““Nods to the greats of the Americana and folk worlds, but it spins a yarn all its own, proving that this Collective just may become the new torchbearers for an old, American genre.””
Moonsville, named after a home in the sky, is a band that writes songs that are trimmed from the fat of the American experience. During a time of high saturation and modern pace, the band draws from a slower and simpler time with the belief that good songs can still save, move and speak.
As young ramblers from the suburbs of recession in Los Angeles, they began their musical formation by taking refuge in Central California and sitting-in on jug band and old-time music circles where an infectious and pure spirit of “music for music’s sake” lived. Injecting that same spirit into their own community became their quest. Moonsville started as a collective, a group for musicians to come and go while fine-tuning their chops. They cheerfully and often drunkenly sang their voices hoarse at homegrown hootenannies and local bars that had never heard covers of C.C. Rider and Goodnight Irene.
In 2013, the band changed its course. Deciding it was time to chisel their own hometown sound, they set out to explain and narrate their lives and their California while curbing their reliance on old-time tunes. Since then, they have recorded 2 albums of original music, toured the country, and played countless shows sharing the stage with The White Buffalo, Willie Watson and Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, among others. Moonsville pairs their LA reality of flickering neon signs and mariachi dive bars with their out-of town travels to form a landscape where their songs can grow, emoting a heart of contentment for what’s been given and a desire for the beyond.
Moonsville is dedicating the next year to recording 4 EP’s (20 songs) in a focus to capture their current prolificacy. With multi-instrumentalists and several songwriters in the band, they keep their Americana style variable, always allowing for experimentation and the blurring of genre lines. One of the songwriters, Ryan Welch says; “Each song has a different feel but the consistency lies in the history of us playing together and the trust we have in each other to make good decisions.”
This first release of the quarterly EP’s will exhibit the band’s versatility. From a heavy hitting rock anthem about being on the road to a harmony laden progressive old time song about being home, Moonsville uses their lyrics to contrast the duality of being independent and dependent. Those are followed by an aching ballad about sharing your name with the woman you love and what that entails, which echoes the emotion of an old country song. “This EP exposes our tough and tender,” says another of Moonsville’s songwriters, Corey Adams. The fourth song is a unifying commentary on being raised in America and speaks to having it all and giving it back. In the final track, a mystical folk tale, they laugh at the ways of the world and the futility of going it alone. With a definitive vision of relying on quality songwriting, a fine tuned team, and a gritty drive to reach beyond the cul-de- sac of suburbia, Moonsville presses on.
AWARDS
2013 Best Country/Americana Band - OC Music Awards
2013 Best Bluegrass/Americana Band - CBS LA
2012 Best Live Band - OC Weekly
NOTABLE EVENTS
Americana Music Awards - Station Inn - Nashville 2016
Pappy & Harriets - (2 years Sold Out shows)
Long Beach Folk Revival Festival ('13,'14,'15,'16)
NAMM Show (GoPro Main Stage)
Bang Fest! - The Observatory
Echo Park Uprising
BuzzFeed Corporate Party
2017 Flood Magazine Release Party
2016 Surf Expo - Orlando, FL.
Long Beach Chili & Beer Festival
City of Costa Mesa 50th Anniversary
2014 Hangar 24 Craft Beer and Music Festival
Sausage & Beer Festival at Highland Springs Resort (August '12,'13'14)
Vestal Village Cochella (2016)
2013-2014 Outdoor Retalier - Salt Lake City, Ut.
KROQ N' Surf Music & Beer Festival, Orange, CA
OC Music Awards Performance 2013
Catalina Island Concert Series Summer (2012)
SHARED THE STAGE WITH
Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Willie Watson (Old Crow Medicine Show) Ry Cooder, White Buffalo, JD McPherson, Wanda Jackson, Aoife O'donovan" , Sara & Sean Watkins (Nickle Creek) John Doe (X), Sam Outlaw, Chuck Reagan (Hot Water Music), The Dustbowl Revival, Los Lobos, Dave & Phil Alvin, The Knitters, Junior Brown, Rose's Pawn Shop, JP Harris, Smooth Hound Smith, Donovan Frankeinreiter, Matt Costa, Johnny Two Bags (Social Distortion), Willy Tea Taylor (Good Luck Thrift Store), Smooth Hound Smith, Front Country, Charlie Parr.
Corporate & Community Connections
HippyTree, Iron & Resin Tres, Tres Noir Sunglasses, Sanuk Footwear, Jansport, Go Pro, Flood, Magazine, Surfaid, Toes on the Nose, Long Beach Film Co., California National Parks, Tahoe SUP Stand Up Paddle Co., Kayak Magazine, Matix Clothing, Orange County State Parks, Vestal Village, Hangar 24 Beer Festival, Thalia Street Surf Shop, Laguna Beach Pelican Hill Resort & Golf Course, Newport Beach, CA. San Juan Capistrano Ecology Center, Calico Syndicate Fly Fishing, Stone Brewery, Beachwood Brewery,
Moonsville Collective gather American Root sounds, taking the seeds of Old Time Music, R&B, Folk Rock, and Americana, planting them into the welcoming soil of California Country. The SoCal band will release a four-part E.P.series, starting off with Moonsville I, available on January 13, 2017. -Alt Root (Top 10 Songs of the Week)
“Los Angeles’ Moonsville Collective makes music for music’s sake. And in 2017, the Americana quintet with rootsy undertones is making a lot of it. In a lot of ways, the group is the living embodiment of what “Americana” means.”
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