Midnight Blvd Interview
Shortly After the Release of Neon After Midnight
Late 1984 / Toronto
Interviewer: The new record feels larger than Electric Nights. Was that intentional, or did it happen because everything around the band got larger?
Jeremy: Both, probably. I don’t think you get to separate those things cleanly. The rooms got larger. The expectations got larger. The conversations around the songs got larger. So the songs either had to respond to that or pretend it wasn’t happening.
Michael: We didn’t want to make the first record again.
Interviewer: Was anyone asking you to?
Michael: Not exactly.
Jeremy: People rarely ask for things that plainly. They ask for something “recognizable.” Or something that “builds on what worked.” Those are reasonable phrases until you realize they can also mean: don’t change too much.
Michael: We wanted it to still sound like us. But if it sounded untouched by everything that had happened since the first album, that would have been dishonest.
Interviewer: What had happened since Electric Nights that changed the writing most?
Michael: Touring.
Jeremy: Definitely touring.
Daniel: Bad food.
Jeremy: Bad food played a role.
Michael: Hearing the songs in rooms with people changed them. On the first record, a lot of the songs were built in small spaces. You imagine how they might reach someone, but you don’t know. Then suddenly you’re playing them to people who have their own relationship with them. That changes how you hear the next thing.
Interviewer: In what way?
Michael: You become less precious about some things. More protective of others.
Jeremy: You learn where the songs can take pressure. You also learn where people want to misunderstand them.
Interviewer: That sounds frustrating.
Jeremy: It can be useful.
Daniel: That’s his polite answer.
Jeremy: It’s my printed answer.
Interviewer: Daniel, you weren’t a central public figure during Electric Nights, but your bass and backing vocals have become important to the live version of Midnight Blvd. How did that happen?
Daniel: Mostly by accident, which is how most sensible things happen. They needed someone to make the live set feel less like two men arguing with machines.
Michael: That is not how we described it.
Daniel: That is how I understood it.
Jeremy: It was more that the songs needed another physical element live. The machines are still central. That hasn’t changed. But some of the songs opened up when there was bass moving against the sequences.
Michael: Daniel understands how to play with electronic arrangements without trying to humanize them in an obvious way.
Interviewer: What do you mean by obvious?
Michael: Some players hear a programmed part and immediately want to loosen it. Daniel doesn’t do that. He listens for where the machine is already alive.
Daniel: That’s a much nicer answer than the one I was going to give.
Interviewer: Neon After Midnight has a different emotional temperature than Electric Nights. The debut felt nocturnal, but also enclosed. This one feels like it is moving through the city.
Jeremy: That’s fair.
Michael: We were moving more. That entered the songs.
Interviewer: There are still a lot of images of night, streets, signals, distance. But the record feels less like watching from a window and more like being outside.
Jeremy: That’s probably the Toronto of it.
Interviewer: You relocated during the making of the album?
Jeremy: During the period around it, yes. The move and the record became tangled together.
Michael: The first album had distance around it. This one didn’t.
Interviewer: Distance from what?
Michael: Everything.
Jeremy: The label. The press. Expectations. Each other. The work. It all started happening in the same rooms.
Interviewer: Was that good for the music?
Jeremy: Good is difficult.
Michael: Necessary, maybe.
Interviewer: The title Neon After Midnight sounds glamorous, but the record doesn’t feel simple or celebratory. What does the phrase mean to you?
Michael: Artificial light after the hour when natural light has gone. Something still glowing because people need it to.
Jeremy: It sounds pretty until you think about why the light has to stay on.
Interviewer: That sounds darker than the campaign around the record.
Jeremy: Campaigns like the first half of things.
Michael: The title has brightness in it. That’s true. But it also has lateness.
Daniel: And probably a bar sign somewhere with three letters broken.
Jeremy: That too.
Interviewer: There’s a sense on the record that Midnight Blvd has become more confident. Do you feel more confident?
Michael: Not particularly.
Jeremy: I think the record is more confident than we were.
Interviewer: How does that happen?
Jeremy: Work. Repetition. Refusing the wrong suggestions. Accepting the right ones before pride gets in the way.
Michael: Some songs know what they are before you do.
Interviewer: Which songs on this record did that?
Michael: “Afterglow Avenue” came into focus early.
Jeremy: “Concrete Hearts” fought us longer.
Michael: But it needed to.
Interviewer: Why?
Michael: Because if it had become too smooth, it would have lost the thing that made it worth keeping.
Interviewer: The production is sleeker this time. Was there pressure to polish the band?
Jeremy: Yes.
Michael: There was also a desire from us to sharpen what we were doing.
Jeremy: Those two things are not always the same.
Interviewer: Did you worry about losing the roughness of the first album?
Michael: We worried about losing the center.
Interviewer: And did you?
Michael: No.
Jeremy: Not all of it.
Interviewer: That sounds like a cautious answer.
Jeremy: It’s an honest one. You never keep everything. Making a record is choosing what you’re willing to lose.
Interviewer: How much influence did the label have on the finished album?
Jeremy: They had influence on the schedule.
Michael: And on the number of conversations.
Daniel: And on how often people used the word momentum.
Jeremy: We heard that one a lot.
Interviewer: Did those conversations help?
Jeremy: Some did. Some made us dig in harder.
Michael: Cole was helpful.
Interviewer: Cole Clarke?
Jeremy: Yes.
Interviewer: In what way?
Michael: He listened.
Jeremy: That sounds small, but it isn’t. A lot of people listen for the part they can sell. Cole listens for the part that might break if handled badly.
Interviewer: That’s an unusual thing to say about a label representative.
Jeremy: It’s an unusual thing to find in one.
Interviewer: Michael, your vocal performance feels more exposed on this album, even though the production is bigger. Was that deliberate?
Michael: I don’t know if I thought of it that way at the time. The songs needed less hiding in some places.
Interviewer: Your voice sits differently in the mix.
Michael: It had to. If the arrangements were going to be wider, the vocal couldn’t disappear into atmosphere the same way.
Jeremy: Michael fought that.
Michael: I questioned it.
Jeremy: He fought it.
Michael: I questioned it repeatedly.
Interviewer: Why the resistance?
Michael: Because a voice tells on you.
Interviewer: Is that something you’re more aware of now?
Michael: Yes.
Interviewer: Jeremy, your lyrics seem more direct in places. Not simple, but less obscured.
Jeremy: That was happening naturally, I think.
Interviewer: Why?
Jeremy: The first album was made with a certain kind of privacy around it. This one wasn’t. Once people start asking what you mean, you become more aware of the places where you’re hiding.
Interviewer: Did you want to hide less?
Jeremy: I wanted the songs to survive being misunderstood.
Interviewer: That’s not quite the same thing.
Jeremy: No.
Interviewer: Did Michael push you toward more direct writing?
Jeremy: Sometimes.
Michael: Sometimes I asked what a line was avoiding.
Jeremy: Which is very annoying when he’s right.
Interviewer: You two are often described as unusually close collaborators. Does that closeness ever become difficult?
Jeremy: Constantly.
Michael: Yes.
Interviewer: In what way?
Jeremy: When you trust someone’s ear, it becomes very hard to ignore it. Even when you want to.
Michael: Especially when you want to.
Jeremy: Michael can say nothing in a way that changes a whole room.
Michael: Jeremy can say too much in a way that changes a whole room.
Daniel: Both useful talents. Both terrible at breakfast.
Interviewer: Do you argue more now than you did during the first record?
Jeremy: Probably.
Michael: Differently.
Interviewer: Differently how?
Michael: There’s more at stake.
Jeremy: And less space to pretend there isn’t.
Interviewer: Did moving to Toronto change the band’s identity?
Jeremy: It changed the conditions around it.
Interviewer: That’s a very careful distinction.
Jeremy: It’s the only one that matters. A city can change how you work without changing why you work.
Michael: Vancouver gave us the beginning. Toronto gave us pressure.
Interviewer: And pressure was useful?
Michael: Not always.
Jeremy: Pressure is useful if you know what not to give it.
Interviewer: What did it want from you?
Jeremy: Clarity. Speed. A version of us that could be explained quickly.
Interviewer: And did you give it that?
Jeremy: Listen to the record.
Interviewer: There’s a lot of talk around synth-pop right now about style over substance. Does that frustrate you?
Jeremy: It bores me more than it frustrates me.
Michael: People distrust surfaces when they don’t understand how much feeling can be carried through them.
Interviewer: You think surface can be emotional?
Michael: Of course. Sound is surface until it reaches you.
Jeremy: Nobody complains that a guitar has strings. But the second a synthesizer is involved, people start worrying about whether anyone is feeling anything.
Daniel: I’ve seen people feel a great deal of things near synthesizers.
Jeremy: Thank you, Daniel.
Interviewer: Daniel, coming into this as a live musician, did you have to adjust your playing to fit the band’s electronic structure?
Daniel: Completely. You can’t play over this band like you’re trying to rescue it from machines. The machines are not the problem. They’re part of the pulse. My job is to find the body inside that.
Interviewer: That’s beautifully put.
Daniel: I stole it from listening.
Michael: No, you didn’t.
Daniel: Fine. I rented it from listening.
Interviewer: Do you feel like part of Midnight Blvd now?
Daniel: Live, yes. Personally, yes. Publicly, I think that’s for these two to survive.
Jeremy: That’s unfair.
Daniel: It’s accurate.
Michael: Daniel is part of how the songs exist now.
Daniel: See? That’s the answer they should print.
Interviewer: The band seems to attract an audience that reads a lot into the songs. Do you welcome that?
Michael: Yes.
Jeremy: Mostly.
Interviewer: Mostly?
Jeremy: People finding themselves in the songs is the best thing that can happen. People deciding they own the only meaning of a song is different.
Interviewer: Do you write with specific listeners in mind?
Jeremy: Not exactly. But I think we write knowing what it feels like to need a song and not find one that says the thing plainly enough.
Interviewer: Does Neon After Midnight say things plainly enough?
Jeremy: For now.
Interviewer: That sounds like you’re already thinking beyond this record.
Michael: We’re always writing.
Interviewer: Even now?
Michael: Especially now.
Interviewer: Is the next material in the same direction?
Jeremy: It’s too early to know.
Interviewer: But there is material?
Jeremy: There are sounds.
Michael: Fragments.
Interviewer: Lighter? Darker?
Michael: Different.
Jeremy: That’s the safest true answer.
Interviewer: Safe answers usually aren’t the interesting ones.
Jeremy: Safe answers are sometimes the only honest ones available in print.
Interviewer: You’ve both been careful today when talking about expectation. Are you worried about being handled too much?
Jeremy: Yes.
Michael: I think anyone doing this should be.
Interviewer: Why?
Michael: Because handling can look like help.
Jeremy: And sometimes it is help. That’s the trouble. You can’t reject every outside hand just to prove you’re pure. That becomes its own kind of vanity.
Interviewer: So how do you know which help to accept?
Jeremy: You don’t always.
Michael: You listen to what changes after someone touches the song.
Interviewer: And if the song gets worse?
Jeremy: Then you take the hand off it.
Interviewer: What has success changed most?
Michael: The number of people who feel entitled to certainty.
Jeremy: The schedule.
Daniel: The quality of the coffee has not improved enough to justify the rest.
Interviewer: Do you feel successful?
Michael: No.
Jeremy: Sometimes for about four seconds.
Interviewer: When?
Jeremy: When a room sings something back and you can’t remember being worried about whether it would reach anyone.
Michael: Then the moment ends.
Jeremy: Then someone asks about the next single.
Interviewer: Is there a song on Neon After Midnight that feels closest to where the band is now?
Michael: “Towers Between Us,” maybe.
Jeremy: I would have said “Daylight on the Dial.”
Michael: Really?
Jeremy: Today, yes.
Interviewer: Why that one?
Jeremy: It sounds like wanting morning to arrive and not trusting it when it does.
Michael: That is not how you described it when we recorded it.
Jeremy: I’m better after the fact.
Daniel: He’s also worse after the fact. It depends on the fact.
Interviewer: The record has been described as romantic, but there’s a loneliness in it too.
Michael: Those things often live close together.
Interviewer: Is that central to the band?
Jeremy: Probably. Wanting connection and mistrusting what happens when people see too clearly.
Interviewer: That sounds personal.
Jeremy: Most useful things are.
Interviewer: Are the songs autobiographical?
Michael: Not literally.
Jeremy: Not safely.
Interviewer: What does that mean?
Jeremy: It means print “not literally.”
Interviewer: How do you handle being watched more closely now?
Michael: Badly.
Jeremy: Better than he thinks. Worse than he appears.
Interviewer: And you?
Jeremy: I talk too much and then regret half of it.
Daniel: Only half?
Jeremy: Publicly, half.
Interviewer: Is image something you think about consciously?
Michael: We think about presentation. That’s different from image.
Interviewer: How so?
Michael: Presentation can protect the work. Image can replace it.
Jeremy: We’re trying not to let that happen.
Interviewer: What do you want people to understand about Neon After Midnight?
Michael: That it isn’t just brighter because there are more lights in it.
Interviewer: And what do you want them to feel?
Michael: Less alone in whatever hour they hear it.
Jeremy: I want people to notice the tension under the polish. Not because we hid it, but because we kept it there on purpose.
Interviewer: Daniel?
Daniel: I want them to come to the shows and stand close enough to feel the bass.
Interviewer: That’s it?
Daniel: That’s not small.
Interviewer: Last question. Does Neon After Midnight feel like a destination or a bridge?
Jeremy: A bridge.
Michael: A bridge.
Daniel: A bridge with questionable wiring.
Interviewer: To where?
Michael: Somewhere less certain.
Jeremy: But more honest, maybe.
Midnight Blvd’s second album arrives with the difficult burden of sounding both inevitable and uncertain.
That may be the most interesting thing about Neon After Midnight. It is clearly the work of a band that has grown quickly since Electric Nights, but it does not sound entirely comfortable with that growth. The songs are bigger, the production cleaner, the choruses more deliberate, and the arrangements more confident. Yet beneath all that polish is a nervous current that keeps the album from becoming merely stylish.
Where Electric Nights felt like a private signal broadcast from a locked room, Neon After Midnight feels like the door has been opened and the street has come rushing in.
The result is a stronger record in some obvious ways, and a less mysterious one in others.
From the opening tracks, it is clear that Midnight Blvd have become better at building songs that can survive outside the studio. The rhythms hit with more purpose, the synths are brighter and more spacious, and the band’s melodic instincts have sharpened considerably. Michael’s lead vocals are more exposed this time, and that decision gives the album much of its emotional weight. He does not over sing. If anything, his restraint remains one of the band’s greatest strengths. He sounds as if he is always holding something back, which makes the moments where the songs open up feel earned rather than theatrical.
Jeremy’s writing has also shifted. The lyrics still return to familiar Midnight Blvd territory — city light, distance, signals, rooms after midnight — but the perspective has changed. These are not simply songs about watching the world through glass. They are songs about being pushed through it, trying to keep hold of something private while everything around it becomes public.
That tension gives Neon After Midnight its best moments.
“Afterglow Avenue” is one of the band’s most immediately effective songs, all forward motion and bruised romanticism. It has the kind of chorus that sounds effortless until one notices how carefully it has been arranged. “Towers Between Us” is colder and more elegant, a track that turns distance into architecture. “Concrete Hearts” is perhaps the album’s most successful collision of polish and unease, with a rhythm section that feels both mechanical and wounded.
The presence of Daniel on bass and backing vocals has clearly influenced the band’s live and studio thinking. Even when the machines remain central, the arrangements feel less sealed off than before. The bass parts give several songs a physical center, and the backing vocals add warmth without softening the band’s sharper edges. Midnight Blvd are still an electronic pop group, but on Neon After Midnight they sound more like a band in motion than a concept being carefully protected.
That said, the album is not without problems.
At times, Neon After Midnight seems almost too aware of being a second record. There are moments where the production reaches for scale before the song underneath has fully earned it. A few tracks carry themselves with impressive surface confidence but less emotional surprise than the best material here. The polish occasionally smooths over the rougher instincts that made Electric Nights so compelling. One sometimes misses the strange, enclosed atmosphere of the debut — the sense that the band had made something before anyone outside the room knew how to interfere with it.
There are also places where the album’s mid-tempo nocturnal mood threatens to blur. Midnight Blvd are very good at a particular kind of late-night tension, but Neon After Midnight leans on that atmosphere heavily. The best songs deepen it. The weaker ones simply revisit it. A track like “Silver Signals,” while beautifully produced, does not quite escape the feeling of being an elegant variation on stronger ideas elsewhere on the record.
Still, even the lesser material is rarely careless. Midnight Blvd’s problem is not lack of taste. If anything, it may be too much taste. The band sometimes seems reluctant to let a song become ugly, excessive, or truly uncontrolled. Their discipline is admirable, but one wonders what might happen if they allowed the pressure in these songs to break the surface more violently.
That question may be where the band is headed.
Because for all its sleekness, Neon After Midnight does not feel like a comfortable record. It is too restless for that. The album’s brightness is artificial, and the band seems to know it. These songs glow, but they glow the way city lights do after everyone should have gone home. There is glamour here, certainly, but it is not innocent glamour. It is the glamour of people trying to make exhaustion look intentional.
By the final stretch, the album reveals itself less as a triumphal second step than a bridge. It expands Midnight Blvd’s sound, proves they can write with greater scale, and gives them several of their strongest songs to date. But it also exposes a more complicated band than the one suggested by the early synth-pop comparisons. There is unease under the hooks, suspicion under the romance, and a growing unwillingness to be explained too easily.
Neon After Midnight is not a perfect album. It is occasionally over-polished, occasionally too controlled, and occasionally too enamoured with its own atmosphere. But it is also a serious, stylish, emotionally charged record from a band learning how to carry pressure without letting it flatten them.
If Electric Nights introduced Midnight Blvd as a private signal, Neon After Midnight proves the signal can travel.
The question now is what happens when it starts saying something harder to ignore.
For Michael — whose love of 80s synth-pop and new wave lit the first signal behind Midnight Blvd.
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