Interview: Magenta Moon Talk About Their New Single/Video "Liquid Heaven"
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“Joey always wanted to write a song with a doo-wop guitar sound. “Liquid Heaven” is actually the original take of Smoogie’s vocals. She just sat down and sang whatever popped into her head.”
What are some things, people or places that inspire you both creatively when you are working on new music, and how do you deal with writer's block?
We love getting out of the city to sleep in our tent. Long drives and listening to tons of music fill our creative wells. We get lots of inspiration from staying up all night talking. When in trouble, we do a thing we call “dailies” where we write every day for a month. It takes the ego out and pushes us to get down what’s around us.
We're huge fans of your new single/video "Liquid Heaven"; tell us about your creative process for the development of the song itself, and what inspired you to write it.
In June 2021 we did a project where we were writing two songs a day. Joey would lay down some guitar and Smoogie would top-line. It was meant to be a stream-of-consciousness exercise, but we ended up getting some great tracks from it.
Joey always wanted to write a song with a doo-wop guitar sound. “Liquid Heaven” is actually the original take of Smoogie’s vocals. She just sat down and sang whatever popped into her head.
Regarding its music video, how did you come up with the treatment, and who directed it?
We played at a music festival in Orlando last November, and we decided to collect footage throughout the trip to put together a relaxed and dreamy video. We wanted the video to have a documentary/DIY feel, while still having some narrative.
We both directed and produced the video. Smoogie edited the final product.
How did you two initially meet and then decide to create music together as Magenta Moon?
We met through friends in Boston, November 2015, while we were both still in college. It was an instant connection and we stayed up all night talking. Right after we met, Smoogie did a semester in London, so we didn’t get to see each other for almost a year.
The first few years of our relationship were consumed by fresh love, but we played music and made art together the whole time.
It wasn’t until we decided to do a two-month road trip around the US in 2019 that we started seriously writing songs together. In January 2020, we became Magenta Moon and began recording our first album.
What can you tell us about your upcoming album that "Liquid Heaven" will be featured on? Also, would you say that the project has an overall theme or concept?
While the band was still incubating, we called ourselves “Paul Rudd’s Robot Girlfriend”—the name of our new EP. It’s a departure from our more organized, jazzy sound. It’s loud, spontaneous, and punk. We wrote and recorded all these tracks off the cuff, and we’ve loved them since the beginning.
A lot of the project deals with fear, mind-control, and resisting conformity.