“All of our songs, we always try to make them a story, in the sense that you feel different by the end of listening to it, you feel some sort of different emotion. I’d like to think that our music puts some confidence into people and builds them up. I feel like out music, because it’s loud and in your face, it gives people that sort of kick.”
On the 20th of March, the alternative, post-punk quartet from Northamptonshire will release their newest single, coming back after two years with momentum and incredible dynamic. With four members at the core – Rory McDade as lead singer and guitarist, Cameron Latta on bass, Aidan Furey on lead guitars and Jack Connolly on drums – the band works with Vandalism Begins at Home Records and Blaggers Records to push their sound forward.
Having previously released an EP in 2022, titled ‘Brutal Nature’, Luna Rosa incorporated classic rock and punk into their soundscape. Rory McDade’s voice is reminiscent of Joy Division’s Ian Curtis, powerfully bringing pure rage and recklessness against the gritty instrumental architecture of the EP.
As Louder Than War writes, if you want to meet with “some serious rage, volume, politics, poetry and psychedelia that is brutal in its nature”, you should seriously meet with Luna Rosa. They experiment and play with tempos, style and energy cleverly, sometimes leaving space for the vocals to echo into the ether, leaving you lingering to feel the tension build and dissipate around you. It’s a hell of an intense ride listening to Luna Rosa’s music (in the most superlative sense of that word).
Luna Rosa’s newest single will be released under the title ‘The Luge’, inspired by an “all-gas-no-breaks relentlessness of The Walkman’s ‘The Rat’”. Not only inspired by some of the greats in music, such as James Brown’s funk, the song also becomes a movie in and of itself. Building a vivid visual world, ‘The Luge’ becomes the ultimate soundtrack to reckless, audacious and admirable in their boldness characters we recognise and love from iconic cinema.
Luna Rosa filters their funk through “the dance-punk lineage explored in ‘Meet Me In The Bathroom’ – the indie rock documentary on the early 2000s New York scene”. The cinematic lineage doesn’t stop there, because Rory McDade “roars out a cue taken from the third Keanu Reeves-fronted John Wick film – “Parabellum!” The backstory of ‘The Luge’ also carries “other Bruce Lee and Jean-Claude Van Damme fighting flicks”. Anchored in visual storytelling, ‘The Luge’ is a multidimensional project.
As the frontman explains, “If you want peace within yourself, you’ve got to prepare for war. It’s about battling all your own demons and overcoming yourself.” Thus, the music is constantly meshing the world of film and sound together in ways that shift your inner conflicts onto the dancefloor. It’s cathartic, unapologetic, described by McDade as “constantly in your face until the end”.
The raw, authentic and powerful composition is made for fans of bands such as Viagra Boys, IDLES, The Walkmen, the Strokes and Shame. Expanding on that, I think McDade’s voice will fit nicely with fans of Joy Division, the gritty but catchy guitar riffs with fans of The Stone Roses, the garage rock and post-punk revival with Arctic Monkeys listeners, but the rawness and boldness will also engage anyone who enjoys a bit of Radiohead and Oasis.
Interview
Just this week, I sat down with the band’s lead singer and frontman, Rory McDade to interview him about the band, their music and their newest single. Keep reading to find out what he had to say!
RL: Luna Rosa means Pink Moon in Italian. What inspired the name of the band?
RM: It’s really not that interesting. We didn’t have a name, but we were starting to gig. We were at a gig in, I think it was, Hyde Park seeing The Libertines and there was a little pub outside called Luna Rosa. That’s it, there was no thought behind it!
RL: I first want to ask about your EP., ‘Brutal Nature’. The album is very adjacent to punk and rock bands we’ve known throughout British music history. The album cover, designed by Dane Turner, is very intriguing in itself. What was the message you wanted to put across through both the visual design and sonic composition? What do both represent for you in this EP?
RM: I feel like the songs on the EP were sort of split into two, there were the vulnerable songs and then there was sort of ‘in your face’, raucous songs. The main thing with the visual representation of the head shaking was the two sides of a person. So, they have to go out into the real world and fight all of these problems, but on the inside they have these tender moments and sensitive things they have to deal with at home. I’d say half of the songs deal with personal emotions and the other half deal with political and societal emotions. That was sort of like a split down the middle with the songs and what the artwork was trying to say.
RL: Louder Than War writes that if listeners want to meet with “some serious rage, volume, politics, poetry and psychedelia that is brutal in its nature”, they should meet with Luna Rosa. Does anger towards politics fuel your music often?
RM: It did more so back then, and again, some new songs we’re writing are fueled by it. As people, we can’t go through our daily lives and not have politics influence us, because they influence absolutely everything. Even things going on personally, somewhere along the line, politics are influencing that. Definitely, not so much in our newer songs but that EP [Brutal Nature] and a few new songs are still influenced by it. It becomes a thing, where you could just write about it but we’re not just that. We don’t want to be pigeon-holed into that, so we try to write about everything, but obviously, that does have an effect.
RL: If you had to pick one song to best represent yourself and the band – one song that could let the listener know exactly who you are – which single would it be?
RM: That’s hard! I don’t know about that. That’s difficult, I’d say Brutal Nature, the title track off the EP. Although it’s also dealing with politics like we just talked about, but also dealing with inner demons. Maybe that, because it gives you both sides of the coin.
RL: When you began writing your newest single, The Luge, how did the song come about? Was it born out of a feeling that bled into lyricism first, or do you compose the instrumentals before you decide on a topic?
RM: So, we did the instrumentals first. Our drummer, Jack, went to a City and Colour gig and he came to me the next day and he showed me a lovely, tender chord progression that was one of their songs. When I’m learning a cover, I get really bored, so I start making up my own thing and it ended up being a tender, lovely song and I thought it was a bit boring. So I made it fast and horrible. We wrote all the instrumentation first, and then put the lyrics over the top.
RL: In the lyrics then, you use the expression ‘Parabellum!’ from John Wick, taken from the Latin phrase about wanting peace and preparing for consequent war. Was there a battle you had to win personally to write about it?
RM: I think it’s a constant with me anyway, and I’m sure it is with most people that you’re having a battle within yourself. I suppose this song is like, when I wasn’t feeling too well, to make myself feel great and be like ‘I can do this’ and get over it. It’s an internal battle, and if you want peace get ready for war, just like overcoming inner demons.
RL: Your music was described by yourself but also by others, like Nick Tann’s podcast, that The Luge is always ‘in your face’ and very confrontational. What do you want the listener to be confronted with when listening to this single?
RM: I suppose all of our songs, we always try to make them a story, in the sense that you feel different by the end of listening to it, you feel some sort of different emotion. I’d like to think that our music puts some confidence into people and builds them up. I listen to a lot of hip-hop music, and everytime I listen to it, I feel like I can go and achieve anything afterwards. I feel like out music, because it’s loud and in your face, it gives people that sort of kick. I hope it does!
RL: The Luge takes inspiration very heavily from cinematic masterpieces like John Wick, but also movie icons like Bruce Lee and Jean Claude Van Damme have been mentioned as the background of this soundscape. Is there an album that always feels like a movie whenever you listen to it?
RM: I feel like Neil Young’s Harvest always puts me in an atmosphere and an experience. It makes me feel like I’m in a film. Obvious ones, like David Bowie, they’re very cinematic. I’d say the Neil Young one, it puts me on a porch somewhere in America.
RL: And what was the idea behind taking inspiration from cinematic symbolism and icons?
RM: So, when we’re writing music I always try to put the world where they would be in a film, what the scene would be, what would be happening in that scene so then you can sort of write into it and create an atmosphere. This one [The Luge], I’m pretty sure I was ill and I just spent all day watching the 24/7 movie channels, and there was the Bruce Lee ones. I watched all of them, and then I watched John Wick and then Jean Claude Van Damme. In The Luge you’ve got the verses that are very in your face, very raucous, and then the choruses are technical, it was like, could we have a fight scene to this?
RL: Would you ever consider scoring a film? If so, what genre of film would you envision for your band?
RM: Oh I’d love to do that! I’d rather make a film than music! Much rather do that. I don’t know what film… Probably something quite dark. A dark thriller of some sort.
RL: How much does British sound and music influence your identity? You’ve also been inspired by New York indie scenes and there’s reference to so many languages – from your band name, to the Posta Romana in the single’s cover art and Latin phrases – so, is there oscillation within your identity from around the world of rock and roll, or do you find that there might be one thing you come back to most often to keep you anchored?
RM: I mean, I’ll say it now, I think Britain always has the best bands. We take inspiration from everywhere, and I think that’s where the point of your question comes in – we take everything from films, poetry, art. We’re forever being influenced by other places, not necessarily music, but just the whole culture. We always come back to British music because they are the best creating bands, to be honest! Again like we were saying about watching the films, that was also a documentary I watched that day [Meet Me In The Bathroom], so it just came into it.
Listening to a lot of the band called The Walkmen, and it was around the time they announced they’re getting back together and I’ve always loved them, so I was probably listening to their album all day as well. In terms of influence, I think, even if we were from a different country, we’d still go to British bands, because there’s a plethora of them, and they’re so amazing. But, we do take from all different cultures and arts, it’s not just the music.
RL: Are there any specific people that you take inspiration from in your work?
RM: Honestly, everything. We sit in the car listening to classical music, and then hip-hop and then bands. I listen to other genres of music more than the genre I’m making, but I feel like this is the genre I could possibly make the best. We all take inspiration from different genres because we listen to so many different ones. The other three are far better at it than me at it, but they all search for new bands and bring them in, or new acts. They go to a lot more gigs, always finding new artists.
RL: Do you maybe think that when you listen to your own genre of music the least, there’s a lesser chance of replicating a sound and becoming a sort of copy?
RM: Yeah, I think I started off always listening to this genre of music but as I’ve got older, and went through all different genres of music, I found other things I like. Now, I don’t listen to it as much but I did start off only listening to this sort of genre.
It’s probably like you said, if you do listen to something too much, you end up recreating it. If I listen to Motown, I might take one thing but it won’t sound the same when I put it into my band, or an idea from hip-hop artists, it’s not going to sound the same when I recreate it. Obviously, I do still listen to it, but nowhere near as much as other genres, but when I started, that’s all I was pretty much listening to.
Regarding your live performances, you toured in France with the Boarding Pass Festival. What was your experience like, meeting with a foreign audience and interacting with people from across the world?
RM: That was amazing! We drove there, which took us 17 hours straight. It was fun, but not by the end of it. It’s a good experience, I mean the people were amazing. We went to a place called Béziers in France, and there’s so many musicians. I think the gigs we played, 80% of the crowd was artists and musicians. From photography, videographers and painters, it was good to get to know them and they were all really receptive, really nice people. It was a very different culture to us, they would eat oysters before the gig and stuff, which I would do personally but I really enjoyed it.
When you were performing in front of so many fellow artists and musicians, did you fear or face anxiety that there might be an artist-to-artist critical eye?
RM: It was a smallish place and when there’s something on, the whole artistic community goes to that thing. Everyone knows everyone, but turning up we didn’t have a clue. The people that we could speak to told us that most of them are involved in the arts somehow. But to be honest, I didn’t care! The only thing I was worried about was whether they would understand me, but then I realised I can enjoy their music without understanding them, so they must be able to enjoy ours.
On your Instagram, you’ve previously shared some poetry, The Rich Never Die – Only The Poor and The Friendless. Would you ever consider releasing an album that combines ballad instrumentalisation with spoken poetry?
RM: I have thought about it and our next single has one of my poems as the middle eight, but it’s spoken word to a degree, and there’s a bit of singing in it. It is something I would consider, possibly not with this band, but something I would like to do. I mean, that’s just something to fill my time on the side… leftover writing.
What came first for you as a songwriter: music or literature? Which one is the earliest memory for you?
RM: It will be poetry. My dad is good at poetry, so is my grandad and they instilled it into me, so did my mum with writing from the age of 6 or 7. I didn’t really start playing an instrument until I was 13, so I always had the writing in me first.
RL: So, if you weren’t a musician, do you think you’d be some form of a writer? Or a movie producer, even?
RM: I would like to think so. Anything!
What would be your next goal or milestone to achieve together? Are there any new opportunities on the horizon you want to grab at the moment?
RM: We’ve got another batch of four new songs we want to record as an EP. We’ll put those out as singles because just in the industry landscape it seems to work better, but I like to do a collection so it all works together, which goes back to the film making thing. I want to make an atmosphere and a scene that tells a story throughout. We’re gonna record them, and we’re just hoping to get on more and bigger festivals this year.
What message would you like to put across to our readers at the Musik Magazine?
RM: Be kind to one another. Promote peace, that’s it!
Thank you very much to Rory McDade for sitting down to have this interview with me, and I hope as the reader, you enjoyed it just as much.
Don’t forget to follow Luna Rosa on their Instagram: @lunarosaband, and listen to their music on streaming platforms including Bandcamp: Luna Rosa.
You can also pre-save their newest single, ‘The Luge’, on your chosen platform using this link: The Luge.
Article by Rozalia Lewandowska.
