We were lucky to catch up with Bobby Naughton recently and have shared our conversation below.

Bobby, appreciate you joining us today. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?

For a few nights in 2023, I got to merge my passion for Portland’s incredible music scene with my passion for food justice. It’s such a privilege to be a part of such an unbelievably talented music scene in this city. Beyond musical ability, everyone seems to care so deeply for their community, and humanity at large. Personally, I have been a dedicated volunteer in the food justice movement for about a decade now, serving on the board of a local non-profit called Portland Fruit Tree Project (PFTP) since 2019. We joyfully care for and harvest from the trees which feed and shade our neighbors—reducing waste while making sure this bountiful harvest gets distributed to those who have less access to fresh produce. In October of 2022, The Second Half Walters played a benefit show with Golem Pink and Scout Harris for PFTP. This was a great night for everyone involved, and it left me wanting to continue to encourage expanding the overlap with these communities.
I reached out to a small, community driven venue in Northeast Portland called Turn Turn Turn, and after they offered to host a couple dates for more benefit shows, and with that in place we made it happen! Caleb and The Monsters, Chipped Nail Polish, Culture Cat, Ruune, Sydney Dreamstar, and Frecks all gave amazing performances, and were so kind in supporting the mission of fresh food access for all. After their show, Ruune (who is an incredible community organizer and absolute DIY legend) wanted to take the reins and book another, so they did! This time, the show was at Holocene, with repeat performances by Culture Cat, Ruune, and us, along with the addition of Femme Cell.
This show series was an absolute blast. The best part of being a musician is building community, and getting to do that with mutual aid front and center cannot be beaten!

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I’ve been playing music in some capacity since I was about six years old, and started being in bands around age 14. When I first moved across the country from Massachusetts to the Northwest, all of that kind of fizzled out for a few years. As I was diving back in, feeling the good feelings of banging on a guitar and singing at the top of my lungs, it all came back—being in a band is the most fun thing a person can do! This timing happened to align with my dear friend and former bandmate (a few times over), Ben Goldberg, moving to Portland. From there, Nic Castillon, David Hugel, and Jamie Eymann joined us, and The Second Half Walters took shape as an indie-punk band. A few year in, the lineup has evolved to be Ben on lead guitar, Nic on drums, Ellie Barany on keys, Dylan Nanney on bass, and myself on guitar and vocals. I absolutely hide behind their talent.
We have a pretty collaborative writing process. Typically either myself or occasionally Ben will come to the band with the bones of a song. Then everyone else fills in their respective parts, collaborating on finding countermelodies, harmony, gang vocals, dynamic shifts, and all that fun stuff. It’s pretty much always fast and energetic, sometimes chaotic, yet ultimately grounded in pop melodies. We released our debut EP, Prescience, on all streaming services on September 27th of 2023, and have plans to record again this winter. Expect a lot more music coming from us Summer 2025! In the meantime, we’ll be playing shows around the Northwest, and fine tuning our new songs for the studio.

How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?

It feels silly to say and maybe I’m being a little too blunt, but honestly just showing up is HUGE. On any given weekend (and a lot of weekdays too!) you can go see incredible shows with unbelievably talented musicians who live in your local community for $5-$10. If you love one of the bands and come home with a t-shirt/cd/sticker, that will mean the world to them! Going out and catching a show like this helps bands afford rent at practice spaces, recording, and making merch. It also keeps the lights on at local venues, and is just genuinely a lot of fun. In regions where venues might be more sparse, there’s probably someone putting on house shows or putting on pop-up events, and if not maybe you can become that person!
I could get all sorts of preachy about this, so to cut that off: go to shows, start a band, make art, tell your friends if you find a band/venue/artist you like, and please please please just be kind.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

It’s okay to slow down. Writing music, playing music, performing, and creating in general is something we all want to do because it feels good to do it. Even when it’s a song with a darker theme, there’s an incredibly special warmth that comes from singing and playing it—especially as a collective. We’ve been closing our set with an unreleased tune called Window Seat lately. It goes into some heavier insecurities I hold and even thoughts about death, but it ends with the same three word lyric on repeat for about a minute. As that line becomes a cacophonous singalong with the whole room chanting together, it feels amazing! Holding onto that feeling is so much more important than thinking about the flyer that needs to be made for the next show and the messages to be sent and that part you fucked up earlier in the set and “when do I need to wake up tomorrow to not be late?”.
I think sometimes we musicians get caught up in the ego hustle of wanting every show to have a bigger and bigger turnout, or to be asked to play by a more hip band, or just to have this very linear/exponential “upward” trajectory that’s just not going to happen all the time. The biggest stars have all played to an empty room at some point, and it’s okay if we do too. I feel like I’m taking a round-about way of getting to the “it’s okay to slow down” thing here, but what I’m trying to say is that I often need to check-in with the expectations I’ve created for myself. It’s good to have goals to aim for, but if getting everything “perfect” for the next show or record is taking this fun and joyful thing and making it stressful, it’s worth considering asking for help, or even making some concessions.
I’ve come to except that I’m a slow songwriter. Shifting away from “Oh no! The bands almost out of new material to work on” to instead just enjoying spending a month or six with a seed of a song in my head, and seeing what growth comes of it is a lot more enjoyable. I think it leads to better music too!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://TheSecondHalfWalters.bandcamp.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/secondhalfwalters
• Facebook: https://facebook.com/secondhalfwalters
• Other: https://tiktok.com/@secondhalfwalters

Image Credits

Kerry Kovacik, Kameko Million, Allison Barr, Kimi Cook