# The Making of Half as Cool

By [Theo Kandel](https://paragraph.com/@theo-kandel) · 2022-03-01

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For now, I’m going to treat this as a blog until I can figure out a way to incorporate NFTs or user-engage-able content in a way that makes sense to me/fits with the ethos of my music!

I wanted to give you a little peek into the making of “Half as Cool,” my most recent single (go stream it now if you haven’t, you idiots). I wrote the song in the spring of 2021 – April 2nd, to be exact – with my friends Elysse Yulo and Anna Kline, two fantastic writers in Nashville. However, the [_amazing, smooth, gut-busting_](https://www.tiktok.com/@theokandel/video/6947448949158497541?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc&web_id7055711242615309829) [riff](https://www.tiktok.com/@theokandel/video/6947448949158497541?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc&web_id7055711242615309829) that launched this whole thing was actually something I’d been noodling around with since December of 2019.

I slapped my guitar into open D (open C# in the studio recording) and came up with this:

[![]({{DOMAIN}}/editor/youtube/play.png)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6ZwzVSKEJk)

I held onto the riff for over a year – I couldn’t figure out quite what to do with it. April 2nd came around, and I found myself in a writing session with Elysse and Anna. We wanted to write something nostalgic and a bit pop-punky – an homage to our childhood music tastes, if you will – and messed around until we came up with some ideas. Here are a few videos of us figuring out the essential parts to Half as Cool:

[![]({{DOMAIN}}/editor/youtube/play.png)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3SoDumdsxs)

[![]({{DOMAIN}}/editor/youtube/play.png)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqa1B_W6rdY)

Left the session pretty psyched, but still feeling like something was missing for the song.

After many months, I posted the riff to TikTok – lo and behold! A bunch of people liked it. Got some duets from Andy Grammer, Tom Walker, and many, many others.

[https://www.tiktok.com/@theokandel/video/6947448949158497541?is\_from\_webapp=1&sender\_device=pc&web\_id7055711242615309829](https://www.tiktok.com/@theokandel/video/6947448949158497541?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc&web_id7055711242615309829)

I figured I had to do _something_ cool with the riff, and I had just written “Half as Cool” two days before, so I tried em out together. Bam! Sonic gold.

[https://www.tiktok.com/@theokandel/video/6947731466377907462?is\_from\_webapp=1&sender\_device=pc&web\_id7055711242615309829](https://www.tiktok.com/@theokandel/video/6947731466377907462?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc&web_id7055711242615309829)

Held onto that for a while – I had no idea what to do for the production until…

I met one of my now-great friends, Nick (Wingtip), who’s a dope artist, writer, and producer here in LA. I think we actually linked because I cold-dm’ed him after seeing a viral tweet he had. We seshed in the studio until we had something that HIT.

![Nick + Theo in the stu, Winter 2021](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/f7eba4386caa3831bc9b1ad78a912ca508d2b0e3d41e1522ee9925aa50767251.jpg)

Nick + Theo in the stu, Winter 2021

The rest is history. Go [listen](https://cmdshft.ffm.to/HalfasCool) now!

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*Originally published on [Theo Kandel](https://paragraph.com/@theo-kandel/the-making-of-half-as-cool)*