Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Junior Luna. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Alright, Junior thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.
I’ve always had a deep interest in music since I was a little kid, but sports was always the top priority, especially soccer. However I can pinpoint the exact moment where I knew music was what I wanted to pursue.
After high school I ended up going to UCR along with a pretty good amount of my friends and we’d always hang out at the dorms where one of my friends lived. One day she was giving us a tour of the whole building and we came across this music room that had a piano and was open for anyone to use. For whatever reason I decided to mess around with the piano right then and there and it hit me that I truly wanted to learn how to play it. From that moment on I spent hours in that room, often times missing class, just teaching myself how to play and it’s been a nonstop journey since then of improving as a musician every day.
Junior , before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
This question excites me because it allows me to talk about community and unique spaces! For those who don’t know me, a quick summary would be that I’m an indie rock artist and a DJ, however I’d love for people to associate me with something a little deeper than that.
One of my main goals as an artist is to create a space for community. As someone who grew up in many different neighborhoods around LA, the IE, and the OC I’ve been lucky enough to be exposed to many types of people and communities and I think that’s made a huge impact on who I am today. I like to say that I’m “A Product of Everything Around Me” and I want that to be apparent when people come to a Junior Luna show. You’ll see that there’s gonna be indie rock, cumbia, funk, house music, and all different types of people coming together to just enjoy good music and good vibes and ultimately that’s what I aim for.
Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?
I love talking about this, and I feel like a broken record because I talk about it any chance I get, but my main goal is to utilize music and art as a tool of creating a community. American society stresses so much the importance of the individual that it’s easy to forget the importance of community and togetherness. The whole idea with this project is that it doesn’t matter what your background is, there’s space for you to just come and enjoy music and enjoy people. Art is such a beautiful thing, especially when it allows you to just forget about everything for just that short little moment, but those moments is what brings people together.
In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?
Go to your local concerts, go to that local art gallery, go check out that local film festival, go check out your local cafe’s open mic night. Even in an age where damn near everything is digital, especially with the rise of AI, there’s nothing like live music and live art and as an artist it means the world when people show up to support your craft. It truly does.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: junior.luna_
Image Credits
Kenny Jusino
Jose Alcaraz
Jorge Cortez