Moon Sugar are a 5 piece indie rock ‘n’ roll group from Birmingham, UK consisting of Adee Shaw (Vocals), Jon Williams (Guitar), Dave Cross (Keys), Chris Maiden (Bass), Drums (Ellis Haden-Grant (Drums) – Writes Isabelle Pollock. Earlier this year they released a self-entitled EP and had the EP launch at a brilliant venue named The Rainbow in Birmingham City Centre! You can listen to Justify from the band below.
I managed to catch up with lead singer Adee Shaw to ask about what it like to be from a worldwide known music historical city, the bands music influences and much more!
Tell us bit about yourselves…How long have you been together? And how did you come up with name of the band?
We’ve been together about a year and a half now.. the band name is a bit of a myth to be honest! It’s apparently something to do with a video game, others have said its a reference to a drug of some description, all i know is its a shit name for a band!! haha!
What is like to be a band from such a worldwide known music historical city like Birmingham?
I don’t think there is too much pressure on brummie bands to be honest. We have a decent scene developing at the moment but a lot of the money and punters have swayed towards the ‘rave’ the past 5 or so years, not that it’s a bad thing of course!! and obviously some of the bands that have come from here have been fuckin mega! We just try to stay focussed on what we’re doing, the class shows more in Brum too, apposed to say London where you have a thousand promoters and ten thousand bands all doing what we’re doing. It’s a lot more close knit it Brum which is nice i suppose, its given us a good foundation put it that way!
What music inspires the band?
Inspiration is another good question! We all love the british scene from the 60s onwards really, we get the Oasis reference a lot which is fair i think, they are a huge inspiration to us all.. but as I said its a huge range of stuff. For me personally Marc Bolan and T Rex i love, Led Zeppelin are inspiring too but you won’t nescessarily hear it in our music. But yeah The Beatles, Johnny Marr we are big fans of too, anything that man touches is pure Gold.
What has been your favourite venue to play at so far?
My favourite venue so far is the Rainbow Cellar, has the best atmosphere, best sound.. a proper underground, eery sort of place!! suits us down to the ground! I prefer venues with history and character rather than your purpose built places, they feel very clinical sometimes.
If there was one music artist/band you could go on tour with, who would it be?
Personally for me i’d love to tour with Jack White, I think the way he goes about his live shows and his whole creative process in general is fascinating. I’d love to get up close and personal with that whole world!! Oasis would have been good too back in 96, for the carnage purposes rather than the music though! haha
Do you have any gigs coming up soon?
19th August at 02 Institute, Birmingham
20th August at The Fleece, Northallerton
18th September at Amersham Arms, London
17th December at Hare and Hounds, Kings Heath
And what would you say to you fans who come to your gigs and buy your music?
I’d say thanks to each and every one of them! Not just for coming to see us in particular but just for contributing to the whole scene, without it we wouldnt have anything left, it would have all been drowned in the mass produced radio one garbage!! Keep the faith and stick with us! We haven’t even revealed the tip of the iceberg yet… and whatever happens there will definitely be chaos!!