Moon Darling isn’t just a cool name. When I look up Moon Darling, I get links to the font or type face, and various Moon Festivals around the world. But it is also the name for a Los-Angeles based band, birthed in Seattle and led by vocalist-guitarist Michael Julian and bassist Eliza Karpel.
Their new wave, 70s psychedelia sound is not aesthetic. You can hear the influences Moon Darling swears by, from artists like Led Zeppelin to Hall & Oates and Tame Impala. Strangely enough, I could also hear Sting, Chris Cornell, The Dandy Warhols and sometimes Bush. Moon Darling has a grunge element in their vocals that makes them sound like they are singing live, instead of sounding like something produced in a studio. Then there’s the band’s citing of Spaghetti Western films. That’s right—Moon Darling is pulling visual and sonic inspiration that makes you sit forward and want to hear more.
Their sophomore album, Hearts to Blame, is coming out September 25, with two singles, “Welcome Back” and “Coyote” out now. They are also gearing up to embark on a US tour.
Hearts to Blame Tracklist:
- Welcome Back – out now
- Hearts To Blame
- Where The Dwarves Go
- Coyote – out now
- Call It
- Which Way
- Short Days
- Soul Pant
- In The Wildwood
In Conversation With Moon Darling
I chatted with Michael and Eliza, and here’s how our conversation went—like a lasso to the moon.
Q: Firstly, how did the two of you meet, form the band, and settle on the name Moon Darling?
Michael: The name was decided several years ago when I was living in Seattle, Washington. I’d experienced this with previous projects where there were endless lists of 100 different possible names. I narrowed it down being in tune with astrology. ‘Moon’ was calling to me, and to be honest, I don’t even remember how ‘darling’ came up. I think a member at the time, his partner, was the one who suggested it, and it was very suitable.
I met Eliza in Los Angeles. We played in a couple projects together. We took a little hiatus from Moon Darling initially, and then I was showing Eliza some other members of [a] past project which disbanded. [She took] a look at these songs that I recorded and she loved them. So, we’ve been recording and working together since. Moon Darling is back in full force.
Q: What kind of music did you listen to growing up in Seattle, and how did it inform the band’s direction? Has being based in LA altered that or added onto it?
Michael: As far as Los Angeles goes, I wouldn’t say it has altered the way I write or think or anything. I was in Seattle for a little over a decade and I kind of grew up there. I was born and raised down in Los Angeles but my adulthood really developed in Seattle and in the Pacific Northwest, around a bunch of spiritual, witchy kind of people who occupy that area. It had a massive influence on my thoughts and perceptions and writings.
Some people ask if the sunshine in Los Angeles compared to the gloom of Seattle may have changed things. They would say things like, “do you write happier songs now?” No, I’m just really hot and I wish I had a central air conditioner. That is really the only difference. As for the music I grew up listening to, it was pretty much strictly classic rock stuff from the 60s, 70s, 80s, and some from the 50s. My parents were into classic rock during this era and my mom passed all her vinyl records to me. Fleetwood Mac, Led Zeppelin, Scorpions, you name it. In this present day, I like a lot of pop music too, so that definitely has its own influence. For me, it is classic rock with a modern twist.
Q: That’s cool to say that you also enjoy pop, because I feel like lots of people tend to kind of not want to say that or shy away from that.
Eliza: Yes, and my listening taste is definitely similar. We both had the Beatles as a foundation too, and we love that pop-iness. A lot of that comes from disco music and ABBA. That was definitely a big part of my upbringing, especially on bass, because some of the most underrated baselines ever are from ABBA songs. [Using] a lot of Beatles, Fleetwood Mac, and sounds from the ’70s, kind of paired with the pop-iness of the disco bands, we mesh that together with modern music. [We’re] not even writing with the sense of trying to go any direction, but it ends up being that way.
Q; I was gonna ask Eliza this question later, but I’m going to go ahead now. I genuinely think female bassists tend to be cooler. Feel free to disagree with the premise because it does attribute gender to the equation but if so, why do you think that is?
Eliza: There’s just something grounding about the bass and being such a strong part of the rhythm section. It’s cool seeing a woman take that role and the same goes for a female drummer. It’s badass, you feel it with the music. I grew up as a band kid playing low brass instruments, and I was always the only girl there as well. So part of it is about being a woman, in more male dominated spaces, especially in music.
Michael: Especially for rock and roll, I’d say. Every female rock and roll badass are the coolest fucking people like Debbie Harry and they end up heavy shit. It’s awesome.
Eliza: A lot of my friends are always like telling me to stand on the front centre stage. I like my little pocket back in the corner, but there’s definitely something that people are very drawn to seeing that. It can be inspiring to other women out there that might want to give it a try.
Q: Michael engineered the upcoming album, Hearts to Blame. Can you elaborate on how that’s been, and how that involvement differs from your previous album?
Michael: Unfortunately what led to me starting to want to engineer things myself is the costliness of operating independently. I have ended up in a lot of creative spaces in my life where I’m having to do this myself. Even if it’s tattoos, ‘I’m tired of paying for this, I’m just gonna learn how to do it.’
I think it uniquely worked out to be better than expected, because I don’t know the things that professional engineers know. It was not a typical experience because we were in a log cabin in the middle of the forest in Washington. I’ve definitely learned so much since, especially with the process of mixing everything. I have a friend from the Pacific Northwest who did the majority of the mixing, and I have learned a lot from him, but I partially lucked out on getting good recordings. Eliza and he did a lot through synthesisers, and we set up a walk-in closet that we completely sound treated and made sound proof for extra synth material. It turned out really incredible.
Q: How do you navigate being an independent artist in an industry where having a record label’s resources and marketing campaigns give such a big push?
Michael: I think especially with AI and the way technology is advancing right now, people are craving going back to the roots with making art and music. That approach is just how we naturally create, but I think people have been missing that DIY, independent manner.
Because I’ve never had a label supporting me, or an indie label even, my entire mindset has been ingrained over years and years of being an independent artist. All the achievements, resources and everything has really just come from networking and playing shows and building those connections over a long period of time. It’s probably really nice having a major label that has a little black book of connections, but I feel like we have that now. It just happened over several years of grinding, playing shows, posting flyers, recording our own shit, and making our own art and videos.
Ultimately, if you find success as an independent artist, I think it could be a lot more beneficial to the artist themselves. It costs a lot to make art unfortunately, and if you believe in it, you risk it. So that’s all we know how to do.
Q: Yeah, and you’ve had to do double the work essentially. But at the same time, you only have your expectations to manage, not anybody else’s.
Michael: Totally. And like Eliza originally said, especially now, coming out with an independently made, lo-fi record that just has rawness is attracting a lot of people. I don’t even think major labels do studio time anymore without making the artist pay it back. I think the direction they’re really looking for is more of a Billie Eilish, who is making all their stuff, like, right there on the computer, and they don’t have to fork out $100,000 for studio time. But yes, a lot of people are craving raw, independent work again which is great for us.
Q: Your first single, “Welcome Back”, for some reason made me imagine a bullfight while listening but it felt so inviting? I loved the scream/screech in the middle. Besides the title, it was fun and kinetic and melancholic and punchy. Why was that selected as the first single of the new album?
Michael: I think part of it was the build of it and the way it comes in with the mellotrons. It just felt like a good starter for everything with its different elements. There’s a lot of pressure with having to choose which track you want the world to hear first. It’s upbeat, it’s disco-y, but with big breakdowns. That bullfight feeling definitely comes from my Spaghetti Western Ennio Morricone influence. I grew up loving music from Spaghetti Westerns, and I still love it. Yes there’s the guitar trills. I don’t even know what to say about the screeching. It’s a style I developed, and as more singles come out and the record comes out, there’s other songs that also use that same element.
Q: Funny you’ve mentioned the Spaghetti Western thing, because that was my next question. For your music video, both of you filmed and edited, and it was shot on Kodak Charmera digital camera keychains. You’ve also spoken about your love for Spaghetti Western cinema. Firstly, can we expect a visual album from you? I also wanted to specifically ask about that process from writing and recording music to filming a visual representation of it.
Michael: I would love to do a visual album. I’m a very visual thinker and I definitely like when emotion bridges the gap between the music and the visuals for me. It comes together as one. Both of us kind of have a background or a tendency to be very visual. I work in fine art on the side, and Eliza is a stylist. It’s also a budget thing. We don’t have a budget to pay a film crew, so I was like, let’s figure out ways to do this ourselves. It was channeling our creativity when the music part is done, and now we’re pushing it into this other creative aspect, which is its own beast.
Q: You’ve previously talked about the feeling of existing as ‘unresolved,’ and that there is no endpoint, no resolution, or concrete catharsis in your songs. Is that something you intentionally set out to do with each project, or did you gradually realise this was a common thread amongst your body of work?
Michael: I wish I knew where that had started, but maybe it’s the cinematic aspect and cinematic scores that had that influence. Feeling like something is incomplete and unresolved makes you sit there at the end like you’re waiting for something. My whole life, I’ve felt like when I listen to songs from other artists, there is a certain satisfaction and a resolution bringing it all to a head. So, my dramatic cinema side makes me want to leave things unresolved and create a different world. [One] where the story is just starting, and it will be resolved at some other point in life.
Q: Yeah, it adds that tension and you can always go back to it. Can you give us a tease about the next single? If not, what can fans and new listeners expect from your new record? Is there anything that you haven’t really explored before?
Michael: Let’s start with a teaser here. The next single (out now), “Coyote”, is probably one of our more disco-y songs. This one stands out because Eliza and I really did all of it. This is the only track that I drummed on, and it ended up being the rawest and pop-iest. It’s really unconventional, and it’s a song I wrote about my dog. As for the rest of the album, it’s a really versatile album. There’s not a single song on it that feels or sounds like another. Expect the unexpected.
Eliza: If you really sit with each song, you can find similar threads throughout that tie them together. So while there is a huge difference across the album in terms of the feelings that the songs present, they can then magically feel like one.
Michael: Yeah, and like you mentioned with the Beatles earlier, they did reoccurring themes, even in very different songs and albums. I’ve always been in love with albums that run together almost like one artwork. Pink Floyd does this, where one song is mean’t to go into the next song; it’s not just its own separate thing. So we do a lot of that too.
Rapid fire Questions:
Album you are currently obsessed with –
- Eliza’s pick: Stevie Nicks’ debut Bella Donna
- Michael’s pick: I listen to music through the radio and vinyls so there is no album at the moment
An artist everyone should listen to –
- Double pick: Alexandra Savior
Favourite album cover –
- Eliza’s pick: a vinyl version of The Wizard of Oz where it’s funk and futuristic
- Michael’s pick: Led Zeppelin IV
Favourite music video –
- Eliza’s pick: Anything Lady Gaga
- Michael’s pick: Fatboy Slim ft. Bootsy Collins – “Weapon Of Choice” where Christopher Walken is walking
Favourite Spaghetti Western film –
- Double pick: Tombstone
Revisiting this interview in the lead-up to publication had me thinking about the ever-so-quotable moon reference in It’s A Wonderful Life (not a spaghetti Western). James Stewart’s character asks his love interest, Mary, “What is it you want, Mary? You want the moon? Just say the word and I’ll throw a lasso around it and pull it down.”
I think Moon Darling may be doing just that with their musical direction. We’ll know for sure when Hearts to Blame comes out on September 25.