[Interview] Exclusive interview with Lunar

Dear readers, it is our pleasure to offer you in this article an interview with a Californian band with a Progressive Metal sound, with a new album due out in January 2025. We welcome Lunar.

Hi, how are you?

Wonderful, thank you.

The band was formed in 2014, how did the project come about and what does the band name Lunar mean to you?

The band was originally formed by myself and my friend Ryan Erwin. We wanted to do something that blended a lot of genres and let us play some diverse music with no limitations. The name has come to mean a lot to me personally of the sentiment of what we have built this band to be.

You are musicians coming from different artistic backgrounds, how did your passion for Progressive Metal sounds come about?

Prog music is something Iā€™ve been into for most of my life. Discovering these bands with these styles like no other. So unique, not to mention talented. Iā€™ve always been drawn to that. Plus I really do enjoy many different styles of music and really love the idea of progressive music that blends these styles together so well, yet makes it so cohesive.

Your new album ā€˜Tempora Mutanturā€™ is due out in January 2025, how would you describe this work?

I think itā€™s some of the best weā€™ve done so far. I believe the songwriting has progressed, as it should with any artist. I think thereā€™s a lot of talent on this record. Plenty of diversity. Some soft and emotional songs, some heavy and brutal songs, some technicality, some simplicity, some good hooks. Hopefully, I have a little something for everyone.

Intense and granitic tracks, how does the creative process of your music take place?

Mostly it will begin with a riff or idea I hear in my head. I do my best to replicate what Iā€™m hearing in my head and program a guitar part for the guitar players to use as reference for what Iā€™m going for. Then we kind of build off of that. Usually, it starts that way, but sometimes itā€™s a vocal hook or something else that I build off of. And oftentimes I have the theme or concept of the album in mind already so I think of what I want the track to convey emotionally and use that feeling to build the music around.

Besides the music, the vocals are also dynamic and expressive, what themes do the lyrics deal with?

With this record itā€™s dealing mainly with the concept of time. How the passing of time affects us, and the fact that itā€™s something we all deal with. We canā€™t escape it, though we may try, and we all deal with it in different ways. And the aspects within that of things like love, loss, death, new life, distractions, addictions, perception, memory, and so on, and how these things affect us over the passing of time.

Several guests participated in the album, what did they bring to the sound?

I love having the guests on the albums. Itā€™s something weā€™ve done with every album, and I still really love doing it. I feel it really brings unique concepts and approaches to the songs to help bring them to life.

You have extracted a great single anticipating the album, do you have any more in the pipeline before January?

Thank you very much! Yes, there will actually be 4 singles released before the album comes out. And I feel, between them all, there is a lot of the diversity in our music showcased. So I would encourage listeners to check them all out, because one may be very different from another.

Many of your fans and our readers are wondering if there will be a chance to hear your music live. Do you have plans in this regard for the near future?

Yes! After 10 years weā€™ll finally be making our live debut at the Hyperspace Metal Festival in Vancouver in April 2025. We have a couple of other things potentially in the works, but the aspect of touring and performing is difficult financially for a band our size, in our genre, with members spread out so far. But weā€™re doing our best to make at least a few live appearances happen.

The music market is constantly evolving, how do you see the modern scene in the Progressive genre?

I think the prog genre is generally very positive and supportive. Itā€™s a niche crowd, so to speak, and people generally have strong opinions, as many people into progressive music are musicians themselves. But I think that lends to a lot of the respect and support that comes with it. I think with today’s reach of social media and whatnot, many people are forming bonds and a community of prog music lovers and are able to share more projects with people and discover new bands.

How difficult, if at all, is it to make a name for yourself nowadays with a genre like Progressive Metal?

It is certainly difficult, but I think that to be true of all genres of music. With what I said before about the reach of social media and such, it also causes a bit of oversaturation of music. There are so many bands out there now, and itā€™s all so readily accessible, that itā€™s even tougher to stand out and become something to ā€œmake it.ā€ Talent and determination isnā€™t enough anymore. So much of ā€œmaking itā€ has to do with the right place, and right time, along with talent, determination, and lots of hard work.

What advice would you give to young artists approaching the music market proposing more sophisticated sounds like yours?

Know that itā€™s going to be difficult. Know there will be a lot of thankless hard work. Have a goal in mind of what you want to achieve, and make a plan to do it. Expose yourself to as many styles, gigs, and musicians as you can to learn as much as you can. Most of all; do it for you and no one else. Itā€™s wonderful to have fans who connect with what you do,
but youā€™ll never please everyone, and the only way youā€™ll make that connection is if what youā€™re doing comes from an honest place. So make the music you want to make.

Do you have any other activities or artistic passions outside of music?

Not really. Music takes up so much of my time. Between drumming, dabbling in other instruments, writing the music, writing lyrics, recording, gigging, touring, teaching, and all the logistics that go along with releases, thereā€™s not much time for anything else for me. My time away from music is mostly spent lounging and parenting, so nothing else really artistic.

I thank the band for the interview and wish them all the best for the release of the new album and the continuation of their artistic career.

Thank you very much, and thanks for taking the time to have me for the interview.

Pre-Order their new album on Bandcamp:Ā https://lunarbandofficial.bandcamp.com/album/tempora-mutantur

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Author: Jacopo Vigezzi

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