What evolved from that chance event was Melbourne indie shoegaze band Pray TV, which Halloran subsequently joined as lead singer. It was an odd time in Australian music history, with the division between mainstream and independent music as tangible as the ideological divide that defined the Cold War. But within a few years the success of Nirvana’s Nevermind would be the catalyst for a thawing of relations; or, in reality, a mad race by major labels seeking to plunder the independent music scene for the next crossover cash cow. Like many other bands, Pray TV found themselves swept up in the frenzy.
“Nirvana exploded and every mainstream label decided they had to find the next Nirvana or something in that vein. There was a lot of bands suddenly finding themselves on what was once a label they’d never have gone near, and with mixed results. Not many of them came away unscathed by the experience,” Halloran says.
While major labels cast their eye across Pray TV, the band was very much an independent band. In the days before the Internet provided the foundation for self-managed promotional campaigns, the support of a record label, even an independent one, was critical. “A label like AuGoGo had a very good reputation in Australia and internationally,” Halloran says. “Just being on that label all of a sudden made you a serious proposition.”
By 1997 Pray TV was starting to wane. Then the band’s driving force and principal songwriter, guitarist Martin Kennedy, declared he wanted to move on from Pray TV. While Halloran had hoped the band could continue, the news that Kennedy wanted to cease working as Pray TV didn’t come as a surprise. “It was a long time coming, you could feel it. You feel like there’s something missing, and when it actually happened it was a bit of a relief,” he says.
Following Pray TV’s demise, Kennedy embarked on his All India Radio project. Halloran concedes music was never an obsession in his life, and after Pray TV broke he steered clear of any new musical projects. A Pray TV reunion remained an unlikely prospect until a benefit gig was organised for a friend of the band to raise money for cardiac treatment. Sadly, the friend passed away before the gig took place, but the band members’ enthusiasm to play another gig remained. Within a year Pray TV had reformed for a one-off reunion gig at the Yarra Hotel in January 2015. Kennedy then surprised Halloran by saying he had some songs that would fit on a new Pray TV album.
And so it was that Pray TV entered the studio to record Horizontal Life, the band’s first album in 20 years. “The interesting thing [about the new album] is that nothing much has changed,” Halloran says. “We really enjoyed it, and I think the results sound unforced and unpressured, which is what we were after. It’s because we said ‘Let’s just do it,’ one or two rehearsals, then recorded. We did whatever came naturally, which is what we used to do. It sounds like an album we could have made after the last album.”
BY PATRICK EMERY
