Trivia / half•alive

• Breakthrough Hit: Thanks to its music video going viral, "still feel." catapulted the band to success, leading to their signage to a major label and their TV debut. Hilariously, they made its outro as long as possible so it wouldn't become a hit, but it wound up to contributing to the song's wide appeal.
• Cut Song: "Beige" clearly falls within the canon of Conditions Of A Punk, with Josh ruminating over a girl using the same motifs (dreams and Summerland). Though not included in the final album, it was released as a separate single for Bose x NME's C23 compilation.
• Directed by Cast Member: Josh directs a good chunk of the band's music videos in addition to starring in them, most notably "still feel." and "RUNAWAY".
  • Emma Portner, a featured dancer in music videos and performances, directed the music video for "Make Of It" while also appearing in it.
• Dyeing for Your Art:
  • Josh really did get his head shaved for the "Summerland" teaser video.
  • He also grew a real mustache for the "RUNAWAY" music video to truly look as if he was from the 1940s, which he says took about a month.
• Early-Bird Release: Several tracks from Now, Not Yet made their debut at live shows months before official release via the EP *7 or the final album, such as "arrow", "RUNAWAY", and "Pure Gold".
• Hey, It's That Place!: The liminal space used for the "still feel." music video is most known as the Batcave in The Dark Knight Rises.
• Missing Episode: A music variant. "TIME 2" does not appear on Give Me Your Shoulders Pt. 1 nor Conditions Of A Punk and exists as an isolated single.
• Official Fan-Submitted Content: The music video for "Move Me" was produced by reaching out to a group of curated artists that were each given creative freedom to make 30 seconds of video and compiling their efforts into a single work.
• On-Set Injury: The music video for "ok ok?" was filmed outdoors in the sequoias of California in the midst of summer. The band stated that they were ravaged by mosquitos during the shoot, with J Tyler specifying that he was bitten at least 30 times on his head alone. Jordan Johnson of JA Collective also found out that he was allergic to something in the woods, but didn't know what.
• One Degree of Separation: The 3 members of the band all had met independent of each other: Josh and Brett met at church; Brett and J Tyler met through mutual friends in a music ensemble; J Tyler and Josh met through the former's brother.
• Permanent Placeholder: "BREAKFAST" was the song's demo title as the band wrote it while staying in an Airbnb, named for the time of day as they did so. The final product retained most of the demo and since those parts brought back fond memories, they opted to keep its original title.
• Production Posse: The band works exclusively with choreographers Jordan Johnson and Aidan Carberry of JA Collective on dancing for music videos and live shows. Slightly helps in the sense that Jordan and J Tyler are brothers, plus Josh and JA Collective were all roommates at some point.
• Rarely Performed Song: "TIME 2" was only performed for a short period following its release but taken out of rotation by 2023.
• Reality Subtext: It's been implied that the cancellation of Give Me Your Shoulders Pt. 2 (explicitly described by the band as an album about love) comes on the heels of Josh experiencing a breakup, affecting the album to the point where continuing its themes to completion in its original form was no longer viable.
• Throw It In!: For Now, Not Yet, J Tyler would try to include slap-bass in songs, but always in vain as his attempts would eventually get taken out. His sole victory comes in a very brief moment in the second verse of "RUNAWAY".
• Troubled Production: The shoot for the music video for "TIME 2" was particularly brutal and difficult. It took a week to complete (longer than any other they had done at the time) and they had also kept getting kicked out of places where they tried to film. When it came time to film the feather scene with Josh and JA Collective headbanging, all three were exhausted; to top it all off, the former had a terrible headache and was on the verge of a breakdown.
• Viral Marketing:
  • The band uses popular TikTok trends and other social media platforms to promote new releases.
  • The tracklist for Conditions Of A Punk was announced via word search for fans to complete.
• What Could Have Been: When performing "ice cold." for one of their tours, their original plan was to replace a softly spoken "dance" at the beginning of the instrumental break with a different one of Santa's reindeer for each show. They ultimately nixed the idea in favor of choreography.
• Word of God: For years, fans have wondered if there's a deeper meaning to the bizarre stylization of certain songs (e.g. the misspelling of "Aawake At Night" and "TrusT" having two capitals). Josh Taylor just thought it looked cool.

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