Interview with Lunarcode: ‘I think a lot of our music is cinematic, transcending sound for a visual experience – it comes from our heart’

LA-based rock band Lunarcode released its debut album Stories Untold earlier this month, giving us seven diverse and intricate tracks, featuring punchy, elaborate riffs, tight drums and heartfelt, powerful vocals.

The band comprises Vince Carubia (vocals and lyrics), Ronny Minuche (guitar and melody writer), Richard Smith (bass) and Jason Booth (drums). Carubia and Minuche met at the theatre Carubia co-founded in East Hollywood in 2018, Skiptown Playhouse: ‘Ronny was the musical guest at my theatre, I heard him play and he blew me away, I knew I wanted to work with him,’ Carubia explained. ‘We also work together at The Cheesecake Factory (an American restaurant chain). We were steamrolling when we found Jason, we steamed through 9 bass players before we found Richard. Ronny’s energy is unmatchable! I’m motivated by Ronny’s energy.’ Their name took a while to come up with, according to Minuche: ‘We were throwing names around and kept coming up with different ones but they weren’t making us both happy (laughs). I was fascinated with the word “code” and Vince said “Why don’t we use lunar code”?’ Carubia nods: ‘We’re heavily influenced by the moon, how it makes us feel, gravity – it’s constantly evolving as are we, it seemed like the perfect name.’ Minuche agrees: ‘I love ancient history and space, Vince will say I’m obsessed with The History Channel.’ Carubia is laughing: ‘I am as well, I’m writing a sci-fi adventure, ‘The Source’, I love planets and aliens, I was a filmmaker before and I write musicals.’

‘I really listen to what Ronny sends me and to how the song feels’

Every track on Stories Untold tells a very particular story, from addiction, mental health, love and heartbreak to Carubia’s grandparents emigrating to the US. The melodies are as intricate and have as many layers as the tales behind them. Fascinatingly, especially for a debut album, there are sonic surprises in all of the tracks, from the combination of heavy riffs interspersed with a delicate acoustic Spanish guitar line to multi-layered guitar riffs that build, which are intermingled with an old school, slightly Cuban style, trumpet part. It’s not possible to predict where a song will go from the start, nor how it will end, which is very intriguing as a listener.

‘Márchate’ (‘get out’) is an incredible opening track, kicking off with a beautiful acoustic guitar solo from Minuche that has an old school vibe before evolving into a rock song that builds and builds as the brass comes in. It’s insanely catchy and there are so many parts to it that it’s hard to isolate the different elements. It was originally written and recorded by Minuche as a song in Spanish before they reworked it and turned it into something else: ‘I really listen to what Ronny sends me and to how the song feels,’ Carubia said. ‘I’ll hear a riff and say “that makes me feel this way”, I might have a hook or a catch line and build a song around that. Ronny sends me 10 riffs a day, he would not stop, he’s a songwriter’s dream (laughs). That’s how it started with the riff he sent me for ‘Parasite’, it was about a minute long! I listened to it three or four time in bed with my eyes closed, jumped up and started to think about the lyrics.’

Minuche wrote ‘Márchate’ in 2017: ‘I was writing a Spanish album – it was before Vince and I were talking. I recorded ‘Márchate’ in Spanish but I wasn’t happy with my vocals. We were talking about it and I said to him “What could be really cool would be to re-do it but keep the chorus in Spanish”. All of our music is so different, we’re like a palette of colours. I wanted it to be really dramatic, like an old Spanish movie. When I wrote the music I remember trying to capture this spirit.’ Carubia nods: ‘I was in love with this song from the start.’

As the track kicks off: ‘Welcome to the show/ The main event from the seeds we’ve sewn/ Holdin’ up my hands as I watch them grow/ We’re standing in a mess now, you already know.’

‘When we’re addicted to something – sex, drugs or a person – we change’

The original version of Márchate turns out to be about sex addiction, although that is not made explicit in the English lyrics and Carubia has his own take on what the re-worked lyrics mean to him: ‘I was dealing with a friend with mental illness at the time, so I started writing from that perspective,’ he said. ‘My friend was also dealing with addiction, so it all ties into Ronny’s lyrics, they’re blended together.’ Minuche nods: ‘It’s about the dark fight within yourself. When we’re addicted to something – sex, drugs or a person – we change. It’s about admitting it to yourself. With ‘Márchate’, I wanted to talk about sex addiction. Sex is out there, everyone wants to have the most sex (laughs), but there’s the negative. So many people struggle with sex addiction. The song talks about addiction more generally. I wanted the music to be a bit dark, a bit theatrical.’ I say that I find all of the tracks very sweeping and cinematic and they agree: ‘I think a lot of our music is cinematic, transcending sound for a visual experience. It comes from our heart, I’m very passionate about what I’m singing,’ Carubia said. ‘I can’t think of another way to be, it’s from my core. I’m speaking my truth.’ Minuche agrees: ‘That’s the beauty of music,’ he said. ‘You can play a song to 2,000 people and they can sing it back to you for 2,000 different reasons.’

Touchingly, their heritage is very much part of all the tracks: ‘I’m from Ecuador but I didn’t like Spanish music as a kid,’ Minuche said laughing. ‘I moved to New York City back in early 2011, I’ve been a professional musician since I’m 15 years old. I played all over Ecuador in clubs in a cover band and original band as well. I liked English music even though I didn’t understand the words. I couldn’t believe how incredibly amazing it is that it comes from the heart. You can be really moved by songs even when you don’t understand them.’

The closing track ‘Needle and Thread’ opens with a clock chiming and morphs into a song that is reminiscent of Muse and Pearl Jam, with the Spanish acoustic guitar weaving in and out. It’s a massive, seriously addictive and unique song: ‘I listened to ‘Needle and Thread’ on a loop and fell to the floor sobbing, I couldn’t believe the beauty of how it came out,’ said Carubia, clearly very moved. ‘I wrote it about my grandfather from Palermo, Italy. The chimes you hear at the start are from a grandfather clock. I lived with him until I was 6, so whenever I hear a grandfather clock, I think of him. He was a tailor – that’s where the song title comes from. He was always whistling around the house.’

Initially, his grandfather was going to move to the US on his own because he couldn’t afford to take the whole family with him but a relative stepped in and paid for all of them to go at the last minute: ‘My grandmother said she couldn’t go, she didn’t have her passport, so my grandfather drove two hours back to the house but they couldn’t find the key to the armoire where it was, so he had to break it open to get her passport out,’ Carubia laughed. ‘He told her sister she was picking strawberries (laughs.) My nonna was pregnant at the time with my father and already had their two daughters, my aunts. My grandfather passed away the day I opened my theatre. I read at his funeral and I have a picture of him in my wallet. He was a big influence to me. When he started dating my grandmother in Italy, he serenaded her with a big band under her window (laughs). It was all about what he created from the heart.’

‘When we were about to record, I knew I wanted to record a couple of songs with him’

Incredibly, for an album that is as polished as this, they don’t have any formal production training: ‘I don’t have a degree in it, I learned through experience how to produce,’ Minuche said. ‘We were lucky to work with the two producers we did, Neil Engle and Sahaj Ticotin. I knew Sahaj via a session I did and he blew me away. When we were about to record, I knew I wanted to record a couple of songs with him. He did ‘Parasite’ and ‘Cuttin’ the Cord’.

Their desire to tell a story, which comes across very strongly in their songwriting, is equally evident in their videos, particularly in ‘Parasite’ and their debut single ‘Heartbreak’. The former video deals, in part, with aliens experimenting on the band, the latter deals with a woman working through her heartbreak in the boxing ring before dancing defiantly to the song: ”Heartbreak’ was inspired by so many heartbreaks,’ Carubia said ruefully. ‘It’s about dealing with the frustration at being left in the dust. The only cure for your heartbreak is the love of the person who doesn’t want to give it to you, it’s a Catch 22 (laughs). For the video, we wanted to use a female boxer and I was chatting to our co-director Jessica Gillette and she said “Well, I’m a boxer” and I love what she brought to it. We wanted a female boxer with inner turmoil who could show how love drives you mad. She’s so amazing in it.’

Minuche laid down a staggering 41 guitar and bass tracks for ‘Heartbreak’: ‘I actually wrote and recorded all the basses as well, since we didn’t have Richard at the time,’ he said. ‘I wanted to have a wall of sound, so I tripled on some guitar parts for texture, there are some guitars you can’t even hear in ‘Heartbreak’, just for ambience or feel. I also recorded my Ernie Ball Music Man “Zula” electric guitar – my favourite guitar – acoustically in that song, just using a microphone. You can hear it the second verse of the song, I just wanted to capture that. When we were done tracking guitars, our producer Neil Engle looked at me and said: “You tracked 41 guitars on that song”. I didn’t even realize how much we had worked!’

As the song goes: ‘How long does it take?/ For a bleeding heart to gravitate/ I just need an answer/ Was it all just a game?/ Leaving me on read when my heart is a disaster.’

Other tracks were more difficult to put together, notably ‘Cuttin’ the Chord’: ‘It was written in the studio, Sahaj built on it,’ Carubia said. ‘It was very difficult for me to write, it was hard for me to find the words. Sahaj was like “This is what we’re gonna do” and I was like “But I haven’t written anything for it”. I went to Ronny, I said “Ronny, I hate this, my lyrics suck”. In the hotel room, I said “I want to quit music” but Ronny was so calm and optimistic (laughs) and I was like “Aaaaaargh!”. Now, it’s one of my favourites to play live.’ Minuche is laughing: ‘It’s our miracle child, even though we weren’t trying to get pregnant. Out of Sahaj came this beautiful baby!’

‘You deal with a lot of energy vampires’

‘Cuttin’ the Chord’ explores how difficult it can be to live in LA, something I can identify with, having lived there for two years: ‘Living in LA is tough,’ Carubia said. ‘You deal with a lot of energy vampires. There are tons of addicts and I’ve had so many friends who were homeless. It’s very draining on your energy and it makes you question your own self-worth. You have to start to cut people (out), that’s what it’s primarily about.’

That comes across in the lyrics: ‘Tastes like salt but looks like sugar/ Talk a lot of shit just to make you look bigger/ Lookin’ at an ego driven punk in the mirror/ I’m not shutting down for you.’

Even ‘Parasite’ has undergone something of a tinkering: ‘It used to be heavier,’ Minuche said. ‘With ‘Parasite’, I wanted it to be dancier.’ Carubia nods: ‘I said to him, our drummer won’t like this!’ The song itself has a slightly torturous provenance: ‘I had really bad psoriasis, I was having long salt baths every day. It was really damaging to my self-esteem,’ Carubia said. ‘I went to my doctor, who said that none of the stuff was working. He said: “I don’t know what to tell you, I just don’t have any more solutions for you”, which wasn’t helpful. I found a holistic doctor who really helped me, it’s much better now, but the song title comes from the feeling that there’s something within you, eating you alive. The vagueness of the lyrics mean that it could also be about people getting under your skin, about love.’

I ask what they used to create the spacey UFO sound in the chorus: ‘We LOVE the chorus!,’ Minuche exclaimed. ‘We used a digitiser. My wife has an events company and she knows all these little places in Hollywood to get stuff. She was looking for candles one day, for a Halloween birthday, I think, and I saw this alien mask that spoke to me and I had to buy it. As soon as we wrote ‘Parasite’, I knew we had to make an alien video!’

‘We all have a shadow side’

‘Hell Is Just A Place’ is a stomper with a glam rock feel to it, the kind of track that would really get the crowd going: ‘It’s our Queen/Freddie Mercury jam,’ said Carubia enthusiastically. ‘I embody my Freddie! I was inspired a bit by Pat Benatar. We’re talking about a mental state, it was written about my same friend who was dealing with mental illness and burning bridges. It was a self-destructive way of thinking that people were out to get them and not treating people the way that they’re capable of. They’re such a loving person but this song was written about their shadow side. We all have a shadow side, sometimes I write about my shadow side.’ Minuche weighs in: ‘Addiction and mental health are a bitch,’ he said. ‘You see terrible things happening to good people.’

They’re already at work on their next album, which will see them mix it up: ‘I think we’re going to expand and go funkier and heavier,’ Minuche said, looking delighted at the prospect. ‘One of our next songs, ‘Electrified’, is funky and makes you want to dance.’ Carubia agrees: ‘We’ve got another song, ‘Drowning’, that was part of the first batch but didn’t make it onto the album, it’s a bit more experimental. We have a lot of unfinished songs (laughs).’

Growing up in Ecuador, Minuche’s road to music was an unusual one: ‘As a kid in Ecuador, I was surrounded by Spanish music and unfortunately I didn’t appreciate it,’ he said. ‘I fell in love with Nirvana. When I started playing the guitar, it was because of Nirvana. A friend of mine could play some of their songs and he taught me on the acoustic. My uncle had an acoustic guitar that I played but one day I asked my mom if I could have an electric guitar and she said “Only if you get good grades”, so I really studied (laughs). Every other kid was obsessed with soccer and there was me inside playing the guitar and listening to Queen!’

Carubia also got into singing at a young age: ‘My grandmother used to have VHS tapes that me and my sister would watch when she would babysit us,’ he said. ‘I remember watching Little Shop of Horrors on repeat. Me and my sister would alway run around the house singing. My dad would play guitar and we would often sing with him. I always LOVED music classes in school and wanted to be on stage. I don’t have memories from a time in my life where I wasn’t singing.’

Their dream line up would be glorious: ‘I’d love to play with Freddie Mercury and Nothing But Thieves,’ said Carubia. ‘I’d love play with Muse and Tool, Matt Bellamy is amazing,’ Minuche said. ‘Oh and Highly Suspect (an American rock band).’ Carubia is thinking who else to add: ‘I’d love to play with Badflower and Incubus, they’re one of my favourites,’ he said.

Our chat turns to the premature death last month of Foo Fighters’ drummer, Taylor Hawkins, and what a terrible day for music it was: ‘I was heartbroken by his death,’ Minuche said. ‘It’s so sad that Dave Grohl had to go through that twice, first with Kurt. They’re more important than politicians, that’s the power of the melodies and lyrics. He was more than a drummer and Dave’s best friend.’

Their camaraderie and closeness is clear, even on our Zoom but jamming together is when it really all comes together: ‘I mean, we have so much fun at rehearsal,’ Carubia said. ‘We crack a lot of jokes and really do make each other laugh, also when we’re in character when we film our music videos. Making ‘Parasite’ we laughed at each other a lot, it was the same with ‘Cuttin’ The Cord’. We just were so committed and I nearly broke my wrist because Ronny and Jason were so in character when we were all tied together (laughs). We have a lot of fun with those videos!’

(Top photo from left to right: Jason, Ronny and Vince. Photo credit: GIna Elizondo)