Monroe Moon Interview
Q: Can you talk about your musical history?
A: I don’t have much of a musical history. I know the other members of the band do, but I don’t. I took piano lessons for a few months at age 8 and sang “Son of a Preacher Man” by Dusty Springfield for a talent show in high school. But I never really imagined myself making music until very recently; inside the last two years. Now it's a passion. My husband bought a full band set up for our five children a couple Christmases ago with the hopes to inspire them into music. Only I ended up sneaking out of bed at 1am and playing around when I couldn’t sleep. My husband started paying attention and began to encourage me to bring my songwriting quite literally out of the dark. Then he began to play with me in August of last year (2018). Everything else has come quickly together since. Without knowing what we were doing we threw ourselves into the studio and met our very talented bandmates. I have less of a musical history and more of a musical future.
Q: What are some of the themes and topics on your EP When the Seagulls Follow the Trawler EP?
A: The usual gambit of love, loss, and regret is apparent on the surface. However, the thread I see woven through it all is the “internal world” that we all live in, alone. We really have two realities, our shared experience and then the world of our inner selves. It’s this inner world that I hope to be honest about. It’s sort of an experiment or bet I have with myself to see if I can make that place more real and less lonely by sharing it.
Q: This is your first release as Monroe Moon. What was the creative process like?
A: I don’t really know what I’m doing. I truly feel that not understanding any tried and true processes or formulas is helping me create honest music. I suppose right now what could be called my "process" begins when I hear a voice inside tell me to go bang on the piano and feel out an emotion through the scales. Usually the subject and a verse comes instantly after a chord progression has been established. Then I know I have a song that I need to clear time and space for in order to let it come through. With five children, I do indeed need to be able to set aside these "song starts" and come back when I can immerse myself in them. I use GarageBand to make the initial recording as a place holder and work from there. Then I share it with my husband and then the band and they fortify and inform the song with their talents.
Q: Can you talk about your musical history?
A: I don’t have much of a musical history. I know the other members of the band do, but I don’t. I took piano lessons for a few months at age 8 and sang “Son of a Preacher Man” by Dusty Springfield for a talent show in high school. But I never really imagined myself making music until very recently; inside the last two years. Now it's a passion. My husband bought a full band set up for our five children a couple Christmases ago with the hopes to inspire them into music. Only I ended up sneaking out of bed at 1am and playing around when I couldn’t sleep. My husband started paying attention and began to encourage me to bring my songwriting quite literally out of the dark. Then he began to play with me in August of last year (2018). Everything else has come quickly together since. Without knowing what we were doing we threw ourselves into the studio and met our very talented bandmates. I have less of a musical history and more of a musical future.
Q: What are some of the themes and topics on your EP When the Seagulls Follow the Trawler EP?
A: The usual gambit of love, loss, and regret is apparent on the surface. However, the thread I see woven through it all is the “internal world” that we all live in, alone. We really have two realities, our shared experience and then the world of our inner selves. It’s this inner world that I hope to be honest about. It’s sort of an experiment or bet I have with myself to see if I can make that place more real and less lonely by sharing it.
Q: This is your first release as Monroe Moon. What was the creative process like?
A: I don’t really know what I’m doing. I truly feel that not understanding any tried and true processes or formulas is helping me create honest music. I suppose right now what could be called my "process" begins when I hear a voice inside tell me to go bang on the piano and feel out an emotion through the scales. Usually the subject and a verse comes instantly after a chord progression has been established. Then I know I have a song that I need to clear time and space for in order to let it come through. With five children, I do indeed need to be able to set aside these "song starts" and come back when I can immerse myself in them. I use GarageBand to make the initial recording as a place holder and work from there. Then I share it with my husband and then the band and they fortify and inform the song with their talents.
Q: I read that you were the last band to record at Stone House Recording. Can you talk about your time in studio?
A: Yeah, it was a really nice place, with a great vibe. We brought a few of our children in while we recorded. It was good to have them around and to have them be so welcomed in that space. Stone House and Josh made a foreign process feel comfortable and relaxed while still maintaining all the professionalism you need to record. We are thankful that we snuck in there at the end so that we could meet, work with, and befriend Josh Kaufman. We will be working with Josh over the summer and autumn to record our album through his new studio Local Legend and another exclusively analog studio Goon Lagoon.
Q: How often do you play live? What are you live shows like?
A: We haven’t had much opportunity to play live, yet. We’ve only been playing together as a band for a few months, but when we do, our shows are very chill, deep, dark, and also familiar. I think we sort of give a jazz club vibe. We punctuate the melancholy with some upbeat grooves, but it’s all still behind a cloud of smoke.
Q: What else should we know about Monroe Moon?
A: We are releasing a remastered version of “When I Cannot Sleep at Night” in the next few weeks. Theo’s childhood friend, Ian Glover (of Soul Savers fame (UK)), very generously offered to work another mix for that track. It’s sounds really great and we are excited to get that out there as soon as we record a B-side for that release. We expect it out this May.
We have a gig this July in Grand Rapids that we are really looking forward to at a private studio. It's going to be something to dress up for. I don’t have all the details yet but after going into the studio for the B-side that’s our next focus.
The big year end goal is to release our full length album in October. We have so many songs and they just keep coming so it’s a real effort to organize this catalog and choose which ones come together best. It feels like we are unravelling a story and we want to tell it as honestly as possible.
A: Yeah, it was a really nice place, with a great vibe. We brought a few of our children in while we recorded. It was good to have them around and to have them be so welcomed in that space. Stone House and Josh made a foreign process feel comfortable and relaxed while still maintaining all the professionalism you need to record. We are thankful that we snuck in there at the end so that we could meet, work with, and befriend Josh Kaufman. We will be working with Josh over the summer and autumn to record our album through his new studio Local Legend and another exclusively analog studio Goon Lagoon.
Q: How often do you play live? What are you live shows like?
A: We haven’t had much opportunity to play live, yet. We’ve only been playing together as a band for a few months, but when we do, our shows are very chill, deep, dark, and also familiar. I think we sort of give a jazz club vibe. We punctuate the melancholy with some upbeat grooves, but it’s all still behind a cloud of smoke.
Q: What else should we know about Monroe Moon?
A: We are releasing a remastered version of “When I Cannot Sleep at Night” in the next few weeks. Theo’s childhood friend, Ian Glover (of Soul Savers fame (UK)), very generously offered to work another mix for that track. It’s sounds really great and we are excited to get that out there as soon as we record a B-side for that release. We expect it out this May.
We have a gig this July in Grand Rapids that we are really looking forward to at a private studio. It's going to be something to dress up for. I don’t have all the details yet but after going into the studio for the B-side that’s our next focus.
The big year end goal is to release our full length album in October. We have so many songs and they just keep coming so it’s a real effort to organize this catalog and choose which ones come together best. It feels like we are unravelling a story and we want to tell it as honestly as possible.