We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Above The Moon a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Above the, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

To date, the most meaningful project we’ve worked on as a band is our 2023 LP Mine Again. We started playing together in late 2015 and between then and 2020, we continued to write and save money to have our music recorded professionally. Our second EP was recorded with Rob Freeman (guitarist for NJ band Hidden in Plain View) at Audio Pilot Studio and our third and fourth EP’s with Joe Reinhart (guitarist for PA band Hop Along) at Headroom Studio. We very much enjoyed working with them and were thrilled with the results, but it got to the point where we couldn’t save up enough money or schedule sessions frequently enough to keep up with how fast we were writing. When COVID hit, we took a crack at recording an acoustic EP all on our own, which taught us a lot, and went fairly well. We continued to write new music during lockdown, and when things started to open back up in 2021 and we could safely get together, we decided to try and record all of these new songs on our own. Shawn is a real gear head and for years had been building up his home studio with equipment, and releasing a full-length album had always been a goal of ours, we just never had the funds or the time to do it. In a weird way the lock down provided us with what we needed to make a full length happen. It was a large-scale project that was completely DIY, and for that reason I think it’s the most meaningful project we’ve worked on so far.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Each of us grew up loving music, started playing young, and gained experience in garage/basement bands. When the Above the Moon formed in 2015, it was initially through Craig’s list. Kate (vocals/rhythm guitar) and Shawn (lead guitar) answered each other’s ads looking for local musicians to work with, and realized they lived just a mile away from each other in Madison, NJ. Shawn and John (drums) knew each other from previously working together at an ad agency, and Kyle (bass) is Kate’s younger brother.

Kate’s influences are a combination of 2000’s emo punk (Bayside, The Smoking Popes), to singer-songwriters (KT Tunstall, Ben Folds) and female-fronted projects (The Beaches, The Beths, Orla Gartland), Shawn’s influences are rooted in 90’s rock (Foo Fighters, Pearl Jam, Weezer), John’s a fan of both hair and death metal (The Scorpions, Motley Crue, Lamb of God) and Kyle’s influences are more based in blues and classic rock. On paper none of these influences should work together, but our sound is all of our influences combined.

Over the last 10 years, rather than chasing recognition or emulating what is commercially successful, we’ve been able to stay true to our sound and to ourselves. At the onset of forming the band, we agreed that all of our “real life” stuff (jobs, families, financial obligations) come first, but we also are fully committed to this project. I think because of that, not only have we become such good friends outside of the band, but it’s also the reason we’ve been able to keep making music together for all these years.

The songs themselves are deeply personal, and are a form of catharsis. I (Kate) have only ever been able to write a song when I’m concerned, enraged, confused or sad, but as a band we try to present the material in a way that is widely relatable. It’s a challenge to write specifically enough where I’m able to expel big emotions, but generic enough where someone who wasn’t a part of the song writing process could hear the song and think, “I know exactly how she feels.”

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

Building our social media audience is something we’re actively working to improve, and is a big focus of ours for 2025. At the end of every year we have a band meeting where we discuss things we liked/didn’t like from the previous year, what we want to try and aim for. For 2025, improving our social media game was at the top of the list.

In the past we relied on our music, photos and videos for our content, and while we’re proud of all of those things, there are so many people, bands and projects out there posting the same things that we become white noise. We weren’t sharing things frequently enough, and weren’t sharing the right types of things, so we’d get lost in the algorithm.

A big thing we’ve been focusing on is sharing more behind-the-scenes content and being more vulnerable in terms of explaining the inspiration for our lyrics. We’ve found that friends and fans who enjoy are music are really interested in learning about that kind of stuff. It’s a ton of work, and it has opened us up to more criticism, which is kind of scary, but so far it’s been worth it.

In a lot of ways building a social media audience is incredible. It allows for people in other states, even other countries, to listen to our music and follow along and support us – people in locations we’d never realistically be able to play. However, a big part of me longs for the days where you’d have to make fliers and hand them out at local shows or the mall to get the word out. There was something really special and organic about that time that’s lost online.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

A specific story is tough, but we have a song called Never Been Enough off our 3rd EP that speaks to resilience. The song is about how I feel when I consider quitting making music all together. I haven’t felt it in a while, but typically it creeps up a few times a year.

Making music and being in a band isn’t always fun, in fact a lot of the time it’s really frustrating, because you’re putting so much of yourself into something that isn’t always appreciated, either by those around you, or in a way that society at large would consider “successful.” The chorus speaks to how it’d be easier to just quit, but for some reason, you can’t keep yourself from returning to it.

I’ve been making music and playing in bands since the year 2000, so 25 years now. In all that time there was just one year where I made the conscious decision to stop and focus on my career (it was my first year as a teacher). I think I made it about five or six months before I was back on Craig’s list and in the band forums looking for someone to play with. I just can’t stop myself from diving back into it, regardless of how it makes me feel. It’s a type of insanity, but maybe also resilience.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://abovethemoonmusic.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/abovethemoonmusic
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/abovethemoonband
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@abovethemoonmusic
• Soundcloud: https://abovethemoon.bandcamp.com/

Image Credits

Bill Baumann (@billbaumanm)
Natalie LaSpisa (@nat_las)