This Friday, October 29th, Lunar Vacation are celebrating the release of their new record,“Inside, Every Fig is a Dead Wasp” with a show at Aisle 5 in Little Five Points.
Details and Tickets – https://wl.seetickets.us/event/Lunar-Vacation/450758?afflky=Aisle5
We sat down with the hometown favorites before their amazing set later in the evening on the Criminal Records Stage at Shaky Knees.
Atlanta Music Guide – John McNicholas
Go around and introduce yourself from stage right to left.
Lunar Vacation – Matteo De Lurgio
I’m Matteo De Lurgio, and I’m the keyboardist for Lunar Vacation.
Lunar Vacation – Connor Dowd
I’m Connor Dowd, and I play drums for Lunar.
Lunar Vacation – Maggie Eastland
I’m Maggie Eastland and I play guitar, also for Lunar.
Lunar Vacation – Grace Repasky
And I’m Grace Repasky, and I sing and play guitar.
AMG
Back in 2019, I was covering South by Southwest for Atlanta Music Guide and I tried to go see every Atlanta band I could. I saw you play at this really cool bar that had that back area that was really swanky and I instantly loved the vibe and the sound of the band. It was sunny, hazy and dreamy and then I saw you use the phrase “Pool Rock.” Oh, yeah! This is straight up “Pool Rock” you could almost smell the chlorine. So, “Inside, Every Fig is a Dead Wasp” is coming out a couple days before Halloween. That has to be pretty exciting to have a big full length coming out. I know, there’s some songs on there that you’ve recorded before, along with some new songs. How did you decide to put it out as one cohesive record?
Grace
We met up with our producer, Dan in late 2019 and we were just like, oh, let’s record “Unlucky”, which is not on the record, but it was a single, and we were kind of just like, let’s just record the song and whatever. We didn’t really have a plan to make a record, we just wanted to go in and make some songs. And then in January we went in and recorded two or three more songs and then it kind of just, felt right, and snowballed. And we’re like, whoa, we should totally make an album. And then from January until July of 2020, we were just working on it, like by ourselves, and then brought it in the studio and put it all together.
AMG
When you’re working on stuff by yourselves, is that at a home studio or do you have a local place you’d like to go?
Grace
It’s usually like home stuff, like just passing around files, sending each other stuff. Send out a logic file, someone adds something and then sends it back and forth.
AMG
It’s so great that you can do that now. First band I ever heard of doing that was The Postal Service, but they were literally mailing each other recordings.
Maggie
I didn’t know that was why they were called that!
AMG
When you talk about your producer, Dan, he’s from Grouplove?
Grace
Yes.
AMG
How important was it to meet somebody like him?
Maggie
It was definitely vital for our band. We were in a weird place. We had just gone through some dynamic changes and we decided to just maybe do school, like prioritize school over making a record because it didn’t, it didn’t feel… We weren’t in a good spot.
We were almost quitting. Like, I don’t even know if I want to… I can’t make music anymore. We all weren’t really in a good space.
Then we met Dan and I was like yeah, “we’re looking for a studio” because we never worked in a real studio before, like tracking in one. His studio is in the same strip as Criminal (Records), so, it just kinda worked out and he invited us to tour the studio. We did and then we ended up just talking about music. He definitely instilled a lot of confidence in us as individuals.
Connor
He was very good at hyping you up and telling you what you needed to keep going.
AMG
That’s huge, right? When you feel like you’re not doing good, sometimes you need somebody who walks in and says, “You’re awesome!”
Maggie
He definitely saw something in us that we were not seeing and got us out of a sonic rut. When we finished the record and listened back to the mixes, he was like, “You guys are a different band than when you came in!”
AMG
What do you think he brought in? Was it layers of sound or just the freedom to do some different stuff?
Maggie
Freedom.
Connor
His pop experience out of Grouplove, I don’t think we would have tried some of the things that we ended up putting on the album that he wasn’t like, encouraging us to do.
Maggie
He loves grunge music. He’s a huge Pearl Jam fan. I remember, Grace and I play guitar, like pretty softly and I remember we would do takes over and over and he’d be like, “Just play guitar like this is your first day ever playing guitar. Just hit it so hard. Act like you don’t know how to play it.”
He made us such confident musicians. I don’t think we’ve ever felt that way, which is like, pretty interesting. I guess it was like three years of maybe just imposter syndrome. At least for me. I feel like for all of us, we weren’t really confident in our instruments and how we played and how we wrote and stuff together. Dan was just a whole new perspective. I think we needed that. It wasn’t like, “Oh, he’s just saying that to be nice.”
He’s all about feeling and I think we were very focused on technical abilities before, especially because we started playing so young. And then Grace and I being young women… We needed to prove ourselves. Dan was like, “You don’t have to do that.”
Connor
Before that we’d done a lot of home studio stuff with our former member, and it was, like, we were in the rut. It was like, oh man, how are we gonna, you know, further our music and come up with new, exciting stuff? It’s a lot of stress when you’re responsible for your own home studio. Dan is great and engineer TJ, like, you know, they’re just such a good duo. They just come up with all these technical solutions… we would have never even had the ability to do it.
Grace
That leads you down different avenues.
AMG
A lot of times when people are new at something they either have zero confidence, or they have so much confidence that it gets in the way of learning or taking on a mentor or even hearing feedback.
I was listening to the new record this week, which is really great, I’d heard about half the songs before just because they’ve been out for a little bit and I’m hearing some Frankie Cosmos and some Real Estate but there’s more pop elements. What were some of the bands that you were listening to before this record?
Matteo
We were listening and talking about Phoenix
Maggie
Phoenix was like a major reference. I wanted it to have this big, crazy open sound like the song by Phoenix or whatever. For drums there’s a lot of like 90s R&B type sound and cool samples.
Connor
Yeah, we went into the sample world a little more than we usually did. Dan’s kind of used to working with TJ, like finding new sounds, finding cool drum sounds or finding new ways to sample drums. It kind of allowed me to play stuff that I wouldn’t have come up with, you know?
For me, John Bonham’s drumming is like my major, main thing and I started on Jazz, which works in and ties back to the R&B thing. Gospel also. That’s the main thing for me. I was playing jazz and they kind of pushed me a little bit.
Maggie
I feel like this record also goes way more into the drum and bass world, whereas before we were kind of trying to be a guitar band. TJ and Dan can make shit hit so hard. So definitely, the songs hit a lot harder
AMG
You have some European dates coming up. Is that exciting? Has the band been before?
Maggie
No, I’m geeked, I’m so excited. Hopefully I’ll be graduating college the same week.
AMG
Big week!
Maggie
I know we’re all really excited for the food. We’re all excited to play, but also to eat some food and enjoy the history.
Grace
Yeah, cuz we love to roam around and explore and poke around. I think it’s gonna be really, really fun.
Connor
My friends are in Japan right now and the first thing he sent me was a picture of the bento box. They just have such a high standard over there. Yeah, all that food. Amazing.
AMG
So, what’s coming up next for you?
Maggie
We’re playing at Aisle Five next week for our record release show. If you want to come, Costumes are encouraged!
This Friday, October 29th, Lunar Vacation are celebrating the release of their new record,“Inside, Every Fig is a Dead Wasp” with a show at Aisle 5 in Little Five Points.
Details and Tickets – https://wl.seetickets.us/event/Lunar-Vacation/450758?afflky=Aisle5
Links
Website – https://www.lunarvacationband.com
Links – https://linktr.ee/lunarvacation
By John McNicholas
