The Obelisk Questionnaire: Collyn McCoy of Circle of Sighs & Night City
The Obelisk Questionnaire is a series of open questions intended to give the answerer an opportunity to explore these ideas and stories from their life as deeply as they choose. Answers can be short or long, and that reveals something in itself, but the most important factor is honesty.
Based on the Proust Questionnaire, the goal over time is to show a diverse range of perspectives as those who take part bring their own points of view to answering the same questions. To see all The Obelisk Questionnaire posts, click here.
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The Obelisk Questionnaire: Collyn McCoy of Circle of Sighs & Night City
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How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?
I’ve recently come to terms with the fact that what I do probably fits best into a “composer/producer” box. For a long time I considered myself a bassist who just happened to write some tunes. A “band dude” in other words. But then there was a stretch, from about 2017 to 2021, when I really wasn’t playing much bass at all. I was making a lot of music, in a lot of different projects, but only a bit of it involved four strings tuned way down low. So I figured maybe “bassist” isn’t what I should lead with.
Coming to terms with that fact happened to coincide with “composing” and “producing” becoming a much bigger part of what I do vocationally. I produce a good deal of music for video games, which involves a bit of composing (and performing), but mostly finding talent, booking studios, and following the head chef’s recipe to ensure that the soup gets made to everyone’s liking. But I’ve been doing some film composing as well and in fact I just finished the score to a very fun (and bloody violent) horror film that will be hitting the festival circuit soon. I can’t say much more but if you like Goblin, Tangerine Dream, Vangelis, and John Carpenter, the score is right in that wheelhouse.
But even a lot of the “avocational” music I make (i.e. my own shit) really doesn’t easily fit in a band box. I mean I get an idea and I make it happen but is it something I’m going to play out? Do I need to put together a new band and go play shows for every thing I do? Do I need to make shirts, sell merch, do a van tour? I mean I would love to, but that seems exhausting. Tommy Meehan from Deaf Club, Cancer Christ, etc etc seems to pull it off, plus make music for a bunch of cool cartoons my daughter loves, but he’s a bit younger than me and also, I’m pretty sure, super-human.
All that said, the Night City live iteration is coming together nicely and will soon be a thing.
Describe your first musical memory.
My dad was a musician — a bassist actually — so there were always musical instruments and musicians around the house. I remember my dad’s friends coming over for a jam session — jazz stuff, standards mostly — and I was bangin’ along on a little electric piano in the corner and to my toddler ears, it worked. Dad’s friends seemed to agree, or at least they were stoned enough that it worked for them in an Ornette Coleman sort of way. Beyond that, though — and this is a very very clear musical memory — it was hearing Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love” while going to day care in my dad’s Volkswagen Camper Van. That breakdown section gave me chills, and still does. I don’t care if it’s supposed to be Robert Plant jizzing. It’s musical magic.
Describe your best musical memory to date.
DesertFest UK and DesertFest Germany with Ultra Electric Mega Galactic were both fantastic experiences. I’ve played to bigger crowds — a few anyway — but none more appreciative and “on the same page.”
There were a few Aboleth shows that were really special — Clarksville, TN, comes to mind. We were a new-ish band and our album had only been out about a week but there were people singing along to every word. Gave me the feelz.
Also, I did play bass live on network TV with Tony Danza — not the tech-metal band but the actual Tony Danza — which crossed something off a bucket list I didn’t know I had.
But lately, it’s when I take my daughter to her piano class and hear the massive leaps in progress that she makes each week. I get moist eyeballs every time. Every. Damn. Time.
When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?
I gave up on firmly held beliefs a long time ago. They never work out. But I suppose accepting the fact that I’m a lot more flawed of a human being than I thought I would be by now, as a middle-aged dude — but that that’s actually OKAY — was a sort of breakthrough.
Where do you feel artistic progression leads?
I honestly don’t know but I’m dying to find out. I’ve been on this journey for a long-ass time and I feel like I’m discovering new things all the time. It’s like a video game where you think you beat the final boss only to realize that was just the end of the first level. Sorry, I’ve been working on games long enough that I’m starting to think in those terms.
How do you define success?
Contentment. Satisfaction. It’s not even happiness necessarily — not everyone is happy or meant to be happy all the time — but just knowing that you hit one out of the park in a way that can always hold up as an example of achieving what you want to achieve.
What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?
A Serbian Film. Without hyperbole I can say that a part of me died when I saw that movie. The Trump Years, especially the pandemic portion of that, had a similar effect on me — just that gross realization that humanity is a lot more nihilistic, self-destructive, hateful, and stupid than I previously had thought.
Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.
I have some really big fuckin’ ideas for Circle of Sighs and I’ve barely scratched the surface of what I want that project to become. It was never meant to be a band. A creative collective, sure, and music would be a part of what that collective creates. But I always envisioned CoS as more of a touring multimedia event that draws from a whole bunch of disciplines — visual art, theater, video, projection mapping, dance, even mime. And I’m zero percent joking about the mime thing and in fact we recently starting incorporating mime into our live show and believe it or not it was really well received. But CoS, in its ideal final form, will be a lot more like Blue Man Group, Mummenchanz, or Cirque Du Soliel than say Black Label Society. I shouldn’t even need to be on the stage. Anyone should be able to pick up the gauntlet and run with it.
I mean a production like that would take a lot of money, and that’s not a thing that I have a lot of, but perhaps some investor or grantor would allow it to happen. Never say never!
What do you believe is the most essential function of art?
Expressing something that can’t be better expressed — or understood — any other way.
Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?
Hanging out with friends and not having to mask up. Seeing them laugh with their actual mouth holes, hearing them speak not through a wall of microfibre. I mean I was bullish on masks and still am when necessary, but I missed seeing my friends visages and it’s great that I’m starting to again.
I’m looking forward to watching my daughter grow up just so long as it doesn’t happen too fast.
And I look forward to seeing Yob tonight. Which is not musical so much as it is spiritual. I mean I’m not a religious guy by any means, but I’ve seen Yob probably 100 times and it is exactly the same as every beatific event I’ve ever read about — enlightenment, “seeing the light,” holy bliss, ego death — it’s all that and more. But, like, fuckin’ doom.
https://www.facebook.com/NightCity666
https://www.instagram.com/nightcity666/
http://www.facebook.com/dunealtar
http://instagram.com/dunealtar
http://www.dunealtar.com/
https://www.facebook.com/circleofsighs/
https://circleofsighs.bandcamp.com/
https://circleofsighs.com/
https://metalassault.bandcamp.com/
http://facebook.com/metalassaultla
http://instagram.com/metalassault
Really enjoyed this!