Interview with Abbey Moon: ‘It’s about indie discos, youth, exploring new music and getting obsessed with a Stratocaster!’

London-based band Abbey Moon will soon release their third single ‘Classics’.

The band comprises Niall Rowan (vocals), Mick Hanrahan (bass and backing vocals), Jack Campbell (lead guitar and he is also the lead guitarist in Cavalcade), and Marco Biagini (drums). They know each other both from school and from playing in other bands together, such as Sisteray. Of their band name, Rowan says: ‘That was Jack, he had an epiphany!’

Their latest single ‘Getaway Car’ kicks off with a jangly, summery guitar line that draws you right in and it turns out that the track has been around, in one form or another, for several years: ‘It was an acoustic demo on Facebook in 2014,’ Rowan said. ‘The guitar line was quite simple. Our producer Michael Smith embellished it in a demo and Jack changed it again. That guitar line is a big part of it, Jack’s using a chorus pedal and a little bit of reverb, I think. It started off with just the chords, it was quite circular. There were different bridges and lyrics in the original, it was a little bit slower, it didn’t sound as upbeat. On the middle bit, there were three chords that were added in and a middle eight that didn’t make the final version.’ Hanrahan jumps in: ‘Most of the songs start with Niall’s basic ideas of chords and lyrics, I play with root notes for a while and we just develop it.’

‘It’s saying that life is short and you should set off and explore it’

Rowan describes the track as being ‘about youth and wanting to explore the world’: ‘It’s about a local down the pub rueing chances he never took. It’s saying that life is short and you should set off and explore it (laughs). The second verse is ambiguous, it could be about last orders or he could be about to pass away.’

As the chorus goes: “Get a getaway car, leave the engine running. Get a getaway car because the world’s just turning. Get a getaway car, got ambition burning. Get a getaway car and don’t stop learning.”

The artwork for ‘Getaway Car’ features a yellow-hued photo of Cafe Berlin with a vintage car outside and people milling around. It’s a timeless choice, not least because it’s very hard to date it from what you can see in the photo: ‘We had about 10-15 artworks for this one,’ Hanrahan said. ‘Niall sent this tiny photo from The La’s, that was the starting point.’ Rowan laughs: ‘I got obsessed with them in lockdown,’ he said. ‘Tone Garvey on YouTube, he must have been to see them loads, he takes old recordings of The La’s live. I scoured his YouTube channel and saw that picture, it’s of the Cafe Berlin in Liverpool, I think he put it on there as a cover to a La’s song. Mick does the artwork. At first, in the band, it was the least favourite (option)!’

”Masterpiece’ is a little bit different, it’s the first of a new batch’

They’ve got ‘at least’ three new songs ready to go, according to Rowan: ‘The next three almost sit together,’ he said. ‘Way To Go’ hasn’t been recorded yet. ‘Masterpiece’ is a little bit different, it’s the first of a new batch. ‘Classics’, that’ll be the next single, it’s about indie discos, youth, exploring new music and getting obsessed with a Stratocaster! That line was mainly for me (laughs), that was my first guitar, that age when you get obsessed with it. I’ve got a Danelectro now, it’s a bit more temperamental!’

Being in Sisteray for eight years has taught them both about what they want from being in a band and what pitfalls they are trying to avoid this time around: ‘You still like playing the songs after that time but it gets a bit stagnant,’ Hanrahan said. ‘It’s a much different experience now, we know where we went wrong with the other band.’ Rowan agrees: ‘With the early Sisteray songs, we were pretty naive and inexperienced, the recording wasn’t very good, there are audible mistakes in some of the early songs. Some people seem to like it, it’s more raw (laughs).’

Their debut single ‘Friends of Mine’ is a shimmery and heartfelt ode to friendship: ‘It’s probably one of the first ones we played in the rehearsal room,’ Rowan said. ‘The chords were from a previous song in a different band Mick and I were in (Sisteray). Once we added the chorus, we built it around that. It’s just drums and bass on the second verse. It was one of key songs early on in Abbey Moon, it’s about friends you don’t see for a long time but it doesn’t feel like any time has passed. After lockdown, you could see your mates again. We started being able to meet and rehearse. Me and Mick were probably talking quite a bit in lockdown about putting the band together. We sketched songs out.’ The artwork for the track is an evocative black and white photo of four women playing cards: ‘We were going to use a picture of us for our first single but thought why not find the “us” that is not us,’ Hanrahan explained. ‘We don’t know who they are but it is meant to show a friendship through the ages. The year is different, the people are different, but the friendship is the same.’

‘Lyrically, I take a lot from The Arctic Monkeys and Kendrick Lamar’s storytelling’

Between them, they have a myriad of musical influences: ‘Both my parents were mods (laughs), I grew up on Small Faces, The Who, that Northern Soul thing – maybe that’s why I picked up the bass,’ Hanrahan said. ‘Then I got into Americana and Bruce Springsteen.’ Rowan has other influences: ‘For me, I remember listening to Oasis as a kid, Dr. Dre and Eminem. At school, The Arctic Monkeys hit me, that indie stuff (laughs). Lyrically, I take a lot from The Arctic Monkeys and Kendrick Lamar’s storytelling style. And Fontaines, we’ve played with them, they’re nice lads.’

If he could write a song with anyone, Rowan tries to choose between Alex Turner and David Bowie: ‘Maybe Alex Turner is too current, maybe I’d go with Bowie, it’d be amazing to see his process, how he’d dive into something in your psyche that you don’t even know is there,’ he said. Hanrahan picks Bruce Springsteen: ‘He’s one of the greatest storytellers of all time,’ he said. ‘Or Brian Fallon (from The Gaslight Anthem), he’s a similar storyteller to Bruce.’ Rowan is laughing: ‘I don’t think Bowie and Springsteen liked each other very much,’ he said. ‘Bowie covered him, he did ‘Hard to be a Saint in the City’.’ We get chatting about Springsteen’s music barn in New Jersey and the incredible number of guitars he has there: ‘I started a band just so that I could get an invite to his barn,’ Hanrahan quipped. ‘It’s heaven!’

Hanrahan says that Spingsteen would also be his ‘go to’ to have a drink with, although there are a couple of other musicians he’d like to meet: ‘I’d love to have a pint with Chas & Dave,’ he said enthusiastically. ‘I’d like to know, were they trying to be funny, or they knew they had something special?!’

Rowan and Hanrahan’s close bond is evident on the Zoom as is their love of getting to play live: ‘We have only been together a short while – we recently played Lakefest which was the first time we got to really spend some time together,’ Hanrahan said. ‘We rehearse and gig, obviously, but it was a long journey stuck in the car, then in tents, then back. So we really got to find out if we hated each other…. we didn’t. It was a great time. Marco and myself got run over by a car in our previous band!’

‘It gave me a sense of belonging and started everything off’

Their dream line up spans the ages and genres: ‘Bowie and Oasis, if they got back together,’ Rowan said. Hanrahan adds Miley Cyrus to the line up: ‘People give her a hard time but she’s got such a big voice, it holds every time,’ he said. ‘What must it be like to be told you have to make a certain type of music, when you can’t always make the music you want? We don’t have that problem!’  

They’ve been to some amazing gigs over the years, some of which have defied their expectations in unusual circumstances. Rowan says the best gig he has ever been to was Arctic Monkeys at the Shepherd’s Bush Empire: ‘It was a last short notice gig and they played Humbug (2009) all the way through. It felt like a special moment. Then, at the end, they took requests for their encore, which just added to the experience, it felt intimate,’ he said.

Hanrahan shares a moving story: ‘I always think you can do an interview on this question alone, we have been to hundreds and there are so many special ones,’ he said. ‘I tend to go for my first ever gig, The Enemy at the Astoria – R.I.P. – in London. It gave me a sense of belonging and started everything off.  But recently, I had an experience that topped it. I went to see Bruce Springsteen for the first time in Italy with my girlfriend. It was in Ferrara right after those awful floods. There was a question over whether it would go ahead as people had died. Whether it should have gone ahead or not is another conversation, but it did, and we were kept in sweltering crowds for four hours while they tried to get rid of some of the water with straw. People were fainting and screaming to be let in. Eventually, we got let in and we were greeted by knee deep mud, and people squeezing together to try to avoid the lakes that had formed in the middle. Card machines were out of order and it was a cashless event, so no one could get food or water. It was the worst experience of a show I had ever been to. Then out came Bruce Springsteen and there was a complete change in atmosphere. A noticeable shift as everyone stopped caring, I have never felt anything like it. He played his usual extra long set and every person sang every word to every song. Maybe it was the punishment we had all just been through but it felt like everyone was together in that moment…it was magical.’            

(Top photo from left to right: Mike, Niall, Marco and Jack. Photo credit: Albert Jagger.)

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