Interviews: MILLION MOONS

On this new occasion, we have had the opportunity to interview the Post-Rock band MILLION MOONS from England. Check out the interview and follow the band on their FACEBOOK PAGE.

1. Where did you get the idea for the band name? Did you plan it or came out just like that?

Sol: This was such a long time ago, I can barely remember! We definitely spent a long time auditioning different names until we found something that fit.

Ed: It kind of just stemmed from whether you can pair numbers with interesting objects. I can’t remember any of the silly ones that we came up with, but Million Moons felt like it worked and fit with our genre and the kind of sound that we have.

2. Why did you want to play this genre?

Sol: Ed, Jay, and I actually played together in a hardcore band before we formed Million Moons. The whole time, I had no idea that Ed was secretly writing post-rock demos in his spare time, but by the time that band came to a close, he had about 24 demos under his belt.

Ed: I’ve always felt that it’s the genre I’ve connected with the most. It took me a while to discover and learn about it, but it naturally fit with a bit of classical training on the piano, and before I knew it, I was writing post-rock for fun before forming our band. 

Freddie: My best friend growing up introduced me to post-rock through the tried and tested medium of Explosions in the Sky’s ‘The Earth Is Not A Cold Dead Place’. 

3. Did you know each other before the band was formed?

Jay: I’ve known Sol since school, so going on 20 years! He was the one who invited me into the aforementioned hardcore band, where Ed and I connected over our shared love of post-rock.

Freddie: I’m a bit of an outlier in that the other three all knew each other beforehand, whereas I met Sol at his brother’s birthday party and spent so long talking about how much I loved Caspian that Sol invited me to come to a rehearsal basically just to shut me up!

4. Each band member's favourite band? 

Sol: This is an impossible question! I honestly don’t think I can give you a straight answer. What I can say is that, lately, whenever I listen to Opeth’s Ghost Reveries, I have caught myself thinking: “This album is a masterpiece.”

Ed: Growing up, I might have said Absolution by Muse. Nowadays, Frengers by Mew. It’s got a quirky beauty to it, and I come back to it again and again.

Jay: It’s changed a lot over the years. I always go back to Coheed and Cambria for their prog-pop sensibilities, but my gut instinct responses are Ithaca and Paramore. Paramore’s This Is Why is a post-punk/indie masterpiece, my post-rock credentials be damned!

Freddie: I have two, possibly three, answers to this. The clout answer is Leprous for their unbelievable musical ability and proximity to post-rock. The more embarrassing answer is Blind Guardian because I am a huge power metal nerd. The third answer requires me to be several pints deep…

5. Who or what inspires you to write songs?

Sol: Don’t ask me, I just hit stuff.

Ed: I live close to the sea in a very wild part of Scotland, and that provides for all manner of inspiration. I also scuba dive, and get inspired by the submarine biodiversity of Scotland; there are so many crazy species down there! Beyond that, it’s about interesting stories, creative empathy, and the constant appeal of slowly improving how and what I write.

6. Where would you like to play?

Sol: After performing at Offside Festival last year, I can’t wait to go back to China! It’s such a beautiful country, and I’ve really fallen in love with it. I’ve been trying my best to learn Mandarin since we got back to the UK, but I think it will take a few more trips before I am conversational.

Jay: It has been great seeing all the photos and clips of our friends, L.O.E., performing at Dunk! Festival this year, and we’re super excited for all our pals who will be performing at ArcTangent this summer. Those are two of the biggest platforms for bands in our genre.

Freddie: More venues in smaller cities/towns! Loved playing Hebden Bridge with L.O.E. and would love to one day do a hometown show somewhere in Oxford…

7. Whom would you like to feature with?

Freddie: Oh god, how do we not just list every post-rock/metal band ever here? We had a blast playing with EXXASENS at Offside Festival in China – they’re such lovely guys! A European tour with them would be an absolute dream.

8. Have any of you ever suffered from stage fright? Any tips for beginners on how to beat that?

Sol: I think everyone processes nerves in their own way. For example, I tend to become quite withdrawn and quiet before we play. I’ll try my best to busy myself with getting everything ready to go on and channel that anxious energy somewhere productive.

Jay: Offside Festival in China was only my second show with the band, so to be playing to a crowd of that size had me pretty damn anxious. I recall running up and down in the backstage area, trying to get all this adrenaline and energy out to calm myself. But in the end, I tried to reframe that anxiety feeling into excitement, and just walk on stage and go for it.

9. What bands have inspired you the most?

Sol: My drumming is very metal-inspired. But I would say the biggest thing that has shaped my playing is the time I spent taking lessons from Sleep Token’s II. Our first producer, George Lever, introduced us, and he’s really shown me a lot over the years.

Ed: You can hear a lot of my writing influences from some of the bigger post-rock acts, such as Caspian, Explosions, and MONO. But I think genre hopping is really inspiring, and artists such as Radiohead, Jon Hopkins, Daniel Avery, Tchaikovsky, Deftones, My Bloody Valentine, Maddie Ashman, Sleep Token, and 15th-century plainchant all have their part to play…

Freddie: I think Kauan might be one of my biggest recent influences, mostly because of their 2017 album Kaiho – they’re such masters at building an atmosphere in a song and crafting a guitar tone that works well with other instruments, especially piano. I’ve also recently spent a lot of time listening to Blackgaze artists like Alcest and MØL, who have perfected the lower-gain metal guitar tone that I’ve adopted for distorted sections in Million Moons songs.

Jay: One of my biggest goals in picking up the bass was, and still is, playing like a bassist rather than a guitarist. I often look over at math rock bassists and their versatility – playing both more traditional finger picking and with a pick. Yu-Ki from Paranoid Void is the real deal.

10. What's the weirdest thing a fan has ever asked you for?

Sol: I still find autographs pretty weird. In China, there’s a real culture of buying band merch and asking the band to sign it. After our set at Offside, we sat at the signing tent for an hour after our set, signing posters and t-shirts. It was pretty wild!

11. What do you think of your fans?

Freddie: We’re still reeling from the idea of having fans! We love chatting with people who come to our gigs (please ask me about my pedalboard!). Post-rock is one of those rare scenes where there’s a real sense of community.

12. What do you think of our site?

Sol: It’s a cool website! Honestly, running a music blog in this day and age is a real achievement. We love to see it.

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