence of Songwriting
• 5:55 Collaborative Process with Tim McEwan
• 12:49 Production Setup and Vocal Chain
• 24:36 Daily Creative Discipline
• 29:12 Mythology and Archetypes in Lyrics
• 38:02 Remote Collaboration Challenges
• 42:40 Advice for Synthwave Lyricists

Transcript

Tyler Lyle: 0:22

Nobody knows what a song is supposed to be lyrically. It's a well-narrated hallucination. Just make sure that it comes from something that feels like it has the essence of truth, something that feels like it needs to exist. We, as creatives, are ferrying ideas from one realm to this one. You're listening to the Inside the Mix podcast with your host, mark Matthews.

Marc Matthews: 0:49

Welcome to Inside the Mix, your go-to podcast for music creation and production. Whether you're crafting your first track or refining your mixing skills, join me each week for expert interviews, practical tutorials and insights to help you level up your music and smash it in the music industry. Let's dive in. Hey folks, welcome to Inside the Mix Today. I am thrilled I always say this and I always back it up by saying I mean it and I really do mean it to be joined by one half of the hit synthwave duo the Midnights, the talented singer-songwriter Tyler Lyle Tylerler. Thank you for joining me today. It's been a long time coming. How are you, my friend?

Tyler Lyle: 1:30

doing very well. Just got back from guitar center I bought so many cables and uh missed uh one very important one, so I have to drive back to guitar oh, no way, no way.

Marc Matthews: 1:42

I thought you were going to say that you bought a load of cables and then a guitar as well, so it was one of those runs where it's just cables.

Tyler Lyle: 1:47

No, I find the more time I spend in pro audio world, the less sexy pieces of gear you buy and the more cables you buy 100%.

Marc Matthews: 1:59

My last trip to our local guitar shop was just to buy XLRs, and I picked up a load that was secondhand for about two quid. So that was the exciting trip for me, me, so I totally get it man, I really do I'm good, I'm good, otherwise fantastic.

Marc Matthews: 2:15

So in this episode, we're diving deep into tyler's songwriting process, how he crafts the midnight's nostalgic and cinematic lyrics and also, collaborating remotely with tim, consistently delivers heartfelt synth with synthwave anthems. Here we go. I've got all this. Yeah, this is great stuff. So if you're a producer or songwriter looking to elevate your lyric writing and maximize collaboration, you don't want to miss this one. So if you're not familiar with tyler, I've just got a little bit of background here if you're not familiar with tyler in the midnight. So, as I mentioned then, a gifted storyteller, songwriting roots are in folk and Americana, shaping your sort of signature poetic lyricism. In 2012, you partnered with Danish producer Tim McEwan to create the Midnight, using retro synth wave with deeply emotional storytelling. And then you've got your solo career and other ventures as well.

Marc Matthews: 3:03

So, as I mentioned, in this episode episode we're going to be focusing on lyrics in particular, and this I'm really excited about because it's probably the the part of songwriting and producing that I struggle with myself the most as well. Uh, from a metal background, if it's metal, I can write metal lyrics quite well, but when it comes to the more sort of heartfelt synth element of it, I fall short and uh, so I'm excited about this one. So from concept to song is the start here. So on your wiki you mentioned that the Midnight songs often begin with a cool musical skeleton from Tim and a lyrical skeleton from yourself. Can you walk us through how a typical song comes together? Maybe, for example, your recent release release or latest release, love is an Ocean?

Tyler Lyle: 3:57

Yeah, I feel so grateful to have Tim as a creative partner because I don't natively have that producer gene and I think that there's a reason why it's difficult for people who have gotten good at production, who have been in it for a decade and have really figured out what they're doing, to then try and switch gears and write lyrics. It's hard because the production element is a system. It's an engine that you can learn and you learn your engine, you learn your way of doing things. But it's a lot of gain staging and equalization and compression and those are things that exist already. You know your, your plugins exist, your presets exist. You're going on a good day from from a 1 to a 2 or a 1 to a 3. You're dealing with things that already exist In lyric world. You're starting at zero and there's no system, there is no start, there is no prompt that allows you to easily begin a song, and I think that that is kind of the.

Tyler Lyle: 5:03

I was once given a songwriting award from the Songwriter Hall of Fame and went to their induction ceremony in New York and Stephen Still was on the podium talking about writing songs and he said you know, writing a good song is sort of like trying to start a truck that's sitting on a block of ice. It's a miracle if it happens. There's nothing in the machine that you can tweak. There's no amount of craftsmanship or whatever to give you that live ember. It's always kind of a gift when it happens. So my process with it is rather different than Tim's. Tim is a producer. He has spent 20 plus years getting good at production.

Tyler Lyle: 5:59

My way of dealing with the sort of inherent weirdness, the high failure rate of lyric writing, is to do a lot of it.

Tyler Lyle: 6:03

I'm in my studio from you know, call it 10 am to 4 or 5 pm most days, and I subscribe wholeheartedly to something called the ass-in-chair method of songwriting and you put yourself at your desk and have your instruments around you and you work and if something clicks, if something connects, if there's something there, then you can follow it, and if nothing arrives, or if nothing good arrives, then that is the default and all that you can really count at the end of the day is whether you were in the environment that you're supposed to be in and kind of and and kind of ready and ready for me means that I've done my daily pages, that I've done some kind of meditative practice and and that I've exercised, and it usually, if those things are, are, are done, then I'm, I'm in the right spot and if, uh, the gods of song deem, deem me worthy that day, then they'll, they'll arrive, and if not, then I've done everything in my power to be ready.

Tyler Lyle: 7:07

So it means that I have tons and tons of ideas to Tim's relatively small amount of crafted work. But his crafted work is less process oriented and more project oriented. So he has one song to finish and he goes all in and it can take him, you know, three months to to really dial in a song, because he's he's incredibly meticulous. I don't have that attention to detail. Uh, on on my side of the, the, the work bench.

Marc Matthews: 7:39

Interesting I what you said right at the beginning there about having the gene of like the producer element of it. Because having the gene of like the producer element of it, because everything is sort of pre-crafted in a way putting it. But then you're saying, but with the songwriting you sort of like you're starting from nothing and the block of the truck on the block of ice, I totally get. I totally get that and I get that with when it comes to just producing in general, to be honest, but really, really interesting stuff. So you mentioned there that you are, you're spending a lot of time during the day or every given day just songwriting and you've got that routine before you go into songwriting as well. You mentioned meditation, for example.

Marc Matthews: 8:12

Are you in a? Do you find that you have to be in your studio or do you get inspiration outside of it as well? Are you one of the songwriters that you'll be walking? I don't know if you have a dog or not, but if you were to walk a proverbial dog, would you have your phone out, have an idea and just sing it into your phone? Are you one of those songwriters as well, or does it have to be in that moment of you in the studio?

Tyler Lyle: 8:36

I find that most song starts happen um I. I got my first smartphone, I think in 2009 or 10, and I downloaded something called evernote oh yeah yeah, yeah and um, and I think I have, uh yeah, 4113 notes. That seems low actually, um, uh, but yeah, every day usually there's some kind of I'm filling up the bucket. Let's see. Let's see what's a non-embarrassing thing. I don't know. What can I share? I play the game by not playing the game. They call me the strategist.

Tyler Lyle: 9:11

Yeah, so you know if that makes it onto a song then great Otherwise it's just a little kernel and it's much easier to come to the studio and to build something out around, something that rhymes, that has kind of an identity already. Yeah, yeah but those are the things that just fall from the sky and you know, you just try and do your best to catch them so that you can come back to them later.

Marc Matthews: 9:41

You mentioned then that Tim has, so he's working on, let's say, a lot less than yourself. So he's the producer. He's got that, for example, one single song, and he's going to go through from start to finish with that. Is he sending you these songs for you to then write lyrics to, or is it sort of the other way around? You say I've these, this lyrical idea. Have you got anything that matches this, or is it a bit?

Tyler Lyle: 10:01

of both. I would say that, um gosh, I think tim is a true artist and I am, uh, I I called myself a ditch digger a long time ago. Um, and, and it's just, you know, you show up for work and you move the dirt and what you uncover really is none of your business. The labor is the. But Tim really gets inspired and sometimes can get demotivated, and then gets inspired again and gets demotivated when he has something on his plate. He generally does a good job of staying focused, but no, it's pretty easy for me to put a song out into the world, to just throw some things against the wall.

Tyler Lyle: 10:45

How it usually works for a midnight track is that I've written a lot of really, really rough drafts and Tim will come to the table with one or two kind of song ideas, a loop, you know, an A and a B part maybe, and that's my in.

Tyler Lyle: 11:05

You know he can't really translate my acoustic guitar songs into synthwave world, so it's my job to kind of go into my large amount of rough drafts and go okay, what fits here, what wants to exist, and and once we get a little bit of traction, um, then he'll, he will add something else and I will add something else, and usually that is the meat of where the midnight kind of takes on its identity um, as as a, as a separate creative exercise. Um, and, and Tim will, uh, you will. To his credit, the next album is written. So my work is done, and Tim will spend the next three months up every night dialing in kick drum sounds and EQing everything. And so to write a song for me is relatively quick. It's relatively quick for him to finish a song. It takes a long time and a lot of labor and a lot of skill in his domain, which is production.

Marc Matthews: 12:07

Yeah, so talking about the production element of it slight tangent here so Tim does go forward and then he sort of takes it and does that production side of things through mixing and then onwards wherever it goes of. Takes it and does that production side of things through mixing and then on onwards wherever it goes. Have you ever been at all sort of interested in or have you learned or picked up anything along the way? Have you ever dabbled in the production and mixing element of it?

Tyler Lyle: 12:27

yeah, not of the midnight. I know my. I know my limits, but, um, but yes, uh, yeah, I have a. I have a full recording studio that I'm in right now. Uh, over lockdown, I decided it was time to get serious and time to finally learn this craft that I've been dabbling with. Yeah, I like production a lot. The problem is it's a big system and to really know it well, you kind of have to just be a producer and then move on to the next thing.

Tyler Lyle: 13:02

I spent 15 years as just a songwriter. I sold my car when I moved from LA to New York in 2014 for, I think, $1,500, which was enough at the time to buy an Apollo Twin and some plugins and an SM7. And so I tinkered a lot and learned to produce myself when I was living in New York. But during COVID, I really set about going okay, how do I make my vocal chain sound like I want it to? How do I get my bass playing up to par? And I spent like three years producing a record called the Transcendentalists by myself and it turned out okay. I'm actually not all that pleased with it. I'm going back into the studio with some friends to redo it, but no, I love production and I feel like the end that I'm responsible for is mostly vocals and on the side I do the acoustic stuff. So if I can record acoustic guitar as well and I can record vocals well, then the rest of the of my studio I can show you a little bit.

Tyler Lyle: 14:13

It's yeah yeah, let's do it, it's, it's being uh taken apart and put back together a little bit, but I've got my little synth wall over there my Echo. Fix. Those are my cables from Guitar Center and then I've got my modular guy over there. So you know, the fun synthesizer toys are for writing and for inspiration, not because I've ever seriously made a a track with them.

Marc Matthews: 14:41

yeah, yeah, I love the modular synth. It's something I really want to get into. I was in a shop in bristol over here in the uk I think I think you played in bristol last year, if I remember rightly.

Marc Matthews: 14:49

Yeah, we've played a couple times yeah, yeah, uh, so next time you're there. Uh, if I, if I knew, if I can remember the name, I would say it, but there is a shop and it is solely based on modular synths and I went in there and I was just like this is amazing, but I wouldn't know where to start or to create a song, and just making noise, basically it's such a trap, yeah it really is for the longest time I had it outside of my studio because I needed to kind of separate the two worlds the, the studios where productive things happen, and the modular synth is really just where I follow the strange waves of my brain.

Tyler Lyle: 15:26

It's not a productive instrument, but it's a deeply enjoyable one.

Marc Matthews: 15:29

Yeah, I kind of like an itsu when I'm mixing and then I'm just going through a bank of snare samples trying to find a perfect snare or a perfect kick and I'm just wasting time knowing that I probably already found it. I'm just going through it and I kind of do the same with synths as well, to be honest. But one question I do have. Off the back of your production, you said you sort of upskilled during lockdown and then you wanted to, or rather you found a vocal chain. Is there anything from that vocal chain or that experience that you then took forward and maybe used in the midnight's uh production? Maybe you said to tim actually I found this and it works really well, could we use this?

Tyler Lyle: 16:05

going forward, yeah, it's, it's kind of always been that way. Um, my vocal chain is the midnight's vocal chain, just because we we have a lot of um, we have a lot of distance between us, so we'll, we will get in the same room. Next month, after we've finished our shows in Mexico, I'll fly to LA. So my vocal mic is a Soyuz 017 tube. They say it's kind of a version of a good 67 capsule, but the 67s have always sounded a little different to me. But it's a very warm mic on my voice and that goes through the Shelford channel by sorry, by Rupert Neve Designs. And then I've got an LA-2A in there, just because, gosh, a real LA-2A with the tubes. It's really nice.

Tyler Lyle: 16:59

It gives it a warmth and that attack is so slow and so buttery. So that's the Midnight Chain. Usually we've recorded on a real 67, and we like the Telefunken 251. Nice, and every now and then we'll go through a 610 as a pre and it gives it a kind of warmth. That the Shelford channel, it's just it's different. There's, I don't know, there's that harmonic distortion that you can dial in on the Shelford channel.

Marc Matthews: 17:32

Very nice.

Tyler Lyle: 17:32

That I really like. It just gives you kind of that woolly vintage Neve sound that I like. I feel like if Tim was designing the vocal chain from scratch it would probably be something more like a manly into an 1176 or something like that, something with a little faster attack. You know, make the plosives quicker. More of a rock vocal chain than I don't know folk or country or classic rock.

Marc Matthews: 17:58

Yeah, two great compressors though the 1176 and the LA-2A. I love an LA-2A, so have you got a hardware version of the LA-2A that you're going into? Yes, oh, very nice, very nice, yes.

Tyler Lyle: 18:11

Actually you could maybe solve this for me. I had an engineer over here yesterday and I'm coming, so the mic to the Shelford, to the LA-28, then into my Apollo, the the. The question is, if I'm coming into the Apollo with an XLR, is it adding gain because I'm not coming in at line level, if I'm going in at XLR because the Apollo wants to automatically add a preamp and a gain boost? So this is my quandary that I asked somebody at Guitar Center earlier and I don't quite know the answer to.

Marc Matthews: 18:54

So you're going into the Apollo. You've gone through the signal chain from the Neve into the LA-2A and then into the Apollo. You've gone through the signal chain from the Neve into the LA-2A and then into the Apollo.

Tyler Lyle: 19:02

Yeah.

Marc Matthews: 19:03

And then is the Apollo adding additional gain on top of that as well? Is that the question?

Tyler Lyle: 19:07

Correct, because I'm coming in with an XLR and not a line.

Marc Matthews: 19:11

Yeah, I've never rooted it that way. To be fair, I'll probably get corrected on the internet. When this goes on YouTube, there'll be loads of people in the comments going oh it does this, it does this, it does this.

Tyler Lyle: 19:26

That's all I want. I just want to start a war over a simple question about gain staging.

Marc Matthews: 19:30

I think it will. And then there'll be others saying, oh, you should do it this way around, you should do it that way around, and everything else in between. So when this goes live, I'll be intrigued to read the comments, but I'll hazard a guess. If it's going with XLR, the only gain that's going to be applied is the gain that you add with the Apollo.

Tyler Lyle: 19:47

Right.

Marc Matthews: 19:48

Is it going to in my head? Yeah, that's the only gain that's going to be added. You've got to add some gain to get some signal going in, so you're in control of it there. That's a really weird one. I'm not entirely sure. Is the? Is my direct answer? Uh, without having to look at it myself, you know?

Tyler Lyle: 20:06

um well, I'm excited to see the comments because I bought it I bought the cable and I'm on the fence. These are the big questions mark. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I can see it, man.

Marc Matthews: 20:14

Yeah, I can't wait to read the comments on this. It's gonna be interesting so it probably won't be any, but there you go, yeah um, yeah.

Tyler Lyle: 20:22

So your question do I dabble in production? Yes, I would. I would very much like to up my skills in uh, I would like to be able to put a, put a song from idea to to mastered track. But I give myself a c plus after the last 15 years of attempting it yeah, I think this is something I've said on the podcast.

Marc Matthews: 20:44

Well, this is going to be a episode 187 of the podcast, but I think it's one of those ones where I've always said, like because you've got to know your strengths, and then when you've got to know when to outsource is the key, that's right. Know when to outsource. And then think, okay, I haven't quite mastered that yet, I'm going to pass that on to someone else to do and then maybe learn it in the meantime, or just remain, know your strengths and stick with it.

Tyler Lyle: 21:05

You know and um, there's some deep wisdom there.

Tyler Lyle: 21:08

No, it's um.

Tyler Lyle: 21:09

I, after trying to make this record, uh, in my space for three years, I uh, you know hired out a studio with some friends who are in a band here, not far from here, and instead of me, who is a you know five out of 10 bass player and a you know four out of 10 keys player and a you know seven out of 10 guitar player, trying to put a track together to make it excellent.

Tyler Lyle: 21:34

It's so much better to be in a room that I get to be the vocalist and the songwriter of which I'm, you know, a pretty pretty good at both of those things, though if I have a hat, that's my hat and then to be in with a guitarist who's a nine out of ten ten out of ten, you know, the same with the drummer, the same with the bassist just just really amazing guys, and it's, uh, it's so fun to make music that way, when you don't have to try and fill all of your weakest holes, that somebody else gets to fill them with their strengths, and that is the best feeling. It's so fun to track music that way.

Marc Matthews: 22:08

Yeah, I'd certainly agree. I mean, the stuff I release isn't as well known as the Midnight by any stretch, but I know exactly that myself. I'm a very average guitarist and I was always when I was playing in the bands I was in. In this metal band the other guitarist was leagues better than me, but because, uh, I could sort of like hide behind him when I made mistakes, which happened quite a lot. Um, but yeah, I, I get other bassists in, other guitarists in, because I know my limits when it comes to that and, like you say, it just it takes that pressure off me having to cobble together and try and upskill and all this sort of stuff. So, and it just it adds to that creative freedom. I find if I can just play to my strengths, like you say, that it makes perfect sense I think that's right.

Tyler Lyle: 22:49

And then you, then you, in the place of contributing to somebody else's vision as well, you, you, you get to fill in somebody else's um, you know, beautiful, beautiful table that they've set most definitely but yeah yeah, so yes, I would like to produce, uh, more and better, but we're on a journey yeah, most definitely.

Marc Matthews: 23:09

Um, moving on to my next question here, I did say before we we started recording this. I very rarely get through all of them and I think this is the second one I've got written down and uh, yeah, yeah, we're over halfway through here. So you mentioned that this is quite an important one because on the podcast before I've mentioned about sort of routines and getting into the habit of whether it's mixing, songwriting, arrangement, whatever it is, and just maintaining consistency. How do you maintain that discipline of? Okay, you mentioned meditation and the other bits that are the precursor to your songwriting, but how do you maintain that every day? Because there are days we all have it. Even if you're doing the, the, the thing you want to do in the world, the most. You have bad days, you know. How do you maintain that consistency every day? What is sort of your top tips for that?

Tyler Lyle: 23:59

okay, I'll give you. I'll give you ideal world and then I'll give you real world. Okay, uh, okay, I ideal world. I am up at six, 15. I go up, uh, before my wife and son are up to uh, a little study, uh up in the top floor of my house and I write three uh, they're called morning pages.

Tyler Lyle: 24:17

Julia Cameron wrote a book called the called the Artist's Way, that I read a long time ago and so I've been writing these three pages for the last 11 years and it helps me just kind of get out of my head and talk about the day ahead and what I need to do and you know, any big thoughts or dreams or plans or anxieties. And then I take my son to school and after that I go work out for an hour Either that's treadmill or lifting weights or on the rowing machine, and then what's my last bit, meditation. Yeah, I go through phases with meditation. Ideally that's 10 minutes sitting in a chair. The reality is that I slept in today, because daylight savings time is an affliction on parents of young children, and I have about one page of my three pages done, which I did in a place to come to the studio around 11 am and work for a few hours and see what happens.

Tyler Lyle: 25:28

So, yes, I wish I didn't have to have that consistency, mark.

Tyler Lyle: 25:31

It's not something that I feel like you need to meditate to be a good songwriter good songwriter but it's one of those things that, like, I used to have it in my 20s, just on pure inspiration and Jim Beam and Sleepless Nights, and I could function well as a creative person in that zone, in that space, and now I have to run six miles to be in that mental space and that's horrible.

Tyler Lyle: 26:02

I used to like look at people running in the morning and think, what jerks, you know. They think they're better than the rest of us, and now that I'm old I'm like, no, nobody runs a marathon out of choice. There's something that's gone deeply wrong in their lives that they've had to course correct by having to force themselves to run. So that's roughly how I view the consistency of my creative practices. It's something that keeps me on balance. It keeps me from swinging this way or this way once I arrive at the desk and hopefully I'm physically tired enough and emotionally, uh, present, and mentally, uh, you know, able to give, you know, at least four or five good hours to the craft and then and then leave it on the table and go yeah, go on with the rest of my emails.

Marc Matthews: 26:50

Yeah, see, I like, I like that. You got the ideal world and the the actual reality of it. And what you said about there, about running, echoes what I do, uh, now I've been in my late 30s and I'm one of those in the morning out running and I have to do it. I don't do it every day because I think my my knees couldn't take it, to be fair um, but I, I find that I have to do it and it does, it does help me get in the right mindset, but I, I have joined that club, uh, of running in the morning, just to. Yeah, I, I find I listen to, I listen to a lot of podcasts that way.

Tyler Lyle: 27:18

Yeah, which really helps. Lelia Broussard, our bassist, talked to me about habit stacking once, and I quite like listening to music. I create DJ playlists while I'm running or while I'm doing the machines, so that's actually a really healthy part of my brain. I can get my brain on a creative task while I'm working out.

Marc Matthews: 27:46

Nice, nice, lovely stuff. Yeah, I always find it fine. It's one of those ones. When it comes to routine and habits, it's like I find, and I used to be quite hard on myself when I didn't follow follow a routine or a habit. But now as I've got older, I've realized actually it's not the be-all and end-all. As long as I do something, as long as I do something to contribute towards it, I find I feel okay about it. You know, yeah, but moving on to the lyrics themselves, so I'm well aware of time here, so I've got a couple more questions I'd like to get through. Sure, so, on the wiki for the Midnight yourself as well. With regards to the lyrics themselves, I've got a quote here the fantasy that I never experienced. So how do you tap into that nostalgia and storytelling to create those sort of yeah, that nostalgia and those fantasies that you never experienced in your lyrics?

Tyler Lyle: 28:39

I had such a good fortune to be an artist in my own right before the Midnight came around. These were folk, americana, singer-songwriter, confessional songs. I felt like I had these massive burdens in my soul that I had to work through and give them out as a way to heal or something. And around the time that I met Tim, I luckily had grown tired of myself in that way and, you know, needing to make my therapy. Other people's, you know here, listen to my songs. So I was reading a bit of the great 19th, 20th century poets Ezra Pound, ts Eliot, walt Whitman. And when I met Tim for the first time in the studio in April 2012, I kind of gave myself the challenge can I just write the images and withhold the story, just describe what's happening? Only images, no story. And that kind of became the writing prompt that grew into the Midnight.

Tyler Lyle: 29:55

And somewhere between the first EP, days of Thunder, and the first LP, endless Summer, I discovered Carl Jung's concept of the archetypes. And there's always a femme fatale in every mythology throughout history. And there's always the king or the boss or the uh, you know, the, the mob boss, or the, the executive. There's always the desperado, the jason character, the uh, the person who's always chasing, uh, something, who, uh, these are all archetypes the mother, the child, the, the shadow, the wounded healer. These are all kind of embedded in mythology forever. And I was listening to bands like the Parliament Funkadelic thing. They do it with aliens. Bruce Springsteen does it with this kind of mid-century American blue-collar work ethic that is fabricated. You know he's writing his dad's mythology that needed a suffering Christ so that they could find a hero that suffered. And then this country band, alabama, who kind of wrote this mythology of the post-war South, and it's all world building and it's all using archetypes. And these are completely different kinds of worlds, different genres. They have nothing in common other than the fact that they are using myth to hold their world up and then they're skinning it in whatever way they want to, skinning it in whatever way they want to.

Tyler Lyle: 31:44

And I realized that the midnight can kind of be this receptacle for these unrealized fantasies and myths Like reskin the archetypes, right, the lovers, upside down, that's monsters. You know, jason doesn't know what he's chasing, much like the Jason of the Argonauts or the Jason of Friday the 13th. It's all mythology. The question was, can I play in the sandbox for a little while, and then it became two or three or four records and the sandbox started to become real. The Velveteen Rabbit became real, as it was loved and as the Midnight was fortunate enough to find an audience and to to start playing live and to, um, to find people who were making videos and montages. It just became real. This, this archetypal world of, like you know, cyberpunk or retro futurism or whatever, whatever you want to call it. Um, people wanted to live in that world and so they they joined us in, in making it something three-dimensional, something, something living and breathing. So it was just a songwriting experiment on my part, but yeah it's so cool, so so cool.

Marc Matthews: 32:57

Uh, the myths and archetypes. As soon as you mentioned myths and like how, how things are built on myths, it reminds me of a book I read called sapiens by.

Tyler Lyle: 33:05

I think it was sapiens by oh, yeah, yeah, no, no, you, you've all know a harari I was it.

Marc Matthews: 33:10

Uh, known, is another one then yeah, but sapiens, I've got the author on there, slap on the wrist. Um, but yeah, it just reminded me of that. But I love what. What you mentioned there about Jason and the Argonauts chasing, was it the Golden Fleece? Was that Jason and the Argonauts?

Tyler Lyle: 33:26

I got that wrong as well, that is right.

Marc Matthews: 33:28

Yeah, I got something right. And the other one with Jason, friday the 13th. I love that idea. That's given me inspiration, because I'm always, because I'm a big horror films, but also bring them over into sort of like a synth, a progressive house, a house sort of realm, without making them explicitly about the texas chainsaw massacre, and I'm going to use that idea of myths and archetypes and now I love that. I think that's, that's, that's great. And images as well. I love it well make.

Tyler Lyle: 34:03

Make your images symbols so that you can give something to your audience that they will have a direct attachment to. If you give your confessional story I was at this cross street and talking to this person and if you're giving your own story, there's less magnetism, there's less for them to reach. You give the image of a child or somebody talking about uh, you know, youth. That was our, um, our saturday morning cartoons. People have a direct connection with these things and and there is kind of a subtle um intelligence in, in backing away as the artist and kind of giving as much to the audience as as as possible. And you do that via myth, archetype, symbol, amazing love it.

Marc Matthews: 34:50

This is great. This will give me loads of inspiration now to go right, go away and write some lyrics. I say that I'll probably tomorrow. I'll sit down and be like, right, I'll make a start and then my mind is just blank. But I love it. This is great. Um, in the interest of time, tyler, I'm well aware you've got a busy schedule.

Tyler Lyle: 35:06

No, no, I've got a call in 20 minutes. If you want to go another extra 10, that, yeah, that's, that's fine, yeah cool, cool, cool.

Marc Matthews: 35:12

Um, I think probably this question. No, we'll do this one here because we mentioned about collaboration earlier. So obviously you are collaborating, uh, remote, remotely, although you do come together as well with tim. Yeah, um, how do you make the long distance collaboration work? What challenges have you faced and how have you overcome them?

Tyler Lyle: 35:32

Every song is so different, in the same way that every show is so different. In the album process I'm writing a lot Hopefully Tim is working on his end and we usually don't go more than two or three months without being in the same room together. So when we're in the same room, I bring what I have and he brings what he has, and that's really where the marriage creatively happens. So really being in the same room is the best, unless you just are totally inspired by something and uh and and you can send that back and forth.

Marc Matthews: 36:13

It can, it can work, but it's more ideal to be in the physical space together yeah, so in in reality then you, uh, you mentioned there that you, you, two or three months is the max that you go without actually being in the same room yeah, that's probably right this this year it's been about once a month oh, wow.

Marc Matthews: 36:30

And is that? Is tim coming over to the us or you're going over to denmark, or is it like a bit of back and forth, like tim is in la right now, so he's he's, he's been in the us.

Tyler Lyle: 36:40

So, uh, my whole team the midnight's team is is in la, so I'll I'll go there. My wife's family is out there, so I live in atlanta, so it's easy for me to go there. It's easy for tim to come here, yeah yeah, okay, okay, well, I think well.

Marc Matthews: 36:55

The final question, then and this is for because I mentioned this off air that this podcast started out, and it was started out as a as a podcast to talk to synth music, synth waves, pop, whatever it may be, artists and it's, and it's grown organically and it's it's moved into other spheres over the course of 180-odd episodes, but at its core, there is a lot of synth wave producers, artists that listen to this podcast, so yourself here. So for those listeners who want to craft synth wave music with deeply felt lyrics, what's the number one piece of advice you'd give them?

Tyler Lyle: 37:29

Wow, synthwave music with deeply felt lyrics. What's the number one piece of advice you'd give them? Wow, um, the first piece of advice is sort of be compassionate with yourself. Um, I, I think the synthwave genre, um the midnight, was so fortunate to be where we were at at that time, because it was um around this time that the Apple computer, you know garage band logic presets for all these classic synths became installed, and I think that Synthwave was this generation's like garage band, in a way, like not the software, but like people getting in some parents' garage and making music like in the early 2000s. I think Synthwave has become that and we were just the people that had been in the music business long enough to make it from a professional level. And I think in the last 10 years that we've been doing it, a lot of these bedroom producers have caught up and surpassed us in many ways.

Tyler Lyle: 38:36

But part of the secret sauce of the midnight is that I am a songwriter first and that Tim is a producer first, and to have both of those tasks, to wear both of those hats at the same time, is a really hard thing, I would say in lyric writing.

Tyler Lyle: 38:58

I want synth lyricists to be bolder, to push the limits of good taste to like really make it challenging. And there are people that push it in the horror thing or make it overly sexual. I mean really just I think Gasolfelstein's new record kind of does it in an interesting way. Nobody knows what a song is supposed to be lyrically, it's a well-narrated hallucination. Just make sure that it comes from something that feels like it has the essence of truth, something that feels like it needs to exist. We as creatives are ferrying ideas from one realm to this one and make sure that it's not just created from a sense of like ego or needing the numbers to be up or somebody to hear, you know, to validate me as an artist. Like, make sure the idea needs to exist first, and I think if you wait until that idea comes and then go all in on that idea, that song, then then that's what the world needs more of.

Marc Matthews: 40:06

So yeah, I love it. It needs to exist. What was that soundbite? I say soundbite, I'm going to use it as a soundbite, or at least a quote about the hallucination. Again, I was trying to remember it.

Tyler Lyle: 40:18

A lyric is a… A well-narrated hallucination. That was it A well-narrated hallucination.

Marc Matthews: 40:24

I love that. That's such a good way of describing it. I'm going to make a mark here on Riverside. Shout out to Riverside for that well-narrated hallucination. Love it, tyler. It's been an absolute pleasure. I'm so glad we've been able to do this today.

Tyler Lyle: 40:38

Likewise, Mark Thank you yeah.

Marc Matthews: 40:39

Yeah, it's been a long while since I've interviewed I say just just is the wrong word. I interviewed artists an artist or a producer versus a mix engineer or mastering engineer. So I was really excited A to speak to yourself and B just to talk to an artist as well, because it's been a long time since I've done it on the podcast. So a really big thank you for this, and I know the audience are going to get loads out of this, as have I already. Lots to take away Before we wrap things up. Is there anything you'd like to share? No worries if there isn't. And where can the audience find you online? Where's the best place to go if they want to know more about you in particular?

Tyler Lyle: 41:18

yeah, uh, so my name is tyler lyle I. I make music as tyler lyle. It's a folk, you know, acoustic project, but, uh, most of my time is spent with the midnight. We are a duo that uh is a five-piece band live and, uh, we just released a single called love is an ocean and our next record should be coming out, uh, this fall, which we're we're wrapping up right now and we're very excited about exciting times, fantastic, uh, that should coincide.

Marc Matthews: 41:47

I think you were over in the UK in October, if I remember rightly.

Tyler Lyle: 41:51

Yes, yeah, we'll be on tour as well in Europe and the UK in September, October.

Marc Matthews: 41:56

Fantastic, Tyler. As I say, it's been an absolute pleasure and I will let you go now Again, thank you so much, and I'll catch up with you soon. Thank you, Mark Cheers buddy.