Exclusive: Allison Iraheta & Halo Circus Sign a Record Deal!
After taking a lengthy hiatus from the music business following her departure from BMG, Season 8 “American Idol” teen rocker Allison Iraheta — now a married, 21-year-old grown woman — has formed a new band called Halo Circus with guitarist David Immerman and her husband, producer/multi-instrumentalist Matthew Hager. And Yahoo! Music’s Reality Rocks is thrilled to exclusively reveal that Allison Iraheta & Halo Circus have signed a new record deal!
Halo Circus have inked with L.A. indie tastemaker label Manimal Vinyl, which has released music by Bat For Lashes, Rainbow Arabia, and Warpaint, as well as allstar tributes to the Cure and David Bowie. The band’s debut release, via Manimal’s new pop imprint Badlands, will be the single “Gone” — which was actually the first song that Halo Circus’s core trio wrote together, before they were even officially a band.
Allison recently told Reality Rocks: “It was the first writing session with Matthew, Dave, and I, the first one. We wrote a song called ‘Gone’…I would listen back and I would hear a voice that I had never heard before. I had no idea I could say these things. And then, I was like maybe, maybe things are going to start opening up for me, maybe it’s okay for someone to go through a hard time and see the positive in it, that’s fine. From that moment on, we all wanted to keep going and doing this. We all shared this energy together, this kind of vibration when we walked in the studio. It was really cool, and ever since then, it’s been very strong.”
The “hard time” Allison was referring to were the years after her solo album, Just Like You, failed to make a dent in the charts despite largely positive reviews, leading to her getting dropped by Jive Records while she was still a vulnerable teenager. “It was hard, I’m not gonna lie. It was hard. That’s why I took a break…I think after getting dropped, you’re up here for a pretty long time and then just out of nowhere you’re down here…and it’s terrifying because you’re like, ‘Wait a minute. I had this much, and within the blink of an eye, everything’s gone. So can I do this? Can I handle it?'”
But now Allison is making a comeback with Halo Circus. “I really have been digging back into my ranchera side, so I’ve been listening to Roy Orbison a lot and even Paul Williams, but also Rihanna’s new stuff, which is very heartfelt,” Allison said. “A lot of what I’m writing is heartfelt and also the story of where I came from.”
The “Gone” official single will contain the radio edit of the track, a version in Allison’s native Spanish language, and a stripped-down garage version using only circa-1961 technology, inspired by Allison’s hero Roy Orbison. The four-song Manimal/Badlands single will be available via iTunes and Spotify on October 8, with a full-length album slated for early 2014. Congratulations to Allison and her band!
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