Parenting Panel with Faint Halos’ Paul Hashemi
After a short hiatus during the pandemic, Faint Halos is back with a brand new single called “Something To Lose”, from the eagerly awaited new album “I can see a million lights.”
Paul Hashemi, multi-talented singer-songwriter and instrumentalist who goes under the moniker Faint Halos, previously released the song with a very modern rock sound, but opted to take it in a new and fresh direction with this acoustic rendition.
Based in Philadelphia, Paul has completed formal classical music training in piano, violin and viola, as well as touring extensively with various rock bands along the East Coast in the 1990’s.
During the pandemic, Paul took time out to focus on family responsibilities and it was then that he re-discovered his passion for music to begin writing once again.
We caught up with Paul recently for an Exclusive Interview to discover more about his musical inspirations, parenthood, and how being a parent has helped his creativity!
How many children do you have? And what are their names and ages?
I have two daughters, Cate and Alex - they are 19 and 17 right now.
Did you have fears or concerns about how becoming a parent would interfere with your artistic endeavors? And have those fears come true, or not?
I have been a musician since before I can remember, but I was also a person who didn’t necessarily want to make a living from it. My early days of playing gigs in bars taught me that it was possible for it to become “just a job”, and I didn’t want that, so it was always something I did on the side.
In the years when my wife and I had our kids, I had been playing in a band, and I kept it up for a while. But time was scarce and I was struggling with my songwriting. And then when the kids were toddlers, and my wife had decided to leave her job and stay home with them, I got laid off. That was terrifying, and suddenly success in my day job felt like it was life-or-death. When I got another job, I worked like a demon was chasing me.
That started a decade where I didn’t write anything; I sold off most of my gear, kept a guitar and amp in the closet and my old beater acoustic lying around. We still had a piano in the house, and I played now and then, but the only time I really played in front of anyone was at, like, holiday parties for my kids’ preschool.
All that pressure - it wasn’t from my kids, obviously, but it was for them, knowing that I needed to provide for them - took its toll on my health and emotional well-being, and music was pretty much out of the picture for me for a while. So I didn’t really have a fear that becoming a parent would interfere with music… but it turned out that it really did. Both the parenting, and the pressure of being a parent.
It all started to come back around for me a few years ago. When my girls were pre-teens, parenting was different. The need for parents to be involved wasn’t as constant as it was when they were younger, but when they needed us, they really needed us. Still, this was a better time. I was able to start exercising again, got more in control in my job, and started finding a little more time for creativity.
But then the pandemic is what really jump-started things for me. When it started, and it dawned on us that we’d all be in isolation for a long time, I immediately thought of starting to record music. I bought a laptop and put Ableton Live on it, and picked up another guitar, a microphone, and a MIDI keyboard, and I started teaching myself how to record and mix from YouTube videos. I spent a few months just messing around and then decided I wanted to write again.
In what ways has parenthood helped your creativity, if any? And have you ever written a song for or about your kids?
When I made this return to writing, I discovered that I was able to process these experiences that I had, and they were a hell of a lot more compelling than what I had been writing before. And they take so long to process, for me at least, that I couldn’t really write about them while I was having them.
For example, there’s a song I recorded called “Arcade”. It’s about my family’s move to Pennsylvania for my new job, when we were broke and everything was uncertain, and my wife and I were scared but we put on a brave face for our kids. That happened to me in 2008, and I wrote the song in 2020, because that’s how long it took me to really understand how I had been feeling.
It’s quiet in this place we made
Waiting underneath the arcade
Gotta believe we’re not the only ones
When everyone’s a stranger
Do your best to show them where you’re from
Got my mind wide open
Waiting for those better days to come
There are a couple of songs on my new album that are more directly about my kids. “The Miracle Comes” is pretty much a conversation with one of my daughters about the state of the world - she had a school assignment to envision a conversation with someone from the past, and she had chosen a civil rights leader from the ‘60s, and she had written in a draft of her paper something along the lines of, “I think they’d be disappointed because nothing has changed.” And I found that so distressing, because yes, we still have a ton of problems in our society and our world, but there are so many ways in which things really have gotten better. So the song is a dialogue between me and her. And I tried hard to write it in a way where there are valid points on both sides - it’s not like I’m right and she’s wrong.
You say, “Nothing ever changes here
Still caught up in the same old fears
Always born at the wrong time”
I say, “If you think in terms of centuries
For so much of humanity
Every generation is a bright line”
What has parenthood taught you about yourself, your music, or your creative process?
Basically, patience. I’ve found that I have a really loud “rational voice” that wants to process everything in really direct terms. It’s what I use in my day job and my regular life, and that’s fine, it does what it’s supposed to do. But when I need to let the emotional impact in, and open myself to the muse, so to speak, it takes a long time to make that rational voice recede. And you have to do that to make good art.
That’s why it took me 12 years to write “Arcade”. We were lost, driving around this unfamiliar place, cranky with each other, with our kids sleeping in the backseat after moving out of the only house they could remember living in. It’s not like in the moment I was thinking, “man, this is going to be a good song!” It was just life happening, and it wasn’t particularly pleasant. I was in problem-solving mode, and it would take years to reflect back on that feeling of acute vulnerability.
I think parenthood taught me to open up my feelings as a songwriter. A great song shares a feeling. It isn’t always factual or autobiographical. Our first single on this album, “Something to Lose”, is about a summer love that fades away into uncertainty. I’ve been happily married for 23 years, so if that is something from my past, I don’t even remember it.
“Last Scenes of the Resistance” is written from the point of view of a freedom fighter leaving a note to his family - I had Syria in mind when I was writing it, but it’s not that specific - and he’s going to do something, and he doesn’t know if he’s coming back. The fear, the hope, that’s all there. I’ve never been in that situation, thankfully. But we all can relate to the feeling. The fundamental core is a paternal instinct to protect, to provide, to make your family secure… and the questioning that comes when you’re not sure if you can do it. The feelings are real, and they’re familiar - every parent can relate to that, even if the stakes aren’t always so dramatic.
What’s one thing you wish someone had told you before you became a parent? Any advice for others?
Well, this one is totally not music-related, but you’re giving me a forum, so hey. I remember before we had kids, my wife and I had a lot of opinions on other people’s parenting. And even when we had our first daughter, we tended to attribute everything she did to some parenting decision we made - oh, she’s picky because we didn’t make her eat her veggies, she’s a great singer because we exposed her to a lot of music, etc.
And it turns out that’s all bullshit. Yes, parenting matters. You need to cultivate self-esteem, curiosity, kindness, and other things. But they are their own people, and the most amazing thing about being a parent is finding out who they are. Your choices don’t count for nearly as much as you think they do when you’re getting started.
So don’t be too hard on yourself, don’t keep a tight score. And certainly don’t judge other parents. Do your best and share your values and let your kids learn who they are.
This question is fun for me because my girls are pretty much grown up now, and every year is better than the one before. They are amazing young women. One of them is the best singer I know - she sings on a few songs on the album. The other goes to shows with me (we saw Big Thief, Phoebe Bridgers, Beck, Phoenix, and Rina Sawayama over the past few years). Being their dad feels easy now. There were a lot of times when it didn’t - kids these days have to deal with so many things that cause anxiety, depression, and worse. I’ve written songs for my kids that nobody will ever hear, because they’re too personal, too scared. They don’t really need to know how terrifying the ride was. But we’re all in a really good place now. So have faith, do your best, and don’t sweat little mistakes. If you do that, you’ve done enough.
Connect with Faint Halos:
Website / Facebook / Instagram / Spotify / Soundcloud / YouTube Music
Listen to “Something To Lose” out now on Spotify and YouTube Music!