Lunar Moth talk their album “Stranger” and their love for fuzz

Photo via Lunar Moth on Instagram

Lunar Moth is a trio from Madison, Wisconsin that specializes in all things grungey and fuzz-filled. Earlier this year, the band released a new album titled Stranger, and they were kind enough to talk with Off The Record about it. Through weaving intricate lyrics with addictive guitar, bass, and drums, the band has found their footing int he creative scene of Madison.

Let’s start by having you introduce yourselves and what you do in the band.

Amber: I'm Amber Moth, and I sing and play guitar. 

Gage: I'm Gage Moth. I play drums and do some backup vocals every now and again.

Mac: I am Mac Moth, and I play bass and whisper. 

How did you get started in music and how did the band form?

Gage: The 3 of us have known each other for a long time. We all knew each other in high school. I went to college for audio engineering, so I do all of our recording and mixing and mastering. Amber essentially learned how to play guitar for this band, and Mac has been our trusted bass player for  8 years, maybe longer at this point. Amber is my wife, we live together, and we've been traveling the United States playing music together for 5 years in this band now. 

You guys released an album this year as well, and I'd love to hear a little more about Stranger and what the experience was like writing and recording it. 

Amber: Stranger is our second full length album and it’s the thing that we're most proud of right now. It's the culmination of everything that we've done in the past, but in a more cohesive way, a more streamlined version of what we've done in the past. It's got a lot of the same elements that we've had previously. It's pretty grungy, it gets pretty heavy, it gets kinda garagey. I think in general, Lunar Moth is this conglomeration of sounds and like influences. This album has a lot of mental health and feeling unsure of yourself or not really sure how you fit in. 

Mac: In the past, our album writing process has been a little bit more structured perhaps. , This one, Amber would come sometimes with ideas and we would just jam on it, then she would track a demo for it by herself. And then we'd come in and record parts. There's some real imaginative and lengthy experiences just sitting and hashing it out. That was super cool.

I want to ask about the song “Rot As You Stand.” That song is fascinating to me because it feels very angry, and I was just wondering what the head space is like when you're writing a song like that.

Amber: Yeah, that song is angry. I told Gage, like, I don't know that I wanna release this song because it's like… being in that headspace to write a song doesn't feel great, you know? It felt like I was channeling something that I would rather not acknowledge. I was thinking, “I don't know if I really want to put that into the world,” but the truth is it's a pretty cool song. 

It’s a great song, I think it’s my favorite from the project.

Photo via Lunar Moth on Instagram

Gage: So with that being said, and Amber's feelings around it, we had a serious conversation about whether or not we were actually going to release it. There was also a short while where we just weren't playing it live because it’s just so dramatically different than the rest of the album too. It's kind of a standout in a bunch of different ways. 

Amber: And I think thematically, Strangers is kind of about accepting all aspects of yourself even when it’s hard. People experience everything. I'm glad that we did release it, but, yeah, it was a “I hope people like that one.”

Like I said, it ended up being my favorite, so I'm very glad that you released it as well. I think what's so alluring about it to me is that I can feel how much emotion is behind it. That goes for a lot of the songs on that album, but that one specifically is definitely a standout to me personally. So when you’re working together in a very collaborative and creative dynamic, how does it work between the three of you? Either when you’re in the studio or when you're creating music before recording it.

Mac: Well, we get together for practice at least once per week. If somebody's got a song or idea, we bring it to practice, and we all work it out. With this last album, Amber brought most of the songs to practice and had the melodies written out so there wasn't too much tweak from the original riffs and melodies that she wrote. Mostly just added drums and bass to make it a whole song. We all work well collaboratively.

Amber: Mac came in with the biggest bass line I think I’ve ever heard on “Leech Teeth.” That adds a totally new dimension to what I had already had. Part of it is being able to work on something and leave space for crazy things like that to happen. 

Gage: We have a lot of experience playing in the genre that we made up as well as, like, the configuration and song structures that we have. There's kind of a vibe to what we do. A lot of it sounds kind of familiar, kind of not. It comes very naturally. There's only a few times where we've had a pretty big hiccup or, you know, a head scratcher. Usually when there’s something like that, we just hang on to this song. We'll set a deadline that's way too early just to get us to do stuff, we’re notorious procrastinators, and then we're late on it anyway. We're 100% DIY. We do everything ourselves, Amber does the artwork, I do the recording. We all play shows and handle all of the booking and stuff.

What’s it like playing shows? What are your favorite parts of getting to perform, especially these new songs in front of an audience? 

Amber: Oh my gosh! Playing live is the best part for me, I think. Writing songs is a means to an end because playing live is so much freaking fun. There's obviously shows that you have more attendance or maybe it's toward the beginning of the night, they have a little bit more energy, dancing around or something, and that's always great. But, even the shows where we drove four hours to get somewhere and played for a handful of people, I don't care. There's literally nothing like it.

Mac: I would agree, I think playing live shows is the most fun. The one downside, if there is one I would say at all, is doing it all on top of working a 9 to 5. For me personally the best part about it is we put out this album, and it's gotten the most amount of attention out of anything we've done, which is awesome. I'm extremely grateful for that. It's really interesting because sometimes you'll go and play these new songs in front of people who know you, and this is the first time that they're hearing it. There's always that thing in the back of your mind, “are people gonna like this?” And that's half of it. Then the other half is you're playing to crowds where no one knows you, and they're stoked. 

Gage: There's obviously the adrenaline that goes into it, and that's huge. I think you could easily say that the three of us are adrenaline junkies.There's no other reason that we would drive six hours to wherever to play to an unknown amount of people. Ultimately, I hope that the music will, in some regard, outlive the band or have a greater meaning to it in the long run. I honestly like playing, I love playing live music.

Photo via Lunar Moth on Instagram

Mac: It's exhausting with the lack of sleep, but it’s 110% worth it, especially when you play a show and somebody's like, “I've never heard of you people before in my life, but that was awesome,” you know?

I think it’s also about finding the right audience, finding the people that are open to anything that you put out. It sounds like you guys have really hit the nail on the head with that one. 

Gage: We're trying, we appeal to a broad amount of people because we play so much. I don't know. The genre umbrella is vast. Although, in my opinion we’re somewhat unique just because of our influences and our taste in music is incredibly fast. 

So your last show of the year was the one from last week or do you have more planned?

Gage: We're playing on New Year's Eve. 

Amber: Technically, next year!

Is there anything else exciting happening in the world of Lunar Moth?

Amber: We're currently recording an acoustic EP, which I'm really excited about. It's a reimagining of a few of our songs, and they're very acoustic. Typically, we play very loud, very distorted, a lot of fuzz, but we really stripped back for these and changed up the arrangement.

Gage: There's not gonna be any drums on it, it's going to be very stripped back. It's going to be kind of different and more intimate than Stranger was, but I think it's a really good thing, and hopefully, we'll showcase another side of us. And if all goes well and we don't procrastinate too hard, it should be out before the end of the year.

Keep up with the band on Instagram