Lunar Youth make the kind of music that makes your heart skip a beat as the emphasis on romance engulfs you in a warm flurry of emotion. It’s really rather lovely. Their nostalgic take on pop, reminiscent of the 80’s penchant for epic guitars, all melody driven and idealistic, is something to be savoured as they offer us a way out from real life London and into their world of wonderment and an alternative reality.  

Lunar Youth is made up of New York brothers Simon and Adam Berlin and childhood friend and Brit, Peter Davies who were all affected by the works of Tom Petty, The Cars and the darker climactic side of The Cure. An inspiring trip to LA in 2008 combined with a collection of poetry by Arthur Symonds provided the fodder to fuel the conceptual birth of Lunar Youth and the music followed closely behind. Soft-rock infused sounds permeated by the gravely tones of front man and guitarist Simon Berlin conjures up a likeness to bands like The Killers; yet there are more classic elements that give the songs greater power and invigorating capabilities.  

Debut single ‘Misfits’ (with the superbly titled B-side ‘Peppermint Lounge’) was released at the back end of 2009 on Young & Lost with its warm lyrical take on youth and belonging and a glorious melody, that mentally stays put for a while after the needle comes to the end of the vinyl’s groove.  Follow up single, ‘Nighttime Diamond’ came out last month on Fear Vs Records demonstrating Lunar Youth’s effortless knack of creating what has been deemed superb drive-time music. Imagine for a minute road tripping across Route 66 with the roof down on your Cadillac as the sun beats down and Lunar Youth provide the only accompanying sounds to the whirl of the engine.  It just fits. They could also slot in nicely to any 80’s film soundtrack. 

www.4ortherecord.com spent some time with Lunar Youth in the rather apt surroundings of the British Film Institute to bring you this introduction.  Great vision, talented musicians and a band that inevitably will be appearing on all drive-time shows soon; this is Lunar Youth.

4or The Record: 2/3rds of the band are from New York originally, so what inspired you to form Lunar Youth and base much of your music and lyrics around life in London? 

Simon: Well Adam and I grew up in New York and have a British parent as well so we came over here as teenagers and that was when we met Peter; since then we’ve been back and forth until 2008 when we decided to start a band after a very inspiring trip to LA.  We were driving around enjoying some Tom Petty and other wonderful classical greats, listening to this music on the very streets that the musicians were singing about and mythologizing about the place, so we thought this is terrific why don’t we do the same thing ourselves but lets do it in London which we know well, so it all started then.

4TR: musically there is quite a definitive modern take on the 80’s and bands like The Cure which you have cited as influences.  What else inspires you?

Simon: Yeah The Cure were a real touch stone for us, especially ‘Disintegration’ and ‘Wish’.  But I also thought MGMT’s first album was terrific; I liked how it was optimistic but witty at the same time.  A lot of my favourite songwriters have that optimism with a sense of humour and a wry style to the lyrics; Lou Reed is a fine example where you feel that you are listening to a great song that has a story and characters that live within it, so that’s another thing we aspire to do in the writing.

4TR: What about the aesthetic and visuals which seem to be an important aspect of the Lunar Youth concept?

Simon: Yeah the artwork is something we are very keen on. Peter designed a nice banner for our website

Peter: It’s a kind of cityscape thing; kind of a vignette of LA which we felt fitted really well with our logo

Adam: The visuals for us at least seem to be a sort of vintage vision of the future which sort of combines a lot of things we’re interested in and doing at the moment.  For the cover for ‘Nighttime Diamond’, that was designed in collaboration with a very talented designer called Laura Woolf and is even more so an encapsulation of that idea. I would like to think that people come to the shows and get into it and are able to take away a single which is a package and has a bit more than just the song and just the names; it has an essence.

4TR: ‘Nighttime Diamond’ is the follow up to Misfits which was out last year; tell us about the track and working with Brandon Curtis.

Adam: Sure ‘Nighttime Diamond’ is a romantic and passionate song about escaping to a better place with a woman you love and it was recorded in New York and mixed by Brandon Curtis who is the front man of the Secret Machines; he brought a whole new dimension to the song for us actually. 

Simon: He took the rockier elements which is something we have as a live band and made the track sound fuller and heavier and more thumping.  That song and the b-side are as lyrics set in very distinct places in a futuristic society where people still interact about the same things like love and friendships but with a different context.  ‘Nighttime Diamond’ is sort of the more romantic escapism song and the b-side is something that I was inspired by but which has more of a sense of humour both in the lyric and in the style.

4TR: Lyrically speaking it definitely gives the impression that everything is related to romance and nostalgia, would you agree with that as song-writer Simon?

Simon: Yeah I would say so; you know like with every day stories that you’d read there was always a love story in there and I think that that can apply in song-writing, but I like to set the characters in a space and a time and hopefully view them with a certain personality.  I think I approach writing with a story-telling idea, but of course the autobiographical world seeps in because those are the things I chose to write about or the things that are interesting me at that time.  But it is more based in ideas rather than personal experiences

Adam: But they are really ideas that are true, that which Simon or all of us have experienced so we can relate to the songs wholeheartedly.

4TR: Lets talk more about your sound, we mentioned the 80’s aspect in terms of the epicness of the tracks but you are very much approaching your music with a pop-hearted sensibility.  Was that always an intention for Lunar Youth?

Simon:  Well the way the term pop is used or the way I understand it is if something is pop your mother likes it and your little brother would like it, but your teenager or hipster wouldn’t unless it’s a guilty pleasure, and that’s not something I have necessarily aspired to.  But then there are some great artists who I absolutely love who would fit into that category, eg David Bowie or Prince.  I have always wanted our music to be enjoyed and consumed live; its never been a goal to be esoteric, its not my ambition to be a pop group because I see us as a rock band but that may be a rather flimsy distinction; it might also be because of the prejudices I have, you know the distinction between pop radio and alternative radio.

Adam: The artists we’re inspired by and aspire to sound loud like are creative rock bands that are successful but made music that people can relate to – I think that’s our aspiration but the way we make our music is really organic, its natural: I play drums, Pete plays his driving bass and Simon plays his chiming guitar then we all sing,. It’s totally natural.  We shy away from any modern characteristic of pop music, other than maybe people like Tom Petty or The Cure but those artists bring a sense of humour and originality which isn’t so easily digestible to say your mother or little brother.

4TR: We should mention your live show as its impressive and has more of a rawness than your records.

Simon: Yeah exactly, well our singles ‘Misfits’ and ‘Nighttime Diamond’ have many layers and ambiance in sound, so we strip away what is not absolutely necessary and take it from the energy of the room.  Us on stage carries alongside what were always very strong elements to begin with so it’s a good starting point meaning the songs are paramount and the sound and the style serves the song.

4TR: And finally, is a Lunar Youth LP on the cards anytime soor?

Simon: Not yet, we are writing all the time for potential songs for an album but I don’t think it will be until autumn before we actually start working and recording it because we want to make sure we have got I guess 20 really good songs that we can narrow it down to 10 or 12 of the best from there.  For the time being we have shows in America to look forward to in New York and LA as well as the UK and we will continue to build on Lunar Youth from there. 

‘Nighttime Diamond’ is out now.

Words: Francesca Strange

Write a comment

Name:
Email:
Subject:
Comment: *

Security Code: