(*both laugh*) Episode 58: Brian McTernan on the new Be Well album ”Hello Sun,” reuniting with Hot Water Music, and more!

(*both laugh*) is somehow up to 58 episodes, but we're still having fun and some of y'all seem to still enjoy it, so we'll keep rolling! This episode finds us catching up with the great Brian McTernan again. McTernan was the guest on Episode 15 a couple of years ago, in the lead-up to the debut Be Well album, "The Weight And The Cost." Next Friday (May 20th if you're reading this in the future), Be Well is back with a brand new album! It's a six-song EP called "Hello Sun," and it finds the band expanding the sonic palette that I thought they had perfected on "TW&TC." It's really great and personal and haunting and melodic and everything you want form a post-hardcore record (or whatever, I don't get labels) and more. We talk an awful lot about the new album and the musical directions.

In a bit of unexpected synchronicity, May is also Mental Health Awareness Month, and Brian is no stranger to talking about his struggles with depression and alcohol use and more, as is pretty obvious if you listened to the last album. We talk about that, but about how the new album, while "dark," isn't dark for dark's sake; it's written from the perspective of someone who has moved through the darkness and worked towards a newfound light. Thus, "Hello Sun."

We also talked a lot about the newest Hot Water Music Record, "Feel The Void." After having worked on "A Flight And A Crash" and "Caution" and "The New What Next" roughly two decades ago, McTernan found himself both reconnected with the now five-piece band during the early days of the Covid lockdown and at the helm of "Feel The Void." It was a fascinating time in that band's history and produced an important album, and McTernan's work (and point of view) are invaluable. And we talk a lot about their upcoming tour dates, and there are a TON of them on both sides of the Atlantic, including a lengthy run with New Found Glory and a UK/EU jaunt with Hot Water Music and Samiam.

"Hello Sun" on Bandcamp: https://bewellhardcore.bandcamp.com/album/hello-sun

"Hello Sun" US/Canada vinyl on Revelation Records: https://revhq.com/products/be-well-hello-sun

"Hello Sun" UK/EU vinyl on End Hits: https://endhitsrecords.com/products/be-well-hello-sun

Be Well merch store: https://bewell.merchnow.com/

(*both laughs*) theme song is an excerpt from [laughs] track "Hurts To Laugh." © KALI MASI 2021 ℗ Take This To Heart Records 2021