Interview with Stay Lunar

Since forming in Bristol in 2019, Stay Lunar have really established themselves with their polished dreamy/bedroom-pop sound. On the back of support slots with Larkins, Little Comets and SPINN, their latest single ‘Dreaming That I’m Not In Love’, saw them gain worldwide recognition, having been featured on some of the internet’s most reputable blogs, channels and Spotify playlists: as well as being chosen as BBC Introducing in the West’s ‘Track Of The Week’. All of this attention has gained the track tens of thousands of streams since its release and the momentum looks set to continue following the release of ‘Not your Fight’ and their new single ‘Immediately’ which is out today! I really love the sound of Stay Lunar so when Harry Leigh reached out to me with the new song I was 'immediately' in love with it.

I got the chance to ask Harry some questions about the new song and the inspiration behind the sound and darker lyrics presented as well as their live show plans for later this year.

Hi, how are you?

Hey! Very good thank you, feels like things are slowly on the up.

How would you describe your sound to the readers?

I personally like to think of our sound as dreamy but energetic. I've always loved the idea of our music being something that you can dance to or at least enjoy if it came on while you were out, but also be able to listen to whilst laying on your bed reflecting on life. I have no idea if we achieve that, but I love the idea of songs that fit several moods - Some people have described 'dreaming' as a perfect song for driving at night which is pretty cool - I'd maybe agree if I could drive hahah

Who are your biggest musical influences?

This is always an interesting one to answer as our tastes and influences are quite varied, but I think our rhythm section comprised of Charlie and James are quite influenced by bands like The Cure, The Strokes, The War on Drugs, Tame Impala, The Smiths, etc. For the rest of us, we're into a lot of stuff that Stay Lunar doesn't necessarily sound like, such as artists like Fog Lake, Alex G, Clairo, Hazel English, Gleemer and many more.

I'd say that our main influences are probably more aligned with artists like Day Wave, JAWS, Turnover, The Wombats, M83, DIIV, etc.

Stay Lunar is back with a new song ‘Immediately’ which I absolutely love. When I listen to your music I am transported to another place, I love the guitars and the way they are layered, the vocals sound incredible here as well. How was the process of making this song for you? Did you face any challenges due to the pandemic?

That's really lovely of you to say, thank you. Funnily enough, I demoed this song at home during the first lockdown, listened back to it once and hated it so didn't even share it with the guys. Then, after the first lockdown we started rehearsing/writing together again and the guys asked if I'd written anything new and after going through a few that weren't exactly getting anyone excited, I played Immediately and we started working on it instantly and it became the band favourite - I grew to love the track after we all worked on it, I think lockdown was skewing everything for me at the time. We got pretty lucky with the recording as we were able to head to the studio in September 2020 to record a couple of tracks. The process was pretty much the same as pre-pandemic for this song, although vocally we decided to layer up some airy falsetto vocals, which we think sounds really cool in the recording. I think our main challenges came after this recording trip, due to the recent pandemic being so long and restrictive.

You’ve said even though this song is still introspective, like many of your other songs, this is the first song that focuses on your collective experience as a band. Can you explain more about the inspiration being the lyrics for this song?

I actually had the 'immediatelyyyy-y-y-y-y' vocal hook for a while before writing this, but nothing was joining up with it, so it was just one of those shelved ideas. I hit a point during the pandemic where I was feeling super down about not being able to gig or spend time with the guys and we weren't really communicating very well - it felt as though there was a lot of friction but it was just because we were frustrated. It was around this time that I started sifting through the shelved ideas and immediately popped up - straight away I had vocal ideas and started writing about my thoughts and fears about the band's future. At the time of writing everything was just getting pushed back more and more and eventually the frustration turned into a much deeper and darker state for us as individuals, which led to disagreements about things, going weeks without talking, etc., so that's all I could think about when the song was coming together. Sleep became my escape from all of the fears about whether we'd still be a band and whether I'd ever get back to a positive mental state post-lockdown, so that's what the chorus is about. 'When my eyes close / my thoughts are frozen' - being asleep was the only time these things weren't affecting me personally. It's weird to think about all of that now as we're in a much better place individually and as a band - the pandemic initially affected us in ways we never imagined could be possible.

Do you have a favourite lyric or line in the song?

I think for me, it would be: "so loud, though i never move my mouth - every cloud, but the silver can't be found". This was about everything negative in my head being so noisy, like TV static, and I just couldn't maintain communication with anyone, I didn't want to talk about or do anything and I was in a very pessimistic state of mind.

What do you hope listeners will take away from listening to ‘Immediately’?

I think that while 'Immediately' is quite a dark song lyrically, I would hope that people are able to relate to and find comfort in the words. Being in a privileged position, I felt guilty at times that I was feeling the way I was during this pandemic, when so many people's lives were being adversely affected - but it took me a while to realise that despite my issues being far less severe than so many others, any suffering is valid and to acknowledge and work through this. I hope that the song doesn't serve as a reminder of such a difficult time, but instead a reminder of how amazingly everyone has done to get through this so far.

We’ve all been missing live music, so now that things are opening up again do you guys have any plans for live shows anytime soon?

Yes! We've got a couple of shows in Bristol in August, one being an all day festival called Sunder and the other being a support show with an awesome band called Pynch, hopefully those are able to go ahead. Next up we're headlining a charity festival called the Swindon Shuffle in September, which is in support of the mental health charity Mind. After this we have our biggest ever headline show at The Louisiana in Bristol (Oct 16th), which is close to selling out, then supporting the brilliant BE GOOD in Hoxton, London a few days after that. We can't wait, it's been SO long since we last played in front of people.

What can we expect from ‘Stay Lunar’ next? Are there any more releases on the way?

Definitely, we have another single lined up after Immediately, then we're currently planning something bigger further down the line - nothing confirmed yet, but definitely have a lot to come and we can't wait to share it all!

And lastly, what music have you been listening to recently? Anything you can recommend to us?

We've been listening to and discovering a lot of great music recently, I'll put a bunch below that we'd highly recommend:

For the more chilled out/dreamy stuff: Japanese Breakfast, Mitski, Ellis, Adrienne Lenker, Skullcrusher, Just Mustard, Sun June, Charli Adams, Fog Lake, Clairo

For more up-beat stuff: KennyHoopla, BLOXX, Pronoun, M.A.G.S, Middle Kids, Clews, Rostam

Thank you so much for taking the time to answer these questions for us, it’s really appreciated.

Thank you for having us, we really appreciate it :)

You can listen to 'Immediately' everywhere now! It has been on repeat for me so you should definitely go and give it a listen. Thanks again to Harry from Stay Lunar for taking the time to answer those questions for us. Make sure you give the band a follow on their social media pages and on Spotify and add the song to your playlists to show it some love.

Thanks for reading, until next time...

Listen to Immediately on Spotify here.

Follow Stay Lunar on Spotify here.

Follow Stay Lunar on Instagram here.

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