The Midnight

The Midnight in 2018
Background information
Origin	Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Genres	Synthwave Rock Americana Electronic
Years active	2012-present
Labels	The Midnight Music Silk Music Counter Records
Members	Tim McEwan Tyler Lyle
Website	themidnightofficial.com

The Midnight are an American synthwave duo based out of Los Angeles, California, composed of producer Tim McEwan and vocalist/guitarist Tyler Lyle. The band formed after McEwan and Lyle met during a co-writing session in 2012.

The Midnight debuted in 2014 with the release of their first EP, Days of Thunder. This was followed by their first album Endless Summer in 2016, after which the duo became firmly established within the synthwave music scene.

Nocturnal was released in 2017 and saw The Midnight explore a darker, more noir sound. A trilogy series of albums began in 2018 with Kids, continuing with Monsters in 2020 and Heroes in 2022. The latter two records were noted for moving the band's sound in a different direction and saw them exploring additional genres outside of synthwave. In the midst of the trilogy, the band also released the Halloween-themed EP Horror Show in 2020.

They performed their first live show in 2017 and have regularly toured since. Known for being lively and energetic, The Midnight's shows have seen increased production value over the years with continuous additions of touring members and live instruments. The band has also made appearances at several notable music festivals, including Austin City Limits, Music Midtown, and Bonnaroo.

With several appearances on Billboard charts, The Midnight have been one of the most commercially successful synthwave acts. Their music has also appeared in various media forms, including video games, podcasts, and TV.

Career

2012-2016: Beginnings, Days of Thunder, Endless Summer

Prior to forming The Midnight, Tyler Lyle and Tim McEwan were both established musicians. Lyle was an indie-folk singer-songwriter based in the state of Georgia and gained initial notability with several self-released titles, becoming regionally and nationally known. McEwan was a drummer and producer based in Denmark, later becoming a member of the Danish production group Deekay who has written and produced songs for many popular artists.

Lyle and McEwan in 2014, the year their debut EP Days of Thunder was released

The pair met for the first time in 2012 at a songwriter’s workshop in North Hollywood organized by Katie Donovan, Lyle’s A&R representative at the time. Before meeting, McEwan had listened to some of Lyle’s previous work and liked Lyle’s folk sound. Despite differing musical backgrounds, they bonded over a mutual love of 80s rock and began to write songs together. After initially struggling to define their sound, McEwan suggested that they compose songs in the synthwave style. McEwan had previous exposure to the burgeoning genre and was inspired by the movie Drive. The first song they wrote together was WeMoveForward, which was included on their debut EP Days of Thunder.

After the initial meeting in 2012, Lyle and McEwan continued writing and recording together over the next two years. In March 2014, Lyle announced on his Twitter that iAmData (McEwan's moniker at the time) and himself were starting a band called "The Midnight". According to Lyle, the name came from McEwan and himself throwing out random names until they found one that stuck. Other band names that they considered were "Lightyears", "Temporary Tigers", and "The Midnight Tigers."

Original logo, used primarily from 2015-2017. Still used on occasion

Later that year in July, The Midnight released their debut EP Days of Thunder. The release was profiled on electronic music site DRIVE Radio and continued to gain traction on Reddit throughout 2014 and 2015. The EP's description described The Midnight's sound and philosophy:

There is a Japanese term: Mono no aware. It means basically, the sad beauty of seeing time pass - the aching awareness of impermanence. These are the days that we will return to one day in the future only in memories. How do we capture them? How could we possibly be able to fully appreciate them in the present? This project is our attempt to put time under glass. The Midnight is a marriage between a songwriter from the Deep South and a producer from Denmark who both live in Los Angeles. The songs were written in North Hollywood and Santa Monica over two years and represent the first fruit of The Midnight. This is our love song to our city and a testament to the weight these years can hold.

2016-2017: Endless Summer, first live shows, The Midnight Remixed, and Nocturnal

The Midnight's first live show

The Midnight began work on a follow-up to Days of Thunder in 2015. Teaser clips of songs being worked on for the record were posted to their social media accounts throughout the year. In August 2015, McEwan said on social media that the release was still several months and away, expressing a desire to "push the envelope on the synthwave genre". A new song, The Equaliser (Not Alone), was released on the Drive Radio compilation Selection Volume 1 in March 2016.

Following the release of the singles Sunset and Vampires in May and June, the next The Midnight record was revealed in July 2016 to be a full-length album titled Endless Summer and was released on August 5, 2016. Expanding on their efforts from Days of Thunder, Endless Summer received positive reviews from online media outlets and garnered the band new exposure within the burgeoning synthwave community, with songs like Sunset and Jason becoming staples of the genre. Jason in particular is notable for being The Midnight's first collaboration with singer-songwriter Nikki Flores, who would continue to collaborate with the band in the years to come.

The success of Endless Summer established The Midnight as one of the top acts in synthwave and was the precursor to a busy 2017 for the band. Early that year, they began planning their first-ever live show to capitalize on their ubiquity in the synthwave space. While Tim McEwan had previously done some DJ sets in 2017 under The Midnight name, they had not yet done a full live show that featured Tyler Lyle as well. Announced in May 2017, the debut show was co-headlined with fellow synthwave titan FM-84 and took place at the DNA Lounge in San Francisco in July in front of a sold-out crowd. The show was also notable for the introduction of Jesse Molloy as the band's first live saxophone player, a role he would continue to have until 2022.

Nocturnal promotional poster

While planning the live show, The Midnight also began work on their next record. The band shared a clip from a studio session with Nikki Flores in February 2017 and several weeks later McEwan shared that he was writing songs with Lyle in New York City, Lyle's home at the time. A new song from the unnamed record was played at the DNA Lounge show, and clips of new songs continued to be shared throughout the summer. During this time, a remix album was announced in July from the label Silk Music, who had previously released remix singles of WeMoveForward and Days of Thunder in 2016. The release of The Midnight Remixed in August was a significant milestone for the band, as it was their first album to be associated with a label and the first to appear on a Billboard chart, peaking at number 22 on the Dance/Electronic Albums Chart.

Also in August 2017, The Midnight's new album Nocturnal was officially announced. Crystalline was released as its only single in September, followed by the album release in October. Featuring collaborations with Nikki Flores and Timecop1983, Nocturnal was noted for having a considerably darker sound compared to previous The Midnight offerings and received mostly positive reviews from critics. Synthwave news site NewRetroWave chose it as their top EP of 2017. In addition to being the top-selling album on Bandcamp for more than a week, Nocturnal also charted at number 17 on the Billboard Dance/Electronic Albums Chart and later peaked at number 17 on the Billboard Heatseekers Album chart in 2018.

The Midnight capped 2017 with another sold out, co-headlining show with FM-84. This show took place at the Globe Theatre in Los Angeles and featured Nikki Flores live with the band for the first time.

2018-2020: Kids trilogy begins, touring, second remix album, and Monsters

Shortly after the release of Nocturnal, Tim McEwan revealed that The Midnight's next record was already in development. It was slated to be a more "summer feeling" EP that they expected to release in the spring or summer of 2018. While work commenced on the new record, the band did a small tour of four shows in March 2018 in the cities of Chicago and New York City. In April, The Midnight's first official tour was announced for the fall, with 18 shows planned across North America. Strong ticket sales prompted The Midnight to announce their first European shows in June, which would take place in spring 2019.

In May 2018, The Midnight were featured on the Timecop1983 song Static from his album Night Drive. New singles Lost Boy and America 2 appeared in July and August, and later in August the next The Midnight album was confirmed to be Kids. Releasing in September, Kids showcased a more upbeat and lighter tone compared to Nocturnal and received more mixed reviews compared to previous The Midnight offerings. It garnered the band more commercial success, debuting at number one on the Billboard Dance/Electronic Album Sales chart, number 12 on the Dance/Electronic Albums chart, number two on the Heatseekers Albums chart, and number 13 on the Independent Albums chart. Kids would be the first release in a trilogy series of albums for The Midnight that continued with Monsters in 2020 and concluded with Heroes in 2022.

The Fall 2018 Tour commenced in September 2018 and proved to be a success, with almost every show selling out. The first show took place at the North Coast Music Festival in Chicago, which was the band's first music festival appearance.

On September 27, 2019, Silk Music released The Midnight's second remix album, The Midnight Remixed 02. The Midnight Remixed 02 features 11 new remixes of previously released The Midnight songs, with contributions from the likes of Timecop1983, Blood Grove & Kikis, and Claes Rosen.

To promote the album's release, Silk Music released three remix singles: Shadows (Uppermost Remix), which released on August 23, 2019, Arcade Dreams (Timecop1983 Remix), which released on September 13, 2019, and Kids (PROFF Dub Remix), which released on September 20, 2019.

The album peaked at number eight on the Billboard Dance/Electronic Albums Chart and number one on the USA iTunes Dance Top Albums Chart.

The Midnight released their fourth album Monsters on July 10, 2020, through the label Counter Records. A continuation of Kids, the album contains 15 tracks and is their largest release to date in terms of the number of songs. It features a collaboration with the Los Angeles based music duo Jupiter Winter on the title track.

Noted for moving the band's sound in a different direction and expanding its horizons, Monsters received mostly positive reviews from critics. Also obtaining commercial success, the album charted at number 134 on the Billboard 200, number 12 on the Dance/Electronic Albums chart, and number 18 on the Independent Albums chart.

Monsters was preceded by the release of four singles. America Online was the first single and was released on May 3, 2019. The second single, Deep Blue, was released on May 6, 2020. The third single, Dance With Somebody, was released on June 10, 2020. The fourth and final single, Prom Night, was released on June 24, 2020.

The instrumental version of Monsters was released on October 8, 2020.

2020-2021: Branching out with Horror Show and The Rearview Mirror

Main article: Horror Show

Horror Show EP cover

The Midnight's second EP, Horror Show, was released on October 16, 2020, through Counter Records. The EP was originally only available to stream on Amazon Music before receiving a wide release to all platforms on March 19, 2021. Physical copies of the EP were also available to pre-order from the band's official store on release day, with all orders including a digital download of the EP alongside its instrumentals.

Announced as a prize during the Fall 2020 ARG, the EP contains six tracks. With a darker sound reminiscent of Nocturnal, Horror Show sees The Midnight collaborating with producer Essenger for the first time, who co-produced four of the tracks. The band also collaborated again with Nikki Flores on the song Because The Night, a cover of the original 1978 song by Bruce Springsteen and Patti Smith.

The Rearview Mirror EP cover

The Midnight's third EP, The Rearview Mirror was released on July 23, 2021. Released to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the band's album Endless Summer, the EP features five songs that have been re-imagined with orchestral arrangements performed by the Magik*Magik Orchestra. Vampires was released as a single from the EP on July 9, 2021. On June 24, 2021, a 5 Year Anniversary Edition of Endless Summer was released featuring two additional songs: Bend and Comet.

2022-present: The Heroes era and expanded touring

Heroes album cover

Heroes, The Midnight's fifth album, was released on September 9, 2022.

Five singles released from Heroes: Change Your Heart or Die which released on April 14, 2022, Heartbeat, which released on June 8, 2022, Avalanche which was released on July 6, 2022, Brooklyn. Friday. Love. which was released on August 3, 2022 and Heart Worth Breaking which was released on August 24, 2022.

Style and workflow

For most of their career, The Midnight has created a strong and distinct synthwave sound in their music - Tim McEwan once described the band's early albums "as if Miami Vice had a baby with a John Hughes movie." However, McEwan has continuously expressed a desire to evolve the synthwave genre and not be confined by it. Tyler Lyle has stated several times that the band's philosophy when composing is "combine, not confine." Influences of genres such as lo-fi, soft rock, trance, and vaporwave can be heard on Monsters, and Lyle's musical background has brought influences of indie folk and Americana to the band's sound as well. Regarding the merging of their individual talents and styles, Lyle has said:

It’s rock and roll with synthesizers. Tim has a keen ear for production, and I can write songs that fit comfortably within the tradition of 20th century classic pop songwriting. Somewhere in the middle things get interesting.

McEwan employs various digital synths in his production, including Serum, Diva, TAL-U-NO-LX, Spire, and Roland Cloud's Jupiter 8 and Juno 106. In mid-2020, he mentioned that his favorite synth to use at the time was U-He's emulation of Prophet-5, known as Repro 5. McEwan has stated that he commonly begins with presets and then tweaks them to his liking. KONTAKT is used for sampling. In 2020, both Lyle and McEwan started adding more analog equipment to their audio setups. In early 2021, McEwan shared that his current home studio consisted of the following equipment:

• Roland Juno-106
• Sequential OB-6
• Sequential Prophet 6
• Oberheim Matrix-6
• Yamaha DX7
• Casio CZ 1000
• Dynaudio LYD 8 studio monitors
• Universal Audio Apollo x8

Both McEwan and Lyle use Logic Pro on macOS as their primary Digital Audio Workstation (DAW). Universal Audio interfaces are used to capture their sounds, which are then processed using UAD plugins. Using the same utilities makes it easier for them to share session files as a significant amount of their work is done remotely, due to living in different areas of the US. However, they will usually get together in the same room a few times during a release's production and will often write and record together while on tour. A release's sound and overall direction are generally created by the two bouncing ideas off each other - McEwan will send Lyle a rough track or beat, which Lyle will then think of lyrics and a title that would go good with the beat, after which McEwan will further build and produce the track. McEwan has stated that the production of a typical The Midnight album takes around three to six months, "from the early gestating part to finish."

Synths, drums, and overall production are handled by McEwan, with Lyle providing guitar, lyrics, and vocals. Lyle has stated that he writes on a daily basis, and many lyrics come from a large number of fragments he keeps stored in Evernote. During a fan question-and-answer session on Twitter prior to the release of Monsters, he mentioned that he "wrote about 250 songs between 2016-2019" and "20 something of those songs got properly demoed/ realistically considered for Monsters." Regarding his general writing process and how he writes for The Midnight, Lyle has said:

I write The Midnight lyrically (mostly) as the fantasy that I never experienced. I lean a bit utopian sometimes and let the images get grander than I experienced. I was on the debate team. I had a lisp. I was really into Syphon Filter. The fun is in the make believe.

I write everyday. Some of it goes in The Midnight folder. Some of it goes off into far far away places. It works best when Tim has a cool musical skeleton and I have a cool lyrical skeleton we can smush together and build together.

Most of the remaining instrumentation is digital, but on occasion songs (including most with saxophone and guitar solos) will at first have digital instruments that are then outsourced to other musicians to play live on the track. Thomas Edinger has been the primary saxophone player for The Midnight's releases, and McEwan's brother Oliver has frequently played bass for the band as well.

For live performances, various setups have been used by the band. Lyle stated that the Spring 2019 Tour utilized an Ableton rig, with McEwan using an SPD SX sampling pad and MIDI controller. Lyle ran his guitars through a Kemper profiling amp, and he also used an OP1 for certain synth moments and pads. Most shows will also feature live bass, acoustic, and electric guitars, as well as live saxophone. As of the Change Your Heart Tour, the band's touring lineup consists of McEwan on synths and drums, Lyle on guitar and synths, Lelia Broussard on bass and synths, Justin Klunk on saxophone and synths, and Royce Whittaker on guitar and synths. Lyle is the primary vocalist and the others perform backing vocals. Klunk joined the touring lineup for the Spring leg of the Fall 2021 and Spring 2022 Tour, replacing longtime saxophone player Jesse Molloy, who had been with the band since their first live shows in 2017. Broussard joined the band prior to the start of the Fall 2019 Tour and Whittaker joined the lineup full-time during the Change Your Heart Tour. Nikki Flores occasionally appears at some shows as a vocalist, performing her collaborations with the band in addition to singing vocals on Sunset.

Members

See also: List of The Midnight people

The Midnight's current touring lineup: Tyler Lyle, Royce Whittaker, Tim McEwan, Lelia Broussard, and Justin Klunk.

Current members

• Tim McEwan (producer, songwriter, percussion, synths, occasional vocals)
• Tyler Lyle (songwriter, lead vocals, guitar, occasional synths)

Touring members

• Lelia Broussard (vocals, guitar, synths)
• Royce Whittaker (guitar, synths)
• Justin Klunk (saxophone, synths)

Occasional/past tour members

• Nikki Flores (vocals)
• Thomas Edinger (saxophone)
• Jacob Scesney (saxophone)
• Alekos “Kosie” Syropoulos (saxophone, synths)
• Lito Hernandez (saxophone)
• Chris Kuffner (guitar, synths)
• Jesse Molloy (saxophone, synths)

Discography

Main articles: The Midnight discography and List of songs by The Midnight

Main releases

• Days of Thunder (2014)
• Endless Summer (2016)
• Nocturnal (2017)
• Kids (2018)
• Monsters (2020)
• Horror Show (2020)
• Heroes (2022)

Tours and live appearances

Main article: List of The Midnight live performances

• Turbo Drive: FM-84 & The Midnight
• Fall 2018 Tour
• Spring 2019 Tour
• Fall 2019 Tour
• The Midnight Online
• Fall 2021 and Spring 2022 Tour
• Change Your Heart Tour
• Fall 2023 North American Tour

References

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External links

• Official website
• Twitter
• Instagram
• YouTube
• Facebook
• Bandcamp
• TikTok