Meet The Eccentric Arthur Moon
Hailing from Brooklyn, Arthur Moon is testing the boundaries of what we think of when we hear ‘pop’. The quirky, individualistic vibes created by this band are one of a kind. With a new self-titled debut album, Arthur Moon is creating smashing tracks and redefining what it means to listen to ‘pop’.
We got to ask them a few questions, and here is what Arthur Moon had to say…
What do you think the underlying message is of your debut album, ‘Arthur Moon’?
I don’t often set out to send a didactic message when I make music, but I guess within whatever it is that people relate to on the record, I would hope there’s a permission to break rules, an invitation to be outside the confines of what they’ve been told they must be and do. It’s not experimentation for experiment’s sake (although I love that too!), but rather the proposition that there isn’t just one “right” way of doing things—be that music or sex or politics or gender or whatever. There are certainly ways of doing things that are “wrong” (ie ethically, morally), but my point is that there isn’t just one “correct” way to be good in the world—there are many. Or, to put it differently, that being “incorrect” is way more interesting because it gives us a window into all these myriad possibilities we often ignore because we’re scared or trapped or lazy.
It’s been stated that you enjoy breaking the rules when it comes to music. What does this mean to you?
How do you challenge the boundaries? I think it can mean different things in different moments. Obviously, I’m making music that’s still pretty accessible! Which is to say: I don’t think I’m challenging the boundaries of sound as we understand it—I’d definitely call Arthur Moon “pop” music. But I like working in the pop idiom because it’s a really great way to draw people in—lull them with a familiar synth, chord progression, vocal harmony, whatever, and then hit them with the breakdown of melody and harmony, or suddenly introduce a drum pattern in an odd time signature over the dance-pop four-to-the-floor. It’s more about creating opportunities for a queered perspective on the norm than it is about challenging the boundaries of music itself. Would love to put out some super experimental work in that vein someday, though, too!
You have an upcoming fall tour with Oh Land. What are you most looking forward to about the tour?
Well, we’re stripping our normal five-piece live band back to a duo (myself and Cale Hawkins) for the tour, which is absolutely terrifying because it means that I’ll be playing some live electronic drums onstage for the first time in my life. And I love being terrified so that’s probably what I’m looking forward to most.
What does your creative process look like?
It’s constantly shifting but the only constant is me in my pajamas making sounds my dog hates, surrounded by a sea of empty candy wrappers.
You’re a multi-instrumentalist and composer, but you can’t read music. How do you think this makes your sound different?
I think this links in with what we were talking about before re: breaking the rules. Even when I’m not doing it intentionally, I often realize later that I’ve built out some super non-music-theory-ish arrangement idea, or sung something that’s definitely not on pitch, etc. And a lot of the times, I think these “mistakes” are the best thing I have to offer because (to me, anyway) they represent the moments that aren’t colored by some prescribed idea about what music “should” sound like, yet they’re still really cool to listen to—they still express something human and shared and (maybe? hopefully?) urgent.
Where do you find inspiration for your songs?
Sometimes I make these “cut-up” poems where I cut out a bunch of words from a newspaper or magazine and rearrange them—these are great inspiration for lyrics. Other times it’s picking up an instrument I’ve never played before, or putting my guitar in a weird tuning. Whatever the approach, the idea is to cultivate these moments where I’m not just running off of some rote practice, but instead being forced to surprise myself, to look around for the note or the word or the idea I’m thinking of instead of already knowing where it is and going straight to it. In the process of that search, I often end up accidentally stumbling across something way better and weirder and more interesting than whatever it was that I had initially been trying to find.
Make sure to check out the video for Arthur Moon’s latest track Reverse Conversion Therapy below!
