Strawberry Moon is set to release their new EP, My Offering this Friday December 15 with a release show on Saturday, December 16th at Bandito’s Burrito Lounge. What started as a solo project by frontperson Katie Bowles has developed and expanded in the six years it’s been around.
“I played by myself with a loop pedal for a long time and that was really fun. I feel like I got a lot more confidence and built my stage presence during that time,” said Katie.
Bit by bit the band started adding on more members; first was Bowles’ partner Liam McElroy on guitar then Gray Stephenson on bass and TJ Meade on drums.
Stephenson explained, “you can see how we started adapting Katie’s loop pedal songs and mixed in our own writing style that is more a conglomeration of all of us.” Meade, also being a guitarist, couldn’t resist writing riffs for the band.
“He was always taking hardcore riffs that he had written and translating them into songs for this band,” said McElroy. After writing so many riffs from behind the drum kit they knew Meade had to become their second guitarist. The band brought on new drummer, Christian Noonan, allowing Meade to take on guitar alongside McElroy bringing us to the band’s current evolution as a five-piece.
“Christian’s first show with us was with Sheer Mag, which was a high pressure show,” Bowles pointed out. “Honestly I was a little nervous, because we had a good thing going. I was kind of under the mindset of like, we’re just trying this out. But Christian is just really good at drums and also he’s really sweet.”
When asked about recording their new EP as a five-piece Bowles replied, “The EP honestly is the four of us, we did not know that we were going to become a five-piece when it came out, but for the cover, we all picked some special things to put on it. And, Christian was in it at that point, so he threw in some of his baby teeth as little offerings.”
Stephenson elaborated, “we recorded the EP at the Ward with Ricky Olsen back in February. We have trickled out the first couple singles since then and I think we’re excited to have it out and get back into the studio as a five-piece with a new batch of songs we’ve been working on.”
When it comes to their songwriting process they have of course needed to adapt not only to the size of the group but everyone’s input.
McElroy explained, “TJ’s got a lot of really fast super frantic chord changes and Gray is really good at taking riffs that Katie would write and making them dancey.”
Stephenson followed up by saying, “songwriting is kind of my favorite part. Not coming up with the initial melodies as much, but the puzzle piece of putting it all together. Where we’re going to put little sneaky things like a pre-bridge lead up that builds the tension before the release of the full bridge. I love the craft of song structure, it’s so interesting to me.”
After the release of their new EP the band will be going on tour with long time buddies and record label mates, Destructo Disk. Bowles said, “when we were finishing up our last tour on the last day I was like, I want to do this again! I decided to text Gideon because we’re buds with Destructo Disk and he said yes right away. We got a couple bigger bands in North Carolina and Georgia that wanted to hop on a couple dates and they were able to point us in some directions of local support and venues. It’s my second time organizing a little tour and it was so fun. I’m excited to do it again.”
“Katie is a monster when it comes to DIY booking,” Gray pointed out. “On the last night of our last tour we were so exhausted. I remember looking around at everybody and nobody was talking. We all love eachother but we were ready to go home. Then Katie was like ‘when are we going back out?!’”, Gray chuckled. Katie said, “when you’re on tour you get to play every night. It is always fun, it’s always new and it’s awesome. It’s a blast!.”
Check out Strawberry Moon on Instagram to see what they’re doing next.
Top photo by Sav Elliott
