Frequent Questions

“Black Halo” reflects a duality: most of us think we’re a good person, but someone, somewhere thinks we’re evil. This is reflected in the logo with the halo (good) and the tail and horns (evil).

Life and people are more complicated than this, and yet it’s like many of us want to quickly place others into one of these two buckets and call it day. And many times the reason for deciding someone is evil is simple: they’re different (race, gender, religion, politics, etc.).

Probably not.

Most of Utopia was recorded between 2009-2011, and yet it wasn’t finished and released until 2025. There are three reasons for this:

1. Singers. From 2009-2016, we went through six different vocalists, each unable to continue work for different reasons (in order: unmotivated, uncommitted, personal issues, situation change, situation change, subpar performances).
2. Retirement. Band leader Randy Ellefson gave up in frustration and retired from music in 2016.
3. Resumption. In 2023, Ellefson resumed work with previous singer (#3) Chase Breedlove. Both have busy lives, so it two years to wrap it up.

The album started as Ellefson’s fifth solo album, albeit the first with vocals. This partly meant that others were session musicians.

With the years of delays due to singers, he resumed recording and releasing instrumental albums under his name. That suggested releasing vocal albums under a band name (i.e., Black Halo). The project is still basically a solo album with a different approach/genre.

That said, Breedlove has stepped up as co-writer and contributor. Both intend to continue the collaboration.