Newly signed to Kingfisher Bluez, Vancouver shoegaze band La Lune is taking the scene by storm. Composed of several local musicians already well versed in the Vancouver scene, La Lune is: Ethan on rhythm guitar and lead vocals, Ben on lead guitar, Olivia on bass and backing vocals, and Taylor on the drums. With members from past and present local bands such as Bookclub, Magnolia, Laterdays, and chronically online, La Lune is breaking the mold of what is expected of their sound. The La Lune live show experience has unmatched energy, and they manage to completely win over the crowd with their next level sound. The band has played at many legendary Vancouver venues over this past year since they formed in December 2022. Most notably playing at the annual Kingfisher Bluez Christmas charity event this past December at the Commodore Ballroom and opening for Ringo Deathstarr at the Wise Hall. Their debut single “disparity” was released on all streaming platforms December 8th, followed by a headline release show at Red Gate Art Society. Less than a month later came the highly anticipated music video for the single, directed by local filmmaker Grayson Lang, which captures the essence of a La Lune live show and showcases the band’s style in such a unique and fun way. Their next single “a little life” will release on February 2nd. I had the opportunity to chat with the band prior to the release of “disparity” to discuss the track, how the band formed, and some of their musical influences.

*Note that the following interview took place with former bassist Chris Jana, and La Lune has since welcomed Olivia Wells back into the band.

First off thank you guys for reaching out, I’m stoked to have you. I wanted to start off with unraveling the band origin story. You’re all kind of like a supergroup to the local indie scene, made up of a bunch of bands we all know and love, how did you guys form the band?

Ethan: Taylor and I started jamming like November of 2022, maybe a little earlier than that. We were playing tunes together for a little bit, kind of needed a guitarist, and Taylor knew Ben through Rufus Guitar Shop and asked Ben if he wanted to jam with us. We jammed and it felt really good, so we went with that.

Taylor: That's pretty much what it was. We just started learning songs, we were playing with our friend Olivia for a bit, she was rocking some bass. Chris very recently joined the band; she has been crushing it. We've done 3-4 shows together now. It's all been really quick; we played our first show ever in January (2023) and then played probably 20 since then. Hoping to get the songs out there, get the record out there, and just keep playing.

How did you guys come up with the band name?

Taylor: It's a combination of a couple of things. It's partly from the King Krule song called “La Lune”, but one of my favorite artists ever, The Microphones, has a song called “The Moon”. I thought it was cool to have the French version of that as well as one of my favorite King Krule songs and it kind of stuck. It was just an idea and we kind of rolled with it and all grew to like it.

Me: Were there any other suggestions that were close runners up for names?

Ben: Honestly, I don't remember there being anything. It was all joke names aside from that.

If you were to describe your sound to people, how would you do it?

Ben: I feel like we've definitely called ourselves just a rock band before, but I feel like these days we're pretty comfortable calling ourselves shoegaze or alt rock. We like a lot of stuff from those genres in terms of inspiration.

Speaking of inspiration, what are some of your individual musical influences that you think each of you bring into this project?

Ben: I can speak for myself that a big band for at least the three of us (Ethan and Taylor) when getting together was finding out that we all really liked the band Slint. They were a pretty big bonding point for us, not necessarily the direct type of music we make, but I think we bring in a little bit of the weirdness of that band to some of our stuff.

Taylor: The anger and indie kind of side. There's a few that I think we all really rocked with at least at the very start of the band. There's a band called DIIV and they have an album, Deceiver. I know when we first started jamming it was pretty big for us. Also, just the classic alt rock 90s bands like Slowdive, My Bloody Valentine. It's anything and everything with our live set. A big component of it is improvisational, so it can sort of be anything in terms of influence what's coming up in the moment while we're playing.

Ben: I feel like for live shows a big one for me is Sumac. I definitely really love their improv and really art inspired experience.

Ethan: I've been really into Wilko lately, especially Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. A lot of singer-songwriter stuff, Alex G. The Microphones, a lot of stuff from the Philadelphia shoegaze scene. Trying to sort of keep in mind writing a good song, but also incorporating elements of other music that I'm into.

Chris: Yeah, I'll just add that I think what's really nice about this band is not being tied down to one sound. Even since I've joined and played with these guys a bit, it's nice to see things are kind of fluid and they're open to experimenting with different sounds. I'm excited to see how that carries us moving forward.

I know that most of you have played in various other bands already, such as Bookclub, Magnolia, Laterdays. I'm curious to hear how your experiences with that has been different from the work that you're doing in in La Lune?

Ben: Yeah, those are definitely older bands more or less. I feel like all of us still write a lot of music on our own, but in terms of this band, it's always been a pretty considered thought process. The songwriting and collaborating we do pretty collectively and are constantly sending each other music and listening to a lot of stuff. Musically it's quite different, I think live show wise, I feel like it's almost less about the songs as it is that every show is a little bit different. At least I can say for the other band that I was in; it was a pretty concrete set that we would do all the time and there would be little to no improvisation. Whereas this project we do a lot of experimental stuff. That's the newest thing for me, I've never been in a band like that.

Taylor: I feel like with the bands that I've played in before; I probably would have been kicked out if I played the way I do in La Lune. I get to take a lot of creative liberty with the songs, which I really like, especially live. It just feels like the drums are a very creative and interesting part for me. In some of the other bands I've been in, I'm more in a specific role. It's a little more open.

Ethan: It feels, at least for me, like doing music more for me and less for the audience, which sometimes can work in our favor and sometimes not. Some people might be into it and others might think it's super obnoxious and I think we're all kind of okay with being a little bit jarring sometimes.

Ben: We played at Neptoon Records outside on Car Free Day and it was a lot of families and stuff walking by covering their ears. There was a kid standing next to me eating a tornado potato, just looking like his ears were getting blown out. And I was just like “Dude, find your parents.”.  

Do you find it difficult to manage multiple projects such as the ones I mentioned before as well as Ethan, I know you've recently been doing chronically online with Cam. Is it hard to keep up with it all?

Ethan: For chronically online, that was something that Cam and I did just in the fall over the course of a couple of months, like once a week for a little bit, so it didn't take up a super lengthy amount of time. I will say the biggest challenge for all of us really is that we all have jobs that take up a significant amount of our time, or school, and trying to fit in that and also writing songs. We also have partners that we're trying to spend time with too, just living and existing is a lot.

Ben: Music is definitely like 80 or 90% of the daily information I consume, I guess. Which is crazy, but if I told myself four years ago that would be the case, I’d be stoked on it.

You mentioned the record, do you have any idea of a rough timeline for when that might come out?

Taylor: We're hoping mid April.

To get into the main thing that we're here to discuss. The first single “disparity” comes out December 8th, it's incredible, I'm so stoked for everyone to hear it. It's the debut release, so I was wondering how you all decided on that song in specific to be the first one?

Taylor: Well, it's one of the first ones that we felt really good about when we were first writing songs. It's been in the set since our very first show, we've played it every show and we've always loved playing it. I think we're all just really proud of it. We certainly think it's a cool, unique song. I love the drums in it.

Were there any other contenders for the debut release?

Taylor: Honestly, I feel like every song on the record was a contender.

Ben: We definitely worked on figuring out which one it was going to be in pretty much every aspect you could imagine. Which I'm glad we did, because we're all super stoked on it. And we have a video coming out for it with Grayson, who was such a pleasure to work with.

Taylor: Shout out Grayson, Grayson rules.

Me: I feel like the phrase shout out Grayson has come up in the last couple interviews I've done. It's so cool to have buddies that are all in the scene, they’re so great and we both support each other’s work a lot.

Ben: They've been at the past four or five shows, shooting and also just hanging and being the best.

Can you share a bit about the experience of making that video and shooting it with Grayson?

Ben: Ethan got shit on by a bird while we were at the petting zoo. That's the first thing I think of when I think of the process making the video.

Ethan: I think we wanted to do a video but didn't really have an idea of any sort of over arching concept, and we just thought it would be funny if we did a video that was completely opposite of our vibe, like let's just go to a petting zoo. And then also Grayson incorporated some clips of us in a live setting and us in our jam space. Just kind of a bit of a disparity.

The rest of the band: *groans*

Ethan: Oooh yeah, I regret saying that.

Ben: I think it's a good contrast. After we went to the petting zoo, I feel like we were talking about animals for a good week. When we rebranded, we were debating changing our Instagram to a herd of sheep, but we thought that was maybe a little too ominous.

Me: So, was it just the idea of wanting to do the complete opposite of your sound that inspired the petting zoo?

Taylor: I think that was part of it. Just wanting to not make it a linear narrative sort of music video, and just have it a little bit of us playing the song, little bit of us hanging out. I think it gives us a bit of a face which is nice.

To kind of go back to the track itself, if you were to pick one word that you think describes the song, what would that be for each of you guys?

Taylor: Hard.

Ben: I'm going to go with massive.

Ethan: Corrosive.

Chris: Expansive.

What do you guys hope that people gain from the music that you're putting out?

Ben: I hope that it's gonna be some good jams for people that are taking the bus to work, enjoy a nice glass of chocolate milk, or chocolate oat milk. Just pure rock ‘n’ roll carnage energy.

Ethan: I think we take some rock and pop tropes and ways of approaching music that are a little bit different than other people. I think listening to us would give people a different look into that hopefully.

Taylor: Something that people can connect with and enjoy. Maybe feel comforted by or just resonate with it. I don't think any of us have anything specific that we're hoping people take away. Aside from just hoping people like them.

Ben: I hope that different types of people aside from just people that make music also enjoy it. I feel like it's easy when you're playing with a lot of musicians and friends with a lot of them, to think those are gonna be the only types of people that are listening to it. And then you remember there's a lot of people that don't share those experiences and are listening to it purely as a song.

Chris: I think also it would be cool if it inspires people to listen to more new music, like someone who maybe hasn't listened to that sort of genre as much or to look at more local music in this area would be cool.

On Soup Can Collective, one thing that I really like to do is highlight a song of the week. Something that I am so into and can't get out of my head. What are each of your songs of the week at the moment?

Taylor: Ohh that's a good one. I've got a funny one, “Tupelo Honey” by Van Morrison.

Ben: “That’s Us/ Wild Combination” by Arthur Russell I’ve been listening to all week.

Ethan: “You Want To” by Fleeting Joys.

Chris: I've been going through a lot of different 90s records because Ben was asking me what some of my favorites are. I don't know if I could pick just one song, though. These guys turned me on to Duster recently, as somewhat of an inspiration for some of the music, so I've been listening to a lot of that lately.