We're Obsessed with Moon King's 'Obsession I'

Toronto duo Moon King was spawned out of former Spiral Beach members Daniel Woodhead and Maddy Wilde's longing for something fresh and different. Their aspirations are certainly not disappointing, as the two have created an incredibly unique sound that has a history with weird electric folk and David Lynch soundtracks. Fellow Canadian Mike Haliechuk of Fucked Up, another influence Woodhead cites, contacted the band asking to put out their latest full-length, Obsession I. As anyone with half an appreciation for punk music would, Moon King went for it, and here, the Moon King himself lets us know about how it all went down.

Did you grow up with Maddy?
She grew up down the street from me. We both grew up in downtown Toronto—right near Honest Ed’s, this huge department store/dollar store type of thing. I feel like that’s like our landmark of our neighborhood. I probably met her when I was six or seven. Our families were friends.

I know your families played folk songs together.
Both of our families have a background with Canadian folk music. My dad plays bass with a lot of different people. He’s done stuff with Stan Rogers, this super legendary Canadian folk singer. A lot of instrumental stuff. A lot of kind of weirder folk stuff. When people mention that my family plays folk music, you picture people sitting around with acoustic guitar. But instead, he would play electric bass with a stereo delay pedal and stuff like that. Pretty weird stuff. What about Maddy’s family?
Maddy’s mom is a satirical folk songwriter. She has songs about topical things and they’re really funny. Her mom is hilarious.

Do you have a favorite traditional folk song?
Hmm. That’s a good question. What’s funny is we have this background in folk music, but obviously when you’re a kid you’re totally not interested in what your parents are doing. I didn’t really get into music at all, listen to music, or ever think about wanting to play it until I was in high school. I realized all my friends thought it was cool and it sounded like something I had to discover for myself. It was always just around so I never had the chance to discover it on my own. At first you, find whatever’s on MuchMusic, which is Canadian MTV. Damian from Fucked Up hosts a show called The Wedge and when I was 13, that show introduced me to underground rock or pop music. I think the fact that he’s hosting it now is really cool. I saw a movie called 1991: The Year Punk Broke. It’s a Sonic Youth and Nirvana tour documentary for 1991. I saw it on “The Wedge” on MuchMusic when I was 13. That was the first time I’d ever heard of those bands. I was like “Whoa. This is something that I wanna do.” [Laughs] Up until that point, I don’t think I’d heard any pop music beyond The Beatles. Maybe Jefferson Airplane or some other ‘60s stuff like that. That’s pretty much how I got introduced to everything. I grew up with music around me, for sure, but it definitely didn’t affect me until I discovered it for myself.

How’d you meet Mike Haliechuk and get involved with One Big Silence?
Mike used to manage Austra, which is Katie [Stelmanis]’s band, and their bass player, Dorian, was the bass player in my old band with Maddy. I guess Mike might’ve heard about my stuff through them or through our mutual friends who have played in other projects. I felt like some of the melodies that are on the older Moon King tracks are similar to some of the Fucked Up stuff—just the guitar melodies, and the spacy-ness of the melodies over this really fast, loud guitar. I think we connected over that. It’s definitely a musical connection. I think Mike is amazing. For me, I was following his writing for a long time. He does the Fucked Up blog and I always thought he was a really good writer—about music or anything, really. I got his e-mail from Damian and, for some reason, I carried it around in my pocket for a full year. Like, seriously, an entire year, I don’t know why. And then he got in touch with me and said, “Hey, I’m doing this label. I want to put out your record.” I was just like, “Really? But I’ve never even met you or talked to you.” I think they’re a great influence. Obviously, Fucked Up is one of the best bands. One of my favorite bands to go see and listen to. We played with them really early on for us in 2006, so maybe they remembered us from that.

Where did the name Moon King come from? I thought it was interesting since I know you’re a duo, but the name indicates a single person.
It’s definitely me. Maddy is my favorite person to work with ever and I trust her more than anyone, but they are my songs. So yeah, I am the Moon King! [Laughs] I realized the moon kept coming up in the song lyrics. I figured, if I’m going to be the king of something, it might as well be that.

What role does she play in terms of songwriting?
She doesn’t write the songs. I’ll record everything and then for the live stuff, I’ll show her the parts and she’ll get it perfectly. I’ll never have to work on something or try to work it out. It always fits right away. I think, since we’ve been singing together for such a long time, our voices blend really well. Our voices literally grew up together. She can figure out vocal harmonies better than anybody I’ve ever met. Maybe it’s like Simon and Garfunkel. [Laughs]

Your new EP is titled Obsession I. Can you tell me about this title and if it indicates a sequel or trilogy?
Yeah, it could be, right? I’ve got 50 or so songs going right now. They’re all in various stages of recording and finishing. I want to release everything at some point. I’ve been thinking of things in sequential order. I’ve been a big fan of things that come out in series. Even Fucked Up, with the zodiac theme. Not that I’m trying to do something with a conceptual base like that, but I do like the idea of having a few different shorter releases and then putting them together and realizing that it’s basically a whole record. I’ve realized that, except when I’m driving around, I actually don’t listen to full albums too much anymore, which is so sad. The whole point of the project is to make something that is very satisfying and that I would enjoy listening to. Maybe the way to do that is to realize that my attention span is very short. [Laughs] I need to cater to my attention span and release music 15 minutes at a time. But yeah, it’s ambiguous, which I like. Right now, I just started watching Dune, that David Lynch movie, which is really cracked out and weird. When he wrote that, he wasn’t intending for that to be a series, but there’s more that come around. I’m just thinking that because it’s on my computer right now.

Yeah, I need to see more of his movies.
It’s actually one of the only David Lynch movies I’ve ever seen. It’s weird. I’m sure he’s incredible, I just haven’t been exposed to them. I tried watching four David Lynch movies at once because I realized I hadn’t seen any of them. So I opened four windows on my laptop and divided the screen into quarters and tried to watch Blue Velvet, Mulholland Drive, and two others I can’t remember. It got pretty crazy. I think I fell asleep. But I don’t know if you’ve heard of Julee Cruise? She’s a singer who David Lynch worked with a lot and she sings on the Twin Peaks soundtracks. I know I don’t really know Lynch’s movies at all, but the singer who he works with and co-produced the record for is incredible. Hers has been one of my favorite records this year, and it’s been a big inspiration for Moon King.

Were you involved in the concept behind the “Only Child” video? I thought the use of Super 8 film was really cool.
Yeah, my friend Craig made the video. He does a lot of work with Super 8. We would sit down and talk about ideas and how we wanted it to look. The idea was that there’s no action, no beginning, or ending. Just this wandering emptiness, searching. That’s what the song is about. It’s a very empty song. It’s about Alzheimer’s and memory loss. We decided to shoot it in this bleak setting. It was February and we went down to Ontario and there’s this Long Point beach called the Leslie Spit. You can walk up and down forever, for hours. Even though it’s right downtown, there’s this wilderness, empty spot in the middle of the city, so we thought that was perfect.

Did you find out who made the stop motion music video for “Sleeping In My Car?” The creators interpreted the lyrics pretty literally. Can you tell me a little about what the song is about?
Yeah, that’s crazy! That song has been released for a few days and someone already made a video. It’s not somebody I’ve met before. I tried looking them up through their YouTube account and I found out that they live in a suburb of Toronto. It’s really weird, but it’s very flattering! It’s so time-consuming to make a stop-motion video. It’s funny, because I would say it’s one of the only songs where the title is pretty literal. It’s also about being thrown away and being discarded, and finding the escape you need by literally sleeping in your car. It’s a little dumb, you know, but I like that. I like a little dumb now and then. I slept in a car last night. I do that a lot. I kind of like it. I did a really long Doldrums tour in the spring with my brother. Because there were only two of us, it was no problem to just sleep in the car when we couldn’t find a place to stay. We were driving all over America and we had three days of driving through the desert. We were doing these really long drives and obviously we’re not making tons of cash, so we’d see a good place to stop and pull over and sleep there. It’s not the most comfortable, but there’s something really nice about waking up and not even getting out of the car. Just pushing your seat back up, turning the key in the ignition and going back on the highway. You feel like you’re starting to become one with the car. [Laughs] I’m 24, I’m bummin’ around, moving constantly. It’s just the way I wanna live right now. I’ve had this apartment in Toronto for the past couple months. We’re doing a tour right now around Ontario and Quebec and stuff. I go right from Montreal to New York, so I’m gonna be in New York for the fall. I feel like I’m constantly in transit. I never feel like I need a nest, you know? I also barely own anything, so it’s really easy for me to move around. I’ve always really felt like I want to be wandering. I’m a Sagittarius, whatever. I do that, I’m programmed. [Laughs]

Are you into astrology then?
I wouldn’t say I’m really into it, but it’s been pretty clear to me. I have to sort of face facts sometimes and realize there’s no hope for me. I’m gonna be constantly out there. It also tells me what my relationships will be with people too, which is great. I think I’m generally really fickle about everything, so it’s hard for me to things like that too seriously. But it’s nice to notice the coincidences, that there’s maybe something more. You should just do what you believe and feel. If something doesn’t feel right, you absolutely shouldn’t be doing it. If working washing dishes somewhere doesn’t feel right, there should be another way.

You can order Obsession I over at One Big Silence and catch one of their gigs this fall:

Moon King - 2012 Tour Dates August 30 Kingston, ON - the Artel
August 31 Montreal, QC - Brain Expansion Program
September 15 Brooklyn, NY - Cameo Gallery w/ The Hundred in the Hands
September 18 New York, NY – Pianos