We had a chat with emerging Bristol outfit Stay Lunar following a stellar run of lockdown releases.
Whereas numerous lockdowns have been a largely negative experience for most of us, some have channeled the time in a constructive and purposeful way in order to come out of the other side with something to show for it.
This is something that can be said for Bristol bedroom-pop act Stay Lunar who have spent the time honing and sharpening their sound, releasing a batch acclaimed singles that represent a development in the outfit. At the forefront of this is the track ‘Dreaming That I’m Not In Love’, a breakout success that seems to have taken the outfit to new heights, and new latest release ‘Immediately’ looks set to continue the outfits upward trend.
We had a chat with Stay Lunar as part of our ever-fruitful partnership with CloseUp, and found out some more about an emerging act that could really look to start making a rapid ascent when the live circuit properly opens up again.
Stay Lunar! It’s great to have a chat! We love your music as you well know. Tell us a bit more about your new single, ‘Immediately’?
Thank you so much for having us! ‘Immediately’ was born during the first lockdown last year – at the time everything felt horrible, gigs being continuously delayed, recording trips cancelled, not hanging out, etc., it was all getting us down. I (Harry) was personally suffering a lot with all of this, and sleep became my escape from the stresses of whether we’d get through to the other side as individuals, and as a band. However, despite the song being built on pure fear, anxiety and frustration, we really didn’t want the song to feel that way when we played it, and we couldn’t be happier with the outcome.
What part of the musical process do you enjoy most, and why? is it performing live, creating your tracks, or..?
For us as a collective, it doesn’t get better than performing live – nothing quite matches the buzz of a live show and just being able to let loose a little bit. I think some of us equally love the process of writing and recording in the studio, it feels similar but without the adrenaline rush haha.
Lockdown (1, 2, and 3!) I’m sure, have impacted the band & your writing a lot, has the last 12 months or so impacted the band heavily?
I think lockdown has been a good thing for us in some ways – After the huge lockdown success of ‘Dreaming That I’m Not In Love’, we realised we wanted to focus on crafting our sound into something more cohesive, and that would make a great live show, so lockdown was the perfect time to reflect and plan for the future. Writing-wise, every day being the same made it hard for me to write about anything other than feeling stuck, and when I did finally write something, we couldn’t work on it together which was frustrating. It was hard not being together to do what we love, having no gig income and dealing with constant setbacks, which I’m sure everyone can relate to – but we got through it and now we have nothing but excitement for the return of live music and the songs we have ready to release into the world.
If you could create a ‘Stay Lunar Festival’, which 3 artists would you have headlining? (Fri, Sat, Sun)
Your biggest headline show yet takes place in October at the Louisiana in Bristol, tell us, what should we expect?!
Emotions, energy, fun and a lot more emotions. It’s going to be such a wonderful feeling playing a show that was originally due to take place 567 days prior (not that we’ve counted..). I don’t think we’ve ever been this excited, we can’t wait to see everyone and show them the new and improved Stay Lunar.
