P&P Spotlight: Moontower (EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW)

Founded on the simple philosophy that music can transform the spaces it is played in, Moontower is truly revolutionizing the indie alt-rock scene. The band's members - Jacob Berger (guitar/vocals), Tom Carpenter (drums/bass), and Devan Welsh (guitar/keyboards) - have a handful of both similarities and differences in their backgrounds. But overall, their individual and collective journeys have taught them the importance of connection. They have perfected unique ways of reaching fans through the speakers, from the stage, and online, creating experiences unlike anything we've ever seen before.

Fresh off of dropping their latest single, "So Good," Moontower is now preparing for the release of their debut album, and learning a lot about themselves every step of the way. Playlists & Polaroids recently got to chat with them - keep reading to learn more about their origins, their creative process, other industry-related projects they're involved in, and more!

Image credit: Moontower, graphic created by Karly Ramnani

YOU'LL LOVE MOONTOWER IF YOU LISTEN TO: The Japanese House, Lorde, MUNA, Fred Again, Bleachers, Sun Room

How did Moontower start as a band, and where does its name come from?

TOM: We started Moontower when we were all in college together. We saw all of these bands that would play house parties - they would have these dinky little lights and no production, and the sound would be terrible. And there's so many kids that would come to these parties and they wouldn't know the name of the band afterward, they didn't really pay any attention to the music. So what we wanted to do was make a house party that had the production of something closer to what you'd find in southern California, like the Coachellas, the festivals and all these big shows that come out here - but also had the energy of the Moon Tower from the movie Dazed And Confused. We wanted it to be the zone of radical inclusivity. At the end of the movie, they've got this thing where all the jocks and the cheerleaders and the nerds and everyone - I'm sure the teachers are there, too - everyone comes to the same spot, and they call it the Moon Tower. So we decided that we were going to start this project that would be about the space, and the live events that it was played in. We titled it after the inspiration. We started making music with kind of a live focus, and not a lot has changed since then.

What are your favorite venues you've played in?

DEVAN: Venues are largely important to us, not only because we consider ourselves a live-first type of band, but they're also sort of our home away from home. Like, when we're on the road, we spend hours in this space from the second we get there to the second that we can go to sleep, but have to drive to another city. So it's important that it feels comfy. And if it is grimy, that it's got grime for the right reasons. Mine would be the Bomb Factory in Dallas, which is now just called The Factory. It's a massive, 5000-6000 cap venue - we felt very confident after playing that show, knowing that fact. And just being like, if we ever get that opportunity, which we believe that we will one day, that we'll have the confidence to kill it because we've already sort of done it before.

TOM: My favorite would be Kilby Court, which is a very small venue in Salt Lake City. It's more of a garage than a venue. And I also love Mahals, which is a venue in Cleveland. That's another relatively small venue. But they've got a really cool aesthetic and they've got bowling alleys, which is cool. And it's like a 400-500 head venue. The staff is all very nice and the drinks are very cheap.

DEVAN: The staff being nice is also another important factor in this, because we've been to venues where we don't want to go back to because of the staff

JACOB: I mean, the Troubadour in LA is just a classic. And then, I don't know why this just came to mind, but today I really love Asbury Lanes. It's just such a fucking weird venue. And Asbury Park is such a weird, fun little town. It doesn't make sense. It feels like one of those places that's permanently on vacation, and those are just always really fun places to me. And I think the people of New Jersey are just very fun to play shows for. They're a little, in our experience, quite raunchy. The crowds are a little bit unhinged, but they just come to fucking mosh.

Another thing that stood out to me about you guys is your brand, and marketing strategy in general. Jacob, how would you describe your experience as both an artist in the band and an industry professional with the MAJR company?

JACOB: That probably was a strength for many years - having the industry experience, education, internships, and some jobs and things like that. It was very helpful in getting Moontower to have a level of professionalism that was almost like, maybe even a fake it till you make it mentality. I think it allowed us to be taken more seriously, while we were getting our feet under us, and get in the door with some people that we learned a lot from. But I think in all honesty, we are all trying to remove any obstacles that get in the way of us focusing on the art. And I think that's been a little bit tough for me just because I have this knee jerk reaction to always think about how something will be perceived. And while, again, that was helpful before, now we're lucky enough to maybe have a bit of a team that's better than that than we are. I'm letting them take the reins, and realizing that the way that this project is going to grow - and not even grow numerically, but grow artistically. What's going to continue to serve us as humans is to not think so much about the marketing.

Now, I appreciate that the work that I do in marketing is for somebody else's company. And it's not even really marketing, what I do, to be honest. But we post silly TikToks. To close out this ramble, the ethos that has always worked for us, and that we're now unapologetically leaning into, is if we're not having fun doing promotion, then it's not worth promoting.

For anyone who might not have heard of MAJR before, could you give us a quick rundown of what the app is, how it helps artists, and how you guys utilize it?

JACOB: MAJR allows artists to take assets that they already have that don't often get shared (or if they do, it can be very disjointed) and creates a timeline, for fans to see how a song came to life. It does that in a space that is very centered. It's not like social media, where you're going to get ninety different things in thirty seconds. You're going to be in a very focused experience, where you can really learn and experience the creative process of your favorite artist. That's like the elevator pitch, I guess. We were interested as a band, because it's just very refreshing to see somebody in tech who is more focused on highlighting the creative process than selling ads, or optimizing an algorithm for the attention economy. It was very low stress for us because, again, it's made from stuff that we already have. Devan is the most organized person in the world, so we literally were just transferring gigabytes of assets over to MAJR, and they built a really great experience for us that we were able to share with our fans. I'm sure we'll do a lot more in the future. And hopefully, MAJR grows and becomes a platform that people know is just a really great place to fall more in love with music.

Yeah, MAJR reminded me of Genius Lyrics, but with more visual elements. Switching gears, I've been loving the new single "So Good." How did it feel to release this song?

DEVAN: The process of rolling out our debut album is very exciting for us. It's been a long time coming, from finishing it to releasing - but we wanted to make sure it would be the best shot, because you can only release your album once. We have more single left to go, and then the rest of the album will be out August 4th. "So Good" actually wasn't supposed to be the single that came out, but we responded to how it did on the road, and thought it would make a good next single. The promotion and business stuff is the least exciting part about releasing music, but it has to be done. The exciting part about it is that once it happens, the song is no longer yours and you can begin thinking about the next thing, which for artists is always "the thing." It's like catching butterflies and thinking about how you can reinvent yourself for the next product.

Could you elaborate on how the song became "no longer yours"? What does that sentiment mean to you?

DEVAN: If someone asked what spurred a song, as far as the writing, we'll share it with them. But we're not artists that share very often - or before we're about to play a song, be like, "This is what the song is about." Because songs that the three of us like mean wildly different things to us. So if we extrapolate that to an audience of a lot of people, then there's definitely a lot of different meanings that people tend to place onto it. And that's the beautiful thing about art, it means something different to everyone. So when it gets released, we get excited to hear about how people connect with this art in different ways, like how they timestamp it with certain parts of their life, things that it helps them get through, things that it puts a different perspective in their life on. And even if the song doesn't connect with them, if it connects with members of their family or their friends, and how that opens up different things. So I guess just to simplify, it takes on a life of its own when it gets released, and that's very refreshing.

I love that! In "So Good," there was a lot of detailed imagery, reminiscent of a home setting. What inspired that creative choice?

TOM: Jacob, Devan, and I grew up in three different areas. I grew up in the Midwest, Devan grew up on the East Coast, and Jacob grew up on the West Coast. And even though the three of us had the three very physically distant childhoods, we have so many commonalities inside of this - kind of like growing up in a recent, post-90s suburbia. I think we love tying in a lot of these things - we think, "Well, if it happens here, there, and there, then it's likely that it's going to be more universal than just a me feeling." So I think a lot of the time, we lean into specificity when it comes to our references to home, just because they somehow feel more universal when they're more specific. There's an oxymoron inside of that.

What forms of media, music and otherwise, push you guys to keep creating and serve as artistic influences?

JACOB: I've been listening to a lot of Dejaun lately, and Fred Again. And then I've been watching Better Call Saul. And the reason I bring that up is it's such a slow show and it really takes its time. It's just such a contrast from everything that I intake on social media, that is something new every fucking second. I feel like it's a great show. I can't say that anything in the show is inspiring my creativity, except for having something in my life I enjoy that is that slow. It's inspiring me to slow down and rest, and understand that things can take time to build. And a song doesn't just have to be two minutes because people say that's their attention spans. If you create something of quality, it can have whatever time you feel deserves.

TOM: My two favorite artists today, and they change almost every day, are Boston Bun and Youth Lagoon. Those are my two that I really like. And my medium outside of music that I'm drawing inspiration from - this sounds silly - but I'm really enjoying playing the new Zelda game. The way that it's inspiring one to find solutions to problems - it's more creatively inspirational than you'd expect from a silly little Zelda game.

DEVIN: I've had Amber Bain, who is in The Japanese House, on repeat. I'm very excited for her album. I cannot wait for it, it's amazing. We didn't know them personally, we went to school with MUNA. The lead singer, Katie, actually worked with Amber Bain on one of the songs that she recently put out. And it's amazing. It's just a freaking small world.

Back to your upcoming debut album, what can fans expect from it? How do the singles from it that we've already heard fit into its greater picture?

TOM: We love to tell stories in our albums, and this album is no different. There is an ebb and flow, and we also have a short film that's coming out with the album. So we've got basically the movie and the soundtrack, the short film and the album, the visual and the auditory, the moving picture and the moving speaker. I think that if you like what we've put out so far, you're going to really like the album. And if you don't like what we've put out so far, I'd probably stay away from the album.

JACOB: I think that there are a few very interesting things we haven't released as singles yet that you wouldn't expect from us - based on all of our past releases that are on the album. There's a few hints at where we're moving to for the next album, the next butterfly to catch. And for those who have already heard all the singles, the film is going to be just a beautiful way to recontextualize the whole thing.

And finally, the P&P classic: What are you guys' favorite lyrics from "So Good"? Why do they stand out to you and resonate with you personally?

TOM: "So Good" is a song that went through many, many iterations. I think the heart of the story - "I just want to wake up scared to die for the first time in my life, and say 'I feel so good'" - is something that has made its way though every single version. A lot of the time, we feel like songs should be written because things that we think should be said, and we're going to just put them out there in the world and be the ones to say them. I think that's a universal sentiment of when you're in chapters of your life, where maybe the days feel long or you wish you were scared to die. Days that in the darkest way, you aren't scared to die, because you don't have lots to live for. We know that everything is cyclical. That's not saying that [it describes] everyone, but for anyone that feels that way, we hope that this song can be a little bit of constellations.

DEVAN: We definitely had a bit of experimentation on the perspective in that song. I think that besides the fact that [these lyrics were] always at the core, we were never sure if it should be us wanting someone else to say this about themselves. We didn't know what perspective the song was in, so I feel like we landed on the simplest.

TOM: I like a line in the first verse, "Angels and demons live on your bedside." When I was growing up, my parents always had a copy of Angels and Demons by Dan Brown on their bedside table, for whatever reason, and no one moved the book. So in that lyric, there's a double entendre of "angels and demons." There's the left shoulder and the right shoulder, there's the ying and the Yang. But there's also literally Angels and Demons living on your bedside table.

Although Moontower has spent years perfecting a deliberate, meaningful sound and approach, they consistently make it a point to bring communities together, and have fun in the process. While placing compelling and vivid narratives in their work, they capture themes and feelings that almost anyone can relate to. Their music makes listeners feel heard, accepted, and less alone. Most importantly, in a world that is rapidly shifting towards digital formats, we're so glad that they strive to preserve the magic of live concerts, both on the small and large scales. If you're hoping to dive deeper into the world of Moontower, we've curated a playlist to help you get started!