Lunar Syrup Distant Echoes Interview

After releasing three cracking singles between late 2021 and early 2022, Lunar Syrup present us with their latest single "All I Ever Wanted" ahead of the debut album Distant Echoes. The psych-infused indie sound the band adopts is completely infectious and immediately draws the listener in. The album was written to complement the fantasy novella by the same name, written by frontman Jake Fox, and it is every bit as good as it was imagined to be

The song embodies the book's second chapter, with lyrics that follow the storyline of the woman on the dock and the Architect staring through the colours of the ocean and wondering what it is like to live. At its core, the song is about having a taste of the life you want to be living and chasing it.

In terms of what the band want the listener to get out of this track, Jake said, "We hope this song lifts listeners energy up at the beginning of the Album but I also hope the sharp chorus is catchy and gets people listening to the lyrics and feeling empowered."

The Distant Echoes album was recorded between Machine Lab Studios in the Gold Coast hinterland, Elliott Hahn's studio in Beechmont and Jake's home studio in Currumbin. Blake Malone took the recorded songs and arranged certain parts again before mixing and mastering.

Distant Echoes has been a three-year project created by Jake Fox and Lunar Syrup. It first began when Jake was adventuring around South America. He was writing about his experiences and eventually turned his journal filled with drawings, philosophical quotes, and notes into various songs.

After writing a song about an architect that created dreams, he had the idea of writing a short story so the song would make more sense. After looking at his other songs an idea clicked, he then took other songs he had written and formed a story with chapters based on songs. For months while living in Brazil, he continued to change the book and songs lyrics to eventually make a five-chapter book with an eight-track album to accompany it.

When he returned to Australia he reconnected with Chris, Bish, and Rafa and they formed Lunar Syrup. The band then totally re arranged the songs based on the vibe of the stories while also mixing each others musical influences to create their own sound.

In terms of what they want the listener to feel from this album, the band says, "We hope that listeners can go on a journey with the album we have created. We hope they can go through ups and downs, contemplate certain thoughts and ideas and eventually land in a good place. We hope it brings comfort to people and that they can somehow relate with the story."

The band release Distant Echoes with a corresponding novel as well, with both pieces of art being equally as exciting. With a tone of shows coming up surrounding the album launch, we encourage all Lunar Syrup fans to keep an eye out for dates and we will see you all there!

Interview with Lunar Syrup

Question: How would you describe your music?

Lunar Syrup: It's been hard to define a genre as the bands musical influences are all quite different and we have managed to fuse it all together to make a sound we are happy with. I'd say we interchange ambient dreamscapes and modern folk with indie and psychedelic. We write without a specific outcome in mind and try to be as creative as we can in the moment. The new stuff is based on chapters of a book that goes with the album so the imagery of each story and landscape helps to define the sound for each song too.


Question: Can you tell us about your EP Distant Echoes?

Lunar Syrup: Distant Echoes has been a long project spanning 3 years of writing, arranging, recording and promoting. It actually began when I went on a solo trip to South America in 2018. During my travels I was journaling thoughts, quotes, and events and eventually turned a lot of these ideas into lyrics. While living in Brasil I was writing out the songs and wrote a song about a dream creator called "The Architect of Dreams". To make sense of the song I wrote a story to help comprehend the message of the lyrics. That's when the idea clicked to write a book with a concept record to accompany the chapters. After months of interchanging the lyrics to fit the book and amending the book to follow the lyrics, Distant Echoes was written. I returned to Australia and began to arrange the songs with Chris Yalden, Matt Bishop and Rafael Souza in the band now know as Lunar Syrup. The album is now 8 songs long, 5 of them following the chapters and 3 of them as passing songs between chapters.

Question: Is there a particular message you hope listeners take from your music?

Lunar Syrup: The main message behind a lot of our new stuff is to fight for the life you want. Go adventure, find things that make you happy, understand that sometimes you don't need to know what's coming next and enjoy the moment


Question: What is the story behind the band name?

Lunar Syrup: Not much of a story really. I think like many bands it's hard to come up with a name that is cool, defines your music and has some meaning. We were throwing around a lot of names but I think a recurring theme from the book is the mysteriousness of dreaming and how the moon represents this curious side to life. I think we had something about Lunar and another name with Syrup and I'm quite sure Bish said it together, and we liked it, so it just stuck.


Question: How did the band come together?

Lunar Syrup: Years ago I was playing solo shows and band gigs under his name and Chris and Bish were playing in another band called Audsox. We were getting booked at many shows together by the same promoters and became friends. After a long hiatus and the end of each band we started jamming together. Rafa was a friend of mine and came to join one day. From there we arranged Distant echoes together, made a set and started playing gigs


Question: What motivates you most when writing music?

Lunar Syrup: When I first started playing music I was very naive and I was into a lot of bands purely with deeper lyrics and things I could relate to. The music helped me understand a lot of things about life and opened my mind. Learning guitar and playing the music myself helped me connect even further. I started to write with the hope that sharing my own ideas, people going through similar circumstances could also relate. These days I think it has become a bit of both again. I write as a sort of coping mechanism but once the writing is complete I want to produce and release these songs so other people can connect to them.

Question: Which music/artists are you currently listening to?

Lunar Syrup: We all have different tastes and go through a ridiculous amount of artists and genres so it would be a crazy list. At the moment though I think the shared interest by the band are Arctic Monkeys and Black Keys.


Question: What or who was your inspiration to go into the music industry?

Lunar Syrup: I think we all grew up around music so it's become second nature to us. I grew up going to see bands in my local neighbourhood all the time and loved going to festivals. There was a moment though, one year at Woodford when I was writing music at the time and I saw some of my favourite artists play at the amphitheatre stage and I had the dream of playing there one day. That definitely motivated me to write and record and play shows.

To be able to make full time careers in the music industry has been a goal for all of us for so long that it's hard to imagine anything else.


Question: If you could collaborate with another artist, who would it be?

Lunar Syrup: Personally I've always loved Paul Dempsey's work and it would be awesome to see his process.


Question: Did you have any pre-conceived ideas about the music industry?

Lunar Syrup: Yeah I've studied the history of the industry and seen the changes it's had through technological updates, cheaper resources for home musicians and the distribution of music through the internet. These days the industry is too saturated and even something simple on social media can blow something up. All in all though, I think at peoples cores they want to hear and connect to something real and if you write as genuine as you can to yourself, and you put the work in producing things professionally and playing the gigs, you will eventually get noticed.


Question: What has been your favourite part of becoming a music artist?
Lunar Syrup: It has its ups and downs but I think when you write something new or produce something that's sounding better than you imagined, the highs are so great it makes it all worth it.

It's all about the process of turning a simple vision you have into reality and then seeing people enjoying it at the shows.


Question: What's a typical day like?

Lunar Syrup: Usually up around 5:00 and go to my day job early. As soon as I'm home I might have a coffee and sit down for a bit but then it's into writing, recording or general mixing ideas. While doing the album I was up until 1:00/2:00 most nights and off to work at 5. Saturdays are usually chill days at the beach or going out, then either Sundays or Mondays are practice days for the band. It's been hard work but definitely worth it now that we have our music out in the world.


Question: What's next, for you?

Lunar Syrup: At the moment we are just trying to promote the album as much as possible and have a few release shows on the horizon. We do however have a few new singles ready to go and hope to release these at some stage and make it further down south to play some shows in Sydney and Melbourne.


Question: Can you share your socials? (links please)

Lunar Syrup: Instagram 
Facebook 
Spotify 


Interview by Gwen van Montfort