‘WE TRY EVERYTHING’
Synthwave duo The Midnight touring again after releasing album during pandemic
It’s 20 minutes before sound check, and Tyler Lyle and Tim McEwan are feeling relaxed. It’s been a while since the pair — known as The Midnight — have been on stage performing for a live audience.
But it’s like riding a bike. It takes a short time to feel comfortable again. The Midnight will stop in Albuquerque at the Historic El Rey Theater on Tuesday, Nov. 23 for a show.
“We’ve been touring for a few weeks, and we’ve realized how much we miss it,” Lyle says. “It’s been amazing to see people again in an audience.”
Lyle and McEwan have been working together for nearly 10 years after meeting in a co-writing workshop in 2012 in California and forming the synthwave band.
In 2020, they released the full-length album “Monsters” but couldn’t tour.
Lyle says they’ve been working on a follow-up to “Monsters.”
McEwan says he’s the one who writes a bunch of crack ideas.
“When we come together, we see what can work as a song,” McEwan says. “Sometimes it’s a perfect match, and most often, an idea doesn’t work. That’s part of the fun of the process of working with Tyler. We try everything.”
The Midnight is approaching its 10th anniversary in 2022, and the band has a lot of songs in its catalog.
Putting together the set list can be difficult.
“We don’t have any ‘big hits,’ but we have songs that are fan favorites,” McEwan says. “We work some of the newer songs in with those. We put out ‘Monsters’ more than a year ago, and we haven’t toured for this record. This tour has been our first chance to play the songs live for people and see how they work. It’s been fun to make the songs work in a live context. Yes, it does get harder to put together a set, because we do have a lot of material.”
Lyle says working with McEwan has become like second nature and the two balance each other out.
“Tim is oriented around the project and the process,” Lyle says. “I make a lot of stuff. The fun of this project is the synthesis of it.”
The Midnight performed at Meow Wolf in Santa Fe before the pandemic.
The show in Albuquerque will mark the band’s first concert in the Duke City.
“It’s rare that we play a lot of venues over and over,” Lyle says. “It’s always a new experience for us, because we continue to play bigger venues each time we head out on tour. Santa Fe got us for our first show, but Albuquerque is going to be even more amazing.”