By Carl Begai

Being faced with your own mortality is a surefire way to put life’s mundane trials and tribulations in perspective. HALCYON WAY guitarist Jon Bodan found himself staring into just such a mirror in October 2010, having been diagnosed with lymphoma practically on the eve of the band’s second album release. Had this interview gone down several months ago as planned, conversation would likely have centered on Bodan’s condition, and the effects it had on his day-to-day existence and Halcyon Way. Instead, we were able to focus on the band’s new album, IndoctriNation, and Bodan’s hopes for their future, as he was given a clean bill of health the same week we finally hooked up.

“I’m in full remission,” says Bodan, “and basically there's no treatment, per se. I just have to do scans every three to six months for the next three to five years to monitor things closely in case of recurrence. After five years they consider you to be cured. Until then you're in remission.”

The ultimate shot in the arm, it’s safe to assume that in spite of the obstacles and frustration that come with being a small band in today’s music industry, Bodan and Halcyon Way are geared to keep hacking away and pushing forward until they get through.

“We have that conversation regularly,” Bodan admits. "At the end of the day you have to do this because you love to do it. It’s in our blood. The first record, A Manifesto For Domination, put our flag in the ground and got us out there. The first pressing sold out, but I don’t know if it’s done much beyond that. With Building The Towers, we felt really strongly about it and decided we were going to take it as far as we could go with regards to pushing it and putting our money where our mouth was. I think the album did really well for us, and the reviews that we got were almost all really good. It sold through the first pressing in less than six months. We re-pressed it in May or June this year, and it only came out last October.”

So, it’s safe to say Halcyon Way made inroads with Building The Towers the hard way, as a word-of-mouth band.

“Pretty much. We did a campaign through BW&BK;, which I think helped us, and we did a little bit of touring behind it, but not as much as we would have liked because of my health. I think we could have pushed the album further, but we knew all along we were going to put out a sequel to it.”

That sequel, IndoctriNation, is due for release this October, less than a year since Building The Towers was unleashed. Bodan reveals the new album features material that was penned during the Building The Towers sessions and polished while he was being treated for lymphoma over the last 10 months. The material has been on the backburner for quite some time.

“When we did A Manifesto For Domination, from the time we started tracking it to the time it came out, it was nearly five years. We changed vocalists, there were other line-up changes, so it took a long time. That whole time we were writing new material, so we had a ton of new songs written for Building The Towers ready to go. We actually tracked 16 songs during the Building The Towers sessions and were kind of torn the whole time, because we felt very strongly about all the material. We didn’t know if we were going to put out a double CD, which would have been too long, or if we should put out two albums. We ultimately decided to go with two albums, putting them out as a Part 1 and Part 2. It was just a matter of hashing out the details once Building The Towers came out.”

IndoctriNation continues Halcyon Way’s “equal parts prog and metal” direction, a sound that has roped in fans from both sides of the fence. For every DREAM THEATER or FATES WARNING fan that may be put off by bassist Kris Maltenieks’ death-inspired growls, the band’s melodic assault is attractive. Likewise, traditional metal fans that get off on acts like CAGE or PRIMAL FEAR can find worth in Halcyon Way’s no-nonsense crush groove in spite of their technical overtones. None of it is a put-on; Bodan and Company come by their musical schizophrenia honestly.

“I grew up as a fan of Bay Area thrash, went from there and got into death metal. But at the same time I veered off and got into prog metal as well. I’m really into stuff like old QUEENSRYCHE and Fates Warning, things along those lines that are technical yet song-oriented. Our bass player and drummer have a black metal side project, my first band was a death metal band, so we’re definitely geared in a heavier direction rather than music featuring frilly keyboards and accompanied by silk shirts and lace-up leather pants (laughs).”

Bodan gives credit where it’s due, revealing it was the prog scene that gave Halcyon Way their break in spite of the bandnot exactly fitting the mold.

“We kind of broke out in the prog scene because ProgPower USA is based in Atlanta, and I’ve been going to that for a long time. We played the showcase back in 2004, then again in 2007, and that’s really how we started getting attention. ProgPower is also how we met Lance King (Nightmare Records label boss). So yeah, it’s funny we came out of the prog scene because a lot of those prog bands aren’t really doing anything progressive; they’re just formulaic and loaded down with keyboards.”
“I’ve been listening to James LaBrie’s Static Impulse album,” Bodan adds, “and I’ll go out on a limb and say it’s better than anything Dream Theater has released in the last 10 years. It’s heavy, it grooves, it’s got a streak of prog in it, but every song is catchy and well written. It keeps your attention, which is what we consciously try to do with out music. Our drummer (Ernie Topran) listens to a lot of insane prog stuff, so he always wants to push his playing forward and be more technical, whereas I listen to a lot of metal and stuff like MONSTER MAGNET and CKY, which is really simple stuff in comparison. So, we have this dynamic where Ernie will want to prog it up and I’ll be, ‘No, dude, do a caveman beat…’ and we end up in the middle somewhere (laughs).”

Now with a clean bill of health, Bodan hopes to use the new album to get the band on the road and give the Building The Towers material the attention that was snatched away when he was diagnosed.

“That’s what we intend to do, because it was heartbreaking beyond the normal fear and anxiety that comes along with getting sick like that. I was diagnosed with lymphoma less than two weeks before we were supposed to start a European tour with STUCK MOJO. We were supposed to kick it off and do a show in Paris with FOZZY before moving on to the tour, so that just about killed us when we had to cancel. The record came out in the week between those two dates, so we had this incredible album out and had to put on the brakes. Then we had two more European tour offers and one domestic tour offer, all of which we had to turn down. It sucked because we couldn’t buy a tour for anything when Manifesto came out (laughs).”

halcyonway.com