From their unlikely formation on Netflix’s ‘Building the Band’ to the release of their debut ‘Afterglow’ EP, Midnight Til Morning look back on the friendships, growing pains, and shared vision that turned four strangers into a band – and ultimately, a brotherhood.

Stream: ‘Afterglow’ – Midnight Til Morning

In a show based on voice alone, Midnight Til Morning found their perfect match.

After living together, filming, and touring, they’re closer than ever.

Since their August debut, Midnight Til Morning have quickly stolen the hearts of pop music lovers everywhere. Comprised of Shane Appell, Zach Newbould, Conor Smith, and Mason Watts, the up-and-coming boy band first met on Netflix’s reality television singing competition Building the Band, and have been unstoppable ever since. After exclusively performing covers on Building the Band, the four created a collection of songs that authentically represent those first chapters of their journey as a group.

Afterglow - Midnight Til Morning — Afterglow – Midnight Til Morning

Released October 8 via Chugg Music, Afterglow EP showcases the band’s enthusiastic, bright, hook-heavy pop elements while tapping into darker shades of their burgeoning sound. Their single “Navy Eyes” in particular introduces fans to a new, more intimate and moody approach to their music. As the band explain, that intimacy is baked into the track’s very purpose: “‘Navy Eyes’ is a song you listen to while driving through the city late at night, with your best friend, partner, or by yourself,” they tell Atwood Magazine. “It’s a positive romantic anthem made to soundtrack those special moments.”

If I grabbed the keys and started leavin’
Would you fight for us to keep me right here?
If you say you need me like you mean it
I’m goin’ nowhere

For Midnight Til Morning, everything changed quickly and dramatically. The group went from signing NDAs and keeping their friendship a secret, to releasing an EP and going on tour in what felt like no time at all.

“This EP is really the beginning of our story,” the foursome share. “We’ve poured every part of ourselves into these seven songs, and we can’t wait for people to connect with them the same way we do.”

Midnight Til Morning © courtesy of the artist

While Midnight Til Morning didn’t place in the top three on the Netflix show, they won something far more meaningful.

The four developed a deep friendship with one another, and now they couldn’t imagine doing any of this any other way. They’re not just making music – they’re making it together. Midnight Til Morning’s group dynamic is one that is heartfelt, genuine, and impossible to miss.

As their journey continues to accelerate, Midnight Til Morning remain grounded in the connection that first brought them together. Afterglow marks not just the start of their career, but the start of something deeply personal – a band made by circumstance and solidified by choice, trust, and instinct. Eager to reflect on this whirlwind chapter, the foursome spoke with Atwood Magazine about the making of their debut EP, the creative chemistry they discovered off-camera, and the brotherhood that’s carried them from ‘Building the Band’ to stages around the world.

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:: stream/purchase Afterglow here ::

:: connect with Midnight Til Morning here ::

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A CONVERSATION WITH MIDNIGHT TIL MORNING

Atwood Magazine: Did you immediately start working on the EP after ‘Building the Band’ ended? How long did it take to finish Afterglow?

Mason Watts: “We got into it pretty much straight away. I think two weeks after we finished filming Building the Band, everyone met up in Sydney. I think pretty much that week we got straight into writing and recording. Kinda on and off, we probably spent I would say close to two or three months in the studio.”

Conor Smith: “I think we were pretty indecisive about what we wanted the Afterglow EP to look like. So the songs were all there pretty much, pretty quickly after the three months we spent. It took us a minute to figure out what songs we wanted to put on there. Because there’s so many songs that are unreleased we just had to pick which ones.”

Mason Watts: “We were also still figuring out our sound. When we were on the TV show, we were like given songs and they were like you’re going to sing this. Whereas now, we can sing whatever we like. So we had to kind of all figure out what direction we wanted to go in.”

Will your unreleased songs come out eventually, or will they stay in the drafts?

Mason Watts: “Some of them definitely, some of them definitely not.”

Conor Smith: “We’re playing a lot of unreleased songs on this tour and the fans are going pretty crazy over some of them, begging us to release them. So I’m sure they will be released very soon.

Zach Newbould: “We’ll sing unreleased songs at the shows and everybody knows all the words already. Already singing them back at us, so that’s pretty awesome.”

The word “afterglow” is mentioned in multiple songs on the EP. What about this word is special to you, and why did it feel like the right title for this project?

Mason Watts: “I think just because we mentioned it in a couple of songs, honestly. It wasn’t that deep, really. I can’t remember who, but someone suggested it, and then we’re all like, yeah alright. So it was like, super, super quick. It was a very quick decision. It just sounds cool.

You started off by performing together and then jumped into writing and creating originals. Considering that’s not always the path for bands, what was it like to establish each person’s role in the creation process?

Shane Appell: “I think the fact that we’re just kind of like brothers at this point, everything just kind of fell into place. Like, you know, we feel pretty comfortable, and we spend so much time together, since we live across the world from each other. By the time we’re together, we’re like right next to each other all the time. So when we were in the studio, it was just honestly a big hangout. And you know, it was very easy for us to all work and figure our parts.”

Conor Smith: “I wouldn’t say there’s certain roles in the band either. I think we all cater to different roles at different times, you know what I mean? Especially in the writing process, there’s no ego in the writing process at all. If one person doesn’t feel like writing one day, then someone will take control of that. People ask us all the time what roles we have in the group, and it’s like, we just write music and sing, and there’s not really any specific roles.”

Are any of the songs off the EP written from experiences you’ve faced together or from your time on the show?

Conor Smith: “I think off the EP, “Welcome to LA.” We wrote that with Amy Shark, and I think we wrote it about, you know, always being on the road and being in different places and missing people. I feel like there’s definitely themes of the show on there, because it revolves around this whole entire newfound popularity, I guess. And dealing with that while having a relationship, or missing someone, or being in some kind of romantic situation. Every time we write, we try and write from experience.”

Mason Watts: “I don’t know if there’s so much anything from the show, but definitely from our lives. You know, life inspires art inspires life. It’s kind of like a bit of a circular thing.”

“Bye” talks about the inability to say goodbye to someone you care about. What have been the hardest goodbyes for each of you while on tour?

Zach Newbould: “I think just being away from our families is the hardest part of it all. Luckily, we have each other, which makes it a lot easier, and we have an awesome crew that we work with. This isn’t something I’d want to be doing alone. So yeah, I’m just really happy we got each other and it makes it easier.

Shane Appell: “I think we also all have probably lost a loved one during this journey. Whether it was a family member or, you know, a dog or a pet or something like that. Which I feel like we could all relate to in that aspect.”

Now that you’re in the middle of your first tour together, how are these performances different from your performances on the show? How have you grown as a band since filming?

Conor Smith: “We get to perform how we want now.”

Mason Watts: “We’re definitely more confident now. I think also because it’s our own crowd, they’re there to see us, they know us. That makes a huge difference as well. It’s a lot more fun, it’s also a lot less pressure. When you’re on a TV show, there’s a lot of cameras in your face. You have one, two minute performance that you’ve been practicing for days and days and days on. Whereas with this, we get to do it for 70 minutes pretty much every night. And I think, like that first show or two, we were quite nervous, but now it’s just the highlight of our day. Our whole day is planned around this 70 minutes, so when we get up there, we’re ready to party. It’s just a lot of fun.”

In “Heart on Fire” there’s a lyric that talks about a little red dress. While on your tour, fans have been showing up in red dresses, and every night you showcase one of them on stage. How did this tradition start?

Conor Smith: “I kind of made the suggestion to our team because I noticed that each group or musician that I looked up to at least did something like that. You know, like Justin Bieber had his One Less Lonely Girl, and Big Time Rush had their thing, and Role Model has his Sally. And I think it’s just really cool, it just becomes really personal with the fans. You know, every night they can go to the concert and they can be like, is it going to be me? It makes it more exciting. And then if it is them, it’s just a really sick opportunity for them to have in life. And they can be up on a stage and dance around, and I thought it was really, really cool, and the fans love it. It’s just another level of experience at our shows. And I don’t think we’re ever going to stop doing that in “Heart on Fire.” You know, we can be playing a stadium, and I’m sure that I’m still going to find a girl in a red dress to come and dance with me. So I think it’s just cool.”

Your song “17” reminisces upon memories of being a teenager and young love. How did your teenage years define you and why did you think it was important to include in the EP?

Mason Watts: “I think it’s just like that kind of nostalgia, which is nice. I think everybody carries their teenage self with them, even if you sort of push it down, lock it away. There’s always like that teenager inside. It’s just reminiscing on that time in life, which is kind of nice to reflect on, I guess at times.”

Conor Smith: “I feel like everyone had some sort of like love when they were 17. Originally it wasn’t going to be called 17, it was going to be called sore eyes, but we already had a song Navy eyes, but enough with the eyes.”

The music video for “Navy Eyes” is so fun. Where did you get the idea for the video and what was it like to film in huge eyeball costumes?

Zach Newbould: “We were brainstorming ideas for like a visualizer video, it wasn’t even supposed to be a music video. And I just said like what if we put on like eye costumes or something. Like you know those Annoying Orange costumes that people used to wear on Halloween, and they were like massive actual balls on your body. And I was like, let’s do something like that. Or somehow it turned into that, after I mentioned eye costumes. We ended up building those costumes and going down to Bondi Beach in Sydney, thats where we filmed it. We just fell so in love with the shots that we said, you know what? This has to be more than just a visualizer, let’s just make this into the music video. And yeah, it ended up just being a fun video.”

Shane Appell: “Yeah, we also ended up saving tons of money and we all loved the video, we were like this video is sick. It happened so quick, and it just felt natural.”

Mason Watts: “It’s probably my favorite music video, actually, that we’ve done. Just because it was so last minute. We literally planned it like two or three days before. We made the costumes the same day of. It was really low stress, low budget, like it was just a fun, fun day. I think it really shows us as like mates as well.”

Was making the costumes together a bonding experience?

Conor Smith: “It was actually pretty annoying to make them.”

Shane Appell: “The funny thing too is like the whole video when it was shot, we were smiling the whole time. Whether it was like awkwardly smiling because people were looking at us like we were crazy, or it was just like we were cracking up because we’re having fun. But it was just like smiling ear to ear the whole time.”

What has it been like to have such a drastic life change happen so quickly? How have you been able to navigate the changes while ensuring that you have fun in the process?

Conor Smith: “I think having each other is a really big part of it. We always say we couldn’t imagine doing this alone, because it’s true. I can’t imagine being in a hotel room alone, or doing these interviews alone. So I think having all four of us together really, really helps navigate how, I guess, peculiar the situation is. I mean, like four months ago, five months ago, we were kind of just writing music and no one knowing it. We had to be under NDAs, and we weren’t even really a band, we couldn’t be a band. And then all of a sudden, you know, we walk down the street now, and we’re getting stopped. It’s just really good to have each other to navigate it, because without each other, I think we would struggle a little bit. So that’s the biggest part of it, is just having each other and being able to talk to each other as well. We’re very open with if we’re not feeling well or if something’s bothering us, and that’s really important.”

Mason Watts: “But it is awesome. We’re currently doing all of the stuff that we’ve all dreamt of doing for our whole lives. I think the fact that we get to do it together is just twice as cool. We get to have all these cool experiences and like live the dream together, which is pretty awesome.”

They’re basking in the ‘Afterglow’: Midnight Til Morning © courtesy of the artist

Since you’ve said that you couldn’t imagine doing this by yourself, what’s the difference for some of you that were pursuing a solo career before this?

Mason Watts: I’d done quite a bit of touring and releasing music. I’m super grateful for that experience, but it was so lonely. I would travel around and tour and kind of like Connor was saying, like you know, being in hotel rooms on your own sucks. You would go from being on stage playing to 1000 people to being on in a room on your own, in a city where you don’t know anybody and that’s it. You just kind of walk around, you’re like, alright well, that was fun. Whereas now there’s like a couple of mates to hang out with and you can go experience stuff with, and it makes a huge difference.

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