The Boston-based alternative metal outfit decides to put its foot down and be who they want to be. With their uncanny ability to balance intense and cinematic sound with more traditional melodies, Boston-based alternative metal outfit Major Moment continues to set the world alight and blaze their own path in the music scene. Having geared up once more with their latest single, “Toxic,” slated to be released April 26th (ahead of their highly anticipated album “The Pain That Makes Us Grow”), the band continues to show why the sky is the limit in the face of their limitless talent.
Fusing heavy guitar riffs, modern production, and melodic vocals, Major Moment has eked out a signature sound that has made them stand out in an admittedly crowded heavy metal music scene. Another feature that has helped them stand out is their unusual yet flawlessly executed ability to draw on both male and female vocals. Both contributors utilize their vast range to create a blend of styles that captivates audiences. Add emotionally charged, relevant, meaningful lyrics to the mix, and it’s easy to see why they excelled.
Their latest single, "Toxic," was inspired by the impact of social media consumption trends on artists and creators. Utilizing the metaphor of a toxic romantic relationship, “Toxic” is Major Moment’s introspective exploration of the constant pressure on artists to produce content. Over their signature intense yet melodic vocals, lyrics like “So toxic, you never let me breathe / I’m losing sleep to give you everything” lament how the pressures of artistry often come at the cost of compromising quality and even mental health. It's a poignant message and one Major Moment hopes resonates with fans and newcomers alike.
With their debut full-length album coming soon, “Toxic” shows that Major Moment is showing no signs of complacency or slowing down, even with significant events on the horizon.
When you’re ready, tap in and stream Major Moment’s “Toxic,” available everywhere.
Welcome to BuzzMusic, Major Moment! We loved “Toxic”; it was such an enlightening peek into the psyche of artists and the pressures you go through to deliver music to us fans! We have to ask, how can you, as artists, strike a balance between putting the work in and maybe overworking yourselves to meet those high expectations?
Hey, hey, guys! Thank you for having us. Happy to be here! Thrilled to hear that you dig “Toxic”! Great question! We wonder the same thing every day about other artists and creatives, especially those that are more successful than us and are further down the career path because literally, nothing about our lives is currently in balance. Our house (well, it’s not technically ours, we can’t afford to buy any real estate right now) is a mess, our desktop screen and download folder are filled with files, and we have anywhere from 30 to 50+ tabs open in our browser at all times, we can scroll our task list for several seconds, and much longer if it shows completed tasks. There’s never enough time in the day, money in our bank account or stamina in us to accomplish everything we have planned, so it always feels like we’re catching up; that’s probably why it’s called “chasing your dreams.” Now if we add our day jobs in the mix that we work, you guessed it, overtime, to fund our music career, you get the idea. We have no days off; whenever we take vacations or sick days, we work more. Do we overwork ourselves to the point of diminishing returns? That’s also something we think about often, but we keep going, despite the pain (pun to our new album title very much intended).
You mentioned you’re based in Boston. What’s the metal scene like there, and what is your favourite part about being based in Boston?
Boston is a beautiful city, but it’s not great for creatives, let alone the metal scene. The infrastructure is just not there, finding a music video production company or a studio to shoot a music video at (something as basic as a cyclorama or a large enough green screen) is a nightmare, and often the options either don’t exist at all or are so limited that it requires us to take our business to other states, like New Hampshire, Rhode Island, New York, research even further out and find creative solutions to solve these problems. It’s tough because we’d rather spend time coming up with ideas and treatments for music videos than spend hours and days looking for a location or a music video director who’s available and doesn’t live 14 hours away. Looking for a music studio and a producer that shared our vision led us to Maine (for which we’re super-thankful as we love working with Kevin Billingslea and call The Halo Studio our second home). The industry is just not in Boston; most smaller to mid-tier venues under the 500 cap is closed, and there are no active rock radio stations left in Boston; whatever is left there, like the festival or media outlets, is pretty gatekept. You would think the city with the most famous music school in the entire world would cater better to musicians. However, not to sound all negative, there are a few bands with great potential in and around Boston, and we always try to support them. Check out our friends Girih, Parts Per Million and Sleepspirit; they deserve more recognition.
So you had very specific circumstances that led to the creation of “Toxic,” but could you take us through your usual creative process?
It varies from song to song, but the pattern for the most has been: Andrey & Sasha (vocalists) come up with an idea that can be inspired by any event, a random phrase or a thought, develop it to the point where it sounds like a decent home demo with some production elements, structure and lyrics, then we take it to Kevin [Billingslea, producer] for an in-studio pre-pro, where we further work on refining the song, its arrangement and lyrics. Then we take it back home, sit on it for a few days and work on it some more before we come back and record it. It’s always exciting to see how the song can change from a demo to a finished track, and we try to take our audience behind the scenes as often as possible and share our process, our wins and failures with them. We think it can inspire other creative people to see how imperfect certain aspects or conditions can be, yet they still can work and, most importantly, bring joy to our listeners. We’re still learning. It’s a never-ending process.
What do you love most about being able to create music, both for yourselves and for your fans?
For us, it’s important that whatever we create serves some purpose and brings positive energy and joy to our audience (for whatever reason, we don’t like to use the word “fans” when we talk about our listeners). They are a very important part of our process, and we love to see them enjoying our music, adding it to their workout or study playlists, and getting excited to hear our new stuff. We share this excitement with them, there’s some unity in it, and we love it. Creating music for us is a way to express ourselves using poetry and loud noises (we should probably copyright this phrase), an emotional outlet, and is often a challenge too, and we like a good challenge; otherwise, we wouldn’t be in the music business.
Your full-length debut album is slated for release later this year! What was your favourite part about bringing the vision to life for that album, and what can we expect from it?
You can expect a good variety of sounds and genre blends, some things that our listeners love us for and some things we haven’t tried yet. You know, we gotta keep it fun and creative, from how it sounds to how we want to release it. Although we’re releasing “The Pain That Makes Us Grow” via singles on streaming, those that want to hear the album in full, months ahead of everyone else, can do so by pre-ordering it on vinyl and CDs on our website right now. A few special supporters got their hands on test presses and will already be listening to our album in early May. We want this strong connection with our audience and offer new ways to experience our music. We can only dream of hearing our favourite artists' new albums months before everyone else, so we can at least make this dream come true for our listeners.