Diving into the universe of Half an Orange is an exciting experience. The duo created a beautiful, animated sphere around their music, which is inspired by an extensive backpacking trip through Brazil. Upon return, they moulded their poems into music. Even their artist’s name is inspired by the trip. Read on to find out what “Half an Orange”actually means (and much more).
For your song „Old friends“ you closely worked together with YouTube & Twitch superstar Ninja. How did this collaboration with the worlds biggest streamer happen?
Ninja had discovered our song, Chuck Taylors, on SiriusXM 53 Chill. He was playing the song on his Twitch channel while he streamed everyday. We reached out on Twitch and thanked him. He got really excited because he was a fan of our music, so we sent him an (at the time) unreleased song of ours, Old Friends. He premiered the song live on Twitch and his fans freaked out. It was surreal.
That night we began talking on the phone with him about making a music video together for Old Friends. A week later we were flying to his hometown to plan the music video. From the beginning he said he wanted to help us because he believed our message and stories would help people around the world. He is one of the kindest and most generous people we have worked with. It is a huge honor knowing he supports our music.
What are the opportunities and dangers of using Instagram as a musician?
Our goal with Instagram is to use it as an artistic platform instead of a promotional one. A lot of artists merely use Instagram to advertise their upcoming songs or shows. We do that too but we focus more on creating unique and interesting content specific to Instagram.
Every week we try and release a 60 second exclusive to Instagram video. Sometimes it is a remix, sometimes its an animated video taking place in the Half an Orange universe, other times it is an interview. Those videos are one of the best ways to show who we are. They are also one of the main ways new fans discover us. We even film all our music videos to work both horizontally and vertically so we can upload them directly to IGTV. It lets our Instagram be a place to be instead of collection of ads.
How important are data insights for your (strategic) decisions?
In terms of creating music, we never let data or marketing research influence what we make. However, once the song is made, we do use data to develop the best release strategy.
For example, in our early days the majority of our fans were male. All our analytics showed that around 90% of our fanbase was male. However, when we personally showed women our music they loved it. We knew that our music was appealing to both genders, but that we were promoting it incorrectly for women. We brought on some amazing female designers to help our visuals speak to both men and women. This has helped our female fanbase grow exponentially and has let our music reach an entirely new group of people.
Haters – how do you deal with online negativity and/or offending comments?
We would argue our fanbase is the best in the world. The support and love they show us is unbelievable. Our studio is filled with fan art from all over the world (we try and hang every piece sent). Yes, we do get negative or hateful comments on the internet, but 99.9% are comments of love and compassion. We both have always had issues with doubting, or even “hating” ourselves.
Our name came from a Portuguese expression we learned in Brazil that means everyone has a person or thing out there to complete them (the other half to their orange). We liked the name because we both always felt kind of lonely and lost in the world. Our way to feel “whole” was making music. It helps us feel grounded, or completed. It helps us meet new friends and new places. Our hope is that our music helps other people feel “found” too. Some people aren’t lucky enough to find something like that when they’re doubting or “hating” themselves. Instead they resort to toxicity and putting others down. We get it, when you’re that lost and upset it can be easy to say something hateful. We don’t take any hate we get personally. We know it is just someone who has been hurt, feels lost, and needs support. We hope they find it.
Follow Half an Orange on Instagram and make sure to watch their latest video “Buzz Lightyear”
2 join the family and show some love for this!