We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Moon Dancer. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Moon below.
Moon , thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.
Well I do a lot of stuff (as I’d imagine most music artists/producers do), so I’ll keep it centered on drums & producing records. For the most part, I learnt how to do what I do, but just doing it… for A LOT of hours over A LOT of years. Playing drums is what I’ve been doing the longest and is the genesis of everything else. That started at age 5 from watching my mothers band, Midnight Love, play cover gigs around Hampton Roads, Virginia. So from age 5 until about the summer going into 6th grade, it was me sitting in a room by myself figuring stuff out for several hours a day.
I’d play along to songs on the radio, rewind cassette tapes and eventually got ahold of some of my mothers old soul/funk vinyl records. Going into 6th grade is when I started formal drum lessons which led into the academic music side of things. That’s where I learned proper technique and reading sheet music. Scholastic music is about boundaries and doing it as someone else intended it. I don’t want to recite what someone else intended. Even if it’s a cover song, I want to play what I feel and need to express. It’s discovery, self-expression and freedom.
In school, I played in Jazz Band, Marching Band, and Symphonic Bands which exposed me to mallet percussion (Marimba, Glockenspiel, Vibraphone). This is what opened the doors to keyboards and bass guitar, which led me into the world of recording my own ideas. My mom got me a keyboard and a bass guitar; I’d use two cassette tape radios to record my own ideas.
Fast forward, after college and pursuing some other avenues of employment, I started playing in club bands which eventually led to forming my own bands and making my own music. Again, no formal training. Just bought the gear I needed to record and got to it. Really, I learnt how to make records with people watching because I would release these very dodgy self-produced records into the world. It’s really naivety that leads one to think making quality recording is as easy as setting up some gear and recording yourself playing. It takes A LOT of time to actually get good at it and could really benefit from proper guidance. So, that’s something that I’d caution against. If I could go back, I wouldn’t release all those subpar recordings. I would wait till it sounds and feels like the records I loved from my the artists I looked up to. However, now I get to look back and see a literal track record of my progress.
While the academic side of music was very informative, I believe my best development was done on my own just figuring stuff out all those years. I wish that I had other “real” musicians to play “real” music with back in those days. By REAL, I mean music that would’ve come from an honest place within us based on what we were into at the time. There were never friends that would just come over to play music. I think that’s about the only thing that would have sped up my process or expanded my playing. When you’re in a room with other adventurous creatives, you not only learn a lot about yourself, but you learn how to speak each other’s musical language. That’s pretty essential in my book. Being able to play with others in a setting where there are no conventional boundaries and no pressure.
The biggest obstacle for me in learning more is probably the very thing that governs how I do things. While it’s great to sit alone and discover things, you’ll only learn what you can find or figure out on your own. Working closely with other musicians would’ve exposed me to even more. Still today, I don’t collaborate with others as much as I probably should, which honestly keeps me from learning even more than I already know. That’s something I’m on the path to changing.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I’m a music artist performing and releasing music under the name, Moon Dancer. Moon Dancer music is primarily instrumental electro-jam music that I produce and play live acoustic drums with. Has elements of house, trance, as well as, drum & bass. This is a solo thing that tours nationally. I also have a funk/blues trio as well called, Majick Toast, that’s just starting to kick off locally here in Central Florida. That’s a super high energy band were I’m playing drums and singing along with a guitarist and bass player. This inherently makes me a record label head, PR firm, booking agency and management company as well.
As far as getting into the things I do, it really just comes from an idea of what I want to do. I pull the pieces together and start doing it. You may need other people to expand, but you certainly don’t need anyone to get started. Like the old Nike slogan says, “Just do it”!
Honestly, beyond the simple fact that I’m me, there’s only one me and I only do what I want to do, how I want to do it without any interest in copying anyone else… I don’t know what sets me apart. I’m really bothered by it. What people get from me is whatever they grab on to. They can answer that question.
What I focus on, is trying to answer these sonic questions that I have. I do this over and over again. Then I put it out into the world and hope that people want to come out and be apart of that exploration. End of the day, when it’s all said and done, I’m hoping to look back and be able to say, “here… this is what I made of this time and brought to this life. I did my absolute best in the moments I had.”, and be proud of that. Today, I’m proud to still be taking these risks, exploring and trying to carve out a life through it. I’m proud of the risks I’ve taken and the rewards that have come along with it. I’m proud of the failures as well. Looking forward, I want to keep going, keep building and reach hundreds of thousands of people through the absolute best music I can conjure up.
Looking back, are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?
Oh man this is a deep deep DEEP talking point. I’m going to change the words, “knew about” to UNDERSTOOD. What resources do I wish I had UNDERSTOOD? Two of the most important ones!
#1 Quality Relationships. We hear it all the time; “It’s who you know, not what you know”. That’s real! Forging, maintaining and sustaining quality long lasting relationships is paramount in anything. There are doors that you simply can’t open from the outside. On the playground, kids pick the kids they know or the kids that look like they’re good to be on their team. You can be better than everyone out there, but no one knows you, so now one picks you until they’re out of options. In music, it’s a real possibility that you never get picked because there are always familiar options.
Yes, you can build your own house and invite people in. However, you can invite the entire neighborhood, but unless your neighbors KNOW you, only a small number of people are going to take the risk. People just naturally want to work with people they like and feel comfortable with. It takes time and personal investment to get comfortable with people. It takes being out and about in the places key players are hanging out or simply reaching out without always asking for something. Cliche line: “It’s who knows you, not what you know”. I understand this now, but it’s still a challenge, because I’m naturally very much a loner.
Also, this goes beyond business relationships. It involves relationships in general. Surround yourself with quality people that celebrate you, support you but also hold you accountable. Don’t stick around with people that want to hold you back from what you want for yourself. Cultivate honest relationships that won’t allow you to be led down destructive paths. Only associate closely with those that want as much as you want and are investing into themselves.
#2, MONEY… this endeavor takes A LOT OF MONEY! Quality gear is expensive, marketing costs, merchandise to sell is expensive, renting venues is expensive, paying your support team is expensive, recording music is expensive, travel is expensive and the bills never ever stop! We’re constantly investing into this… we have to.
I like money… need money… but I’m not motivated by it (until I really need it), so naturally, I’ve fought serious battles with the financial side of things in terms of being able to be consistent at a competitive level and break through to new levels. I wish that I really understood early on, how much money it takes to survive in music as an original indie artist. Under most circumstances, no one is going to come along and hand you $50k to invest into your career. Even if they did, most artist would burn through that money with little to nothing to show for it. To put it into perspective, major labels spend at minimum, hundreds of thousands of dollars to HOPEFULLY break an artist! Now, imagine how difficult it is to pull together the amount of money needed for most Indies to pull things off!
Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?
There have been couple of pivot points. Change isn’t something I shy away from at all. Matter of fact, I tend to live in cycles and will change at the drop of a hat. The most recent pivot brought me into this current era of my, dare I say, career. For about 8 years, I took a break from drumming. This was back in 2014.
Leading up to the pandemic in 2020, I had found myself at a standstill. While there had been some really, really good break throughs, like opening up for Robben Ford and starting to get those coveted theatre shows I’d worked so hard for; I wasn’t getting the results I needed to really feel fulfilled. More importantly, I wasn’t happy with the type of stuff I was writing. The bitterness had started bleeding through into my shows and honestly I had stopped putting in the effort to build the brand that was necessary.
I remember a show in Boulder Colorado February 2o2o. Performance wise, the set went okay but, I was so disconnected from the audience that paid their hard earned money to see me. By this time, I think everything that I was dealing with had reached a head. After the show, I was walking around the venue and noticed a fan coming towards me. I was so unapproachable that she looked at me and just went right on by without a word. I was super embarrassed that my energy was so dark and uninviting, that my fans couldn’t approach me.
This is something I had to fix. So I went back to Delaware to try to get myself straight. Then the pandemic hit. Which, was a blessing. It gave me a much needed opportunity to assess the mess I was in, take a break from the singer-songwriter side of things and move on to something new built on a foundation of love, not venting my pain.
I ended up in Florida at the start of the pandemic. During the lockdown I invested into building my current recording studio. That laid the ground work to producing this new music for Moon Dancer and different ambient music project. I had been wanting to get back into drumming and electronic music, but knew I couldn’t be confined to anyone else’s involvement. It had to be my own thing. Another solo project.
By 2022, I had Moon Dancer together and landed a three month residency at a local music venue called, Union Hall, and have been building it up ever sense. So, in a way, I left my day job of touring as a singer-songwriter, which was making me a good amount of money. Probably not the smartest thing to do cold-turkey, but here we are! That is my most recent pivot and I’m much much happier with this. It’s like reuniting with a long lost love.
Full speed ahead…
Contact Info:
- Website: linktr.ee/moondancermusic
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/officialmoondancer/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/OfficialMoonDancer/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/MoonDancerMusic
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkFmJyR8pjI