Moonlight Eclipse | Matt Connarton Unleashed

0:00 Speaker 1: Oh that is epic. I love it.

0:02 Speaker 2: That is a moonlight eclipse and the track is called Shattering Knees. They are from Ireland and let's see we have them via Google teams Moonlight eclipse.

0:11 Speaker 1: Can you hear me?

0:14 Speaker 3: Oh?

0:15 Speaker 1: Wonderful, wonderful.

0:16 Speaker 2: Sometimes these international connections don't always don't always go, uh go as planned, so it's always a relief when when it works out. So I'm very happy that you're joining us this morning on Matt Connorton Unleashed, or at least it's morning there. I don't know what time it is here, but I have an email here, so I'm gonna try to this. This email very helpfully spells your names phonetically for me. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna try these Irish names. Yeah, so I'm gonna I'm gonna try uh let's see. So and then you know what, I'll introduce you all and and then you can you can correct me afterward because I'll probably I'll probably screw these up anyway, but okay.

0:59 Speaker 2: So singer and guitarist Blaheen Hogan Uh Lucas Bradley lead guitarist, That one's easy. Efa Keeg bassist and owen keeg drummer.

1:17 Speaker 1: That one's easy.

1:17 Speaker 2: Okay, did I did I get those even remotely correctly?

1:22 Speaker 4: Oh?

1:22 Speaker 1: Wow, wonderful, wonderful. That's a that's a relief. Okay.

1:25 Speaker 2: I do try to get everyone's names correctly. But so welcome, so and and you're all very young, right, ages sixteen to eighteen.

1:38 Speaker 1: I'm okay, gotcha.

1:40 Speaker 2: No, I marvel at that because your your sound is very mature, at least at least for what we're used to hearing in America. I've I've rarely heard a band as young as as you all are who can pull off the sophistication of of your songs. And and I love that track Shattering Knees. And then of course, uh, we're absolutely absolutely and we're going to play the other one at the end of the interview. We'll play the other one that you sent us, which is also also really good. H But now you all met in high school?

2:10 Speaker 1: Is that correct?

2:12 Speaker 3: Yeah? Exactly, or an Irish version.

2:15 Speaker 5: Yeah, it's called secondary school.

2:16 Speaker 1: Here, but yeah, secondary school okay.

2:18 Speaker 2: And then so did this band actually start well, actually, so is one of you still in high school or secondary school?

2:27 Speaker 6: And so actually two of those are yeah, two of you, two of us are and.

2:31 Speaker 5: Then the two other guys they just finished their last year.

2:33 Speaker 3: Like the other one.

2:35 Speaker 1: So yeah, outstanding.

2:36 Speaker 2: So starting this band, uh obviously with with some members still in school. I mean, how did this come about? How did how did the four of you come together to perform Moonlight Eclips?

2:48 Speaker 3: So we have this like this kind of it's called transition year. It's it's kind.

2:53 Speaker 4: Of just this year where you go on a bunch of trips and stuff, and it's like it's kind of like it's kind of like a doss area break year in between the other years.

3:01 Speaker 5: Just like figure out what you want to do.

3:02 Speaker 4: And me and Lucas the guitarist we were during that year. We wanted to do something because we were doing like basically nothing, So we said we'd start learning instruments and we try and start a band.

3:16 Speaker 3: So me and Lucas and then two.

3:19 Speaker 4: Other people from that year started just like learning guitars and I started learning.

3:23 Speaker 3: Drums and stuff.

3:24 Speaker 4: We didn't think it was going to go anywhere, but like we just said, we'd do it for the crack, for the fun. Yeah, And then so we did that for like one or two months, and then the other two people kind of stopped they but then we met blocking.

3:39 Speaker 5: Yeah, because I'd been like playing a lot of music. I played music for like two years for this.

3:44 Speaker 6: Yeah, and we like me and if because I own our siblings, yeah, I mean because we're we're two years below owning Lucas and they would be practicing like with they're a band in the music room, and mean if we're just like chilling on the other side, that's say we're really by paying the little sister and her best friend.

4:01 Speaker 3: Yeah, but it was.

4:02 Speaker 5: Like I always wants to be in a band. That was like kind of my like dream.

4:06 Speaker 3: But then came up to me, yeah, oh yeah, my friends a singer.

4:10 Speaker 4: Do you want to you want she joined the band because we're like, okay, yeah, we'll hear her.

4:15 Speaker 3: So then we heard her singing. I was like, oh wow, yeah this could actually work.

4:19 Speaker 6: Yeah, so this I didn't until much later after that the social media.

4:25 Speaker 3: She was joined because we needed a basic.

4:28 Speaker 5: Face for the band, because that's it kind of just like it just worked.

4:33 Speaker 4: We started practicing and we actually realized we're actually very good, so we were Yeah, so then it kind of just kept growing and growing.

4:43 Speaker 3: You know.

4:44 Speaker 2: Yeah, it almost it sounds like, I mean, my perception from what you're saying, tell me if I'm right, is that you you went into this with no particular expectations, right.

4:53 Speaker 5: And then our first single, I think it was two months we've been a band.

5:00 Speaker 6: I had to playing their instruments for two months, and basically my parents, because I play music for ages, they got me like a little voucher for a recording studio and just for Christmas, and I was like, well, guys, we need to write a song and go.

5:17 Speaker 3: I remember hearing that first song.

5:19 Speaker 4: We played that song and I thought it was like the best write.

5:23 Speaker 6: Yeah, It's like it's like the simplest song. It has the five chords over and over again.

5:28 Speaker 3: We're like this, We're like, all this song is absolutely amazing, you know.

5:33 Speaker 5: I remember you went into the bathroom to call your dad and I was like, oh my god, we just wrote a hit. I was only like thirteen at the time.

5:40 Speaker 3: Been a few months later listening back on it, it's not a great song.

5:47 Speaker 2: No, That's is remarkable how quickly it came together. And then of course here here you are. Now you're you're on American radio.

5:54 Speaker 1: Already, So that's so that's great.

5:58 Speaker 2: I'm curious too about influences, partly because you know you're in Ireland and also too you're so young, Like who are who are some of your And I'm sure among the four of you, you know, there's a variety of different influences, but I'm curious who you all listen to over there and who you're influenced by.

6:16 Speaker 1: Musically.

6:19 Speaker 6: Well, I'm not going to speak for the whole band, but for me, like, like I know, we played rock and it's definitely edging on the heavy side. But like, I can't say that pop doesn't influence my songwriting because normally the songs that I write and then show to the band, they're very kind of like poppy in that way, and then we kind of bring them into that. But yeah, like I don't know, definitely influence the pop, but I look like System move Down and like I've listened to a lot of their music, so I think it's kind of a mix of a lot of different genres.

6:49 Speaker 4: Yeah, like we all come from fairly different backgrounds, like music wise, Yes, yeah.

6:55 Speaker 3: I did a lot of traditional music when I was younger and.

6:57 Speaker 4: Stuff, but yes, that's why, like I also listened to heavy stuff as well though, But then like Etho would listen to some pop music, I listened to like some heavy music. Bline listen to another genre, and then they all kind of come together to make this kind of new thing. You know. It's like, yeah, influences come from all over the place. Yeah, it's not set on one set kind of thing.

7:19 Speaker 3: You know, Like they.

7:20 Speaker 5: Don't like some of the music I listened to, and I would like some like you know, it's kind of like so much we all bring it together.

7:26 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, no, that's great.

7:28 Speaker 2: What what is it like there in terms of if you're to be to be your age going through the school system there? What what is it like in terms of the arts because here in the United States, you know, it varies a lot depending on the school system and how much money they put into their budgets and whatnot. There's some school systems that are very encouraging of you know, they have music classes and everything, and and some some school systems are just cutting everything.

7:55 Speaker 1: But I'm curious what it's like over there.

7:57 Speaker 2: And and maybe the four of you have had similar experiences or different experiences, but I'm curious what like like when you're growing up and you decide to do something like this is the the education system.

8:08 Speaker 1: They're very encouraging.

8:10 Speaker 2: It kind of sounds like like it is because you mentioned, uh one of you is it called the discovery year?

8:15 Speaker 1: Is that what you called it?

8:17 Speaker 2: Transit transition year, which which I've heard of before, But so I'm assuming there's there's kind of a support system there if you want to get into the arts, right.

8:27 Speaker 5: Yeah.

8:28 Speaker 7: Yeah, the school we uh go to went to, know, they're very supportive with everything Kanya did because it's kind of a small school.

8:37 Speaker 5: You kind of know all the teachers and everything there.

8:40 Speaker 7: Like for the music, We're so grateful for the school because they let us stay in the music room during lunch breaks and in the morning before classes started.

8:52 Speaker 5: Yeah.

8:52 Speaker 3: Yeah, do practice write songs in there. A lot of writing went on in there and everything.

8:58 Speaker 8: And even in transition year, there's like play as you do, and they just take you to a bunch of different places, like there was a comedy show or something at one point as well, just get people interested in like the arts around the place and everything.

9:17 Speaker 9: Like they definitely like for the last and the two three years, every lunch break we've you know, had guitars drove glass like singing our hearts out and it's right, like the wall between the music room and the massive like lunch.

9:30 Speaker 5: Hole is as thin as a piece of paper.

9:33 Speaker 6: And everyone has to listen to her music every single day. So I'm pretty grateful that they will get up with them for so long. And we go to an all Irish school as well. Yeah, we take Irish all day.

9:42 Speaker 10: So in school, did they do you guys get opportunities to like learn string instruments or.

9:49 Speaker 5: Like we all.

9:50 Speaker 9: Study music in the schools like mandatory.

9:53 Speaker 5: They'll teach us ukul lead us. So we have like like you can do whatever instruments you want, but.

9:58 Speaker 4: It's po it's kind of yeah, like they do it very in a universal way, as in like if you want to go out and learn a specific instrument, you go and get lessons outside the school, but like yeah, they'll teach like a more universal way in music class in school like yeah.

10:16 Speaker 6: And just like the youth scene like in Ireland is so good. They have this we have this thing called Music Generation which is funded by you too, and it's like it's just basically like this massive like music organization that helps like young bands. You have artists, they do gigs around like around the country, and like if you need instruments, you can.

10:35 Speaker 5: Go to them and figure out something. Like they're just really good.

10:38 Speaker 6: They have free practice spaces around, like it's just they're really helpfuls class.

10:42 Speaker 2: Oh that's fantastic, exactly, Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely absolutely. Now, so what's kind of the I mean, you know, you're you're so young. Do you have a long term plan for this band? Or I mean, is this something that you think you're going to be doing for you know, because you're you're off to a fantastic start, you know, so, I mean, it'd be a shame if I assume you're not gonna tell me no, we're just kind of doing this for fun and we're just gonna you know, I assume there's some sort of long term ambition here, but but maybe not.

11:12 Speaker 1: I'm curious.

11:13 Speaker 4: That's the dream anyways, you kind of kind of always hope that it like we're definitely not going to stop now.

11:19 Speaker 3: Yeah, it's definitely keep going for now, and you kind of kind of just see where it goes. Yeah, it's it's we're definitely not going to stop. Yeah, you just you don't know where take it.

11:30 Speaker 6: I think we all have like like I think we all have like those of those things in our life and like other things that we wanted to But I think the band will.

11:36 Speaker 5: Always be.

11:40 Speaker 4: If we don't make it anywhere big, like you always you'll always be playing on the weekends.

11:43 Speaker 3: You'll always you have for the fun, you know.

11:46 Speaker 2: Yeah, now you've got so these the two the two tracks that you sent us Caught in a Fire and Shattering Knees?

11:56 Speaker 1: Are those?

11:57 Speaker 2: Are those the only two you've recorded so far? Or do you have more or maybe you're working on more?

12:02 Speaker 3: There's yeah, there's more. We have like eight singles out now on Spotify.

12:06 Speaker 6: Actually we have two recorded that aren't released with three three record Yeah, three recorded are released.

12:14 Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm gonna have to go back and listen to your other tracks on Spotify because I'm very I'm very curious because like I said, I love these, I love these.

12:23 Speaker 3: You'll hear that first one we didn't?

12:24 Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's not at the dates and make sure.

12:27 Speaker 2: You don't, Okay, gotcha. No, I'm very I'm very curious. Where does the name come from? Moonlight Eclipse? Is there a particular meaning to that?

12:38 Speaker 5: No, we were we were.

12:40 Speaker 6: Pushed to make a name, like I think it took us months to sign the name. We went through about five. We were like over exclosure.

12:47 Speaker 3: Well, actually we're always like a week.

12:49 Speaker 5: Yeah, we're gonna call ourselves Shattering Knees as well. So that's why the song's name shot. Yeah, through a lot of different names.

12:57 Speaker 3: But you see most of them.

12:58 Speaker 4: We we would decide find a name and then realized there was a band that already had that. Really you'd be amazed at, like how many bands are actually obscure names.

13:10 Speaker 5: Yeah, it's like every name is taken. Where do you come from?

13:14 Speaker 4: With Moonshine with moonshiny clips?

13:21 Speaker 3: And then we were like, yeah, but that sounds too.

13:23 Speaker 4: Much like moonshine, like the drink, So we were like, let's just change the bits Moonlight because it was it's kind of nice.

13:31 Speaker 1: You know, Oh yeah, yeah, no, I like it. I like it a lot.

13:35 Speaker 5: We do have to say a really weird thing though.

13:37 Speaker 6: We've been like people forget the name of our band a lot, and not like not like people who know each other, but different people in like different places and different venues have called us Midnight Eclipse, but they're not connected.

13:48 Speaker 4: With Moonlight Express, Moonlight Express or Midnight Eclipse.

13:54 Speaker 6: And because they've all comes to this like Sonata one wear that.

14:03 Speaker 2: Oh wow, well that'll uh you know, hopefully in in time, you know, as you as you continue to build a following and build a fan.

14:10 Speaker 1: Base, uh, people will uh will be more accurate with your name. That's funny though, but but yeah, it is.

14:15 Speaker 2: It is hard to find a name that's not already you know, because you one thing you obviously don't want to get into a situation of is when you have a name that uh, you've established and then it turns out, you know, somebody else says, oh no, we were using that first, and then they're threatening you with some sort of legal action or something.

14:31 Speaker 6: So this website where you can put in a bound right and it will tell you no matter how unknown the band.

14:37 Speaker 5: Is, if they are, like anything released, it's taken.

14:41 Speaker 3: That was really yeah, oh.

14:43 Speaker 2: Wow, Yeah, that's a good tool to have. Do you remember what the site is? You know, off hand?

14:50 Speaker 3: Before I think it's it's gone now years ago.

14:53 Speaker 1: So yeah, okay, you know, because you.

14:56 Speaker 6: Can just look up the band registration name or something.

15:01 Speaker 3: You come up.

15:03 Speaker 2: Yeah okay, yeah, I was just curious. No, that's uh no, that's very cool. And then have you done any videos for for any of these tracks.

15:10 Speaker 3: Yet not yet. That is definitely something we want to have.

15:16 Speaker 5: A friend of ours, he like makes a lot of short films and he's coming like.

15:20 Speaker 6: Into that have like good quality cameras, and I think he's hoping to make a music video with sometimes.

15:27 Speaker 3: On you.

15:29 Speaker 1: Yeah excellent, excellent.

15:32 Speaker 3: Yeah, So maybe maybe this summer because we'll be free.

15:35 Speaker 5: So we've just been so busy because like so much.

15:38 Speaker 4: And Lucas and final exams this year as well.

15:43 Speaker 2: Oh yeah yeah, and what's the live schedule, Like what's like, are you able to get out and play a lot of shows or I don't know, last night?

15:53 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, excellent.

15:57 Speaker 3: Yeah.

15:57 Speaker 4: So for the past like a few months, we been taking a break because of the exams, but now that they're finished with a lot of gigs.

16:05 Speaker 3: Yeah.

16:05 Speaker 6: I also, though I broke my finger two months ago, I've kind of been trying to work around that because I'm not like able to play its hard.

16:13 Speaker 4: Why didn't you tell them how you broke it?

16:16 Speaker 5: It's on a mechanical bull.

16:19 Speaker 1: Really, you.

16:23 Speaker 6: See, we're in transition here and we're going on all these like stupid weird treads around the world and.

16:31 Speaker 1: So what so what happened.

16:32 Speaker 2: Did you get thrown from the mechanical bull and you landed on your hand or something or broke that you.

16:36 Speaker 6: Had to hold onto on the bowl, but the rope like you pull it out and pulled it out, I didn't like continually continuously hold enough force, and my like finger got launched in with the rope.

16:48 Speaker 5: The bulls started going around. I'm just like yeah, And then she had to go to like an Italian hospital and there's a language bower like was faster.

16:56 Speaker 1: Yeah, oh no, wow, that's that's that's terrible. How are you?

17:02 Speaker 6: Italian doctors were like they're like, you know, it's fine, you know, just go back to Fostial maybe in ten days in Ireland. And then as soon as I got back home, we went straight to host film and they're like, yeah you need surgery.

17:13 Speaker 2: Wow yeah now that's uh, but you're able to work around it as far as playing or how are you?

17:18 Speaker 1: How are you doing that?

17:19 Speaker 6: Yeah, because like Lucas plays lead, so he just kind of okay they combine yeah, like by.

17:27 Speaker 5: Turn the base of real well yeah exactly.

17:29 Speaker 4: It'll be like we'll probably have to wait until her finger heels until we can do more original recording, Yeah, exactly, because our songs are very kind Yeah, like the lead like very I have a lot of rhythm stuff and a lot of sort of stuff at the same time.

17:46 Speaker 11: Yeah, but like we're definitely grateful for the opportunity because it's cool to see how our like how our stage presence kind of works, because like it's definitely I can be more kind of interactive with the crowd obviously when I don't know guitar on we I can kind of walk around with the microphone.

18:01 Speaker 3: You know.

18:03 Speaker 5: Yeah, it's cool to like, you know, it's grateful to.

18:06 Speaker 3: Pros and co. Exactly.

18:08 Speaker 1: You know, well that's a that's a good way to look at it.

18:10 Speaker 2: And yeah, I mean, and that's and that's part of doing something like this, right, you know, these things will happen and then you find a way to work around it. And no, that's that's great, that's great. Where should people Where should people go online to to learn more about I've obviously you mentioned you know, you're on Spotify, But is there any place in particular people should go online to keep up with everything that Moonlight Eclipse is doing.

18:31 Speaker 4: A very active Instagram with Facebook, So on Facebook Light Eclips it's just Midlight clips on Instagram and like TikTok it's clips official.

18:43 Speaker 5: Yeah, and we have a YouTube as well. Yeah, that's just Moonlight Clips.

18:46 Speaker 6: And then Spotify and like all the other stream platforms is Moonlight.

18:50 Speaker 3: Most of our updates are on Instagram and.

18:53 Speaker 4: Socials and then we post videos of some like concerts.

19:00 Speaker 3: Yeah. I think we went live on the you tube yesterday as well.

19:05 Speaker 2: Oh excellent, excellent, And then where where's when is your next show? We should we should mention that we actually have believe it or not. I don't know if you know this, but we actually have listeners in Ireland who tune in online. Yeah that's the you know, this wonderful thing about the internet. Well, yeah, go ahead.

19:25 Speaker 5: On the Unfortunately, these guys are going to Italy. I'm going to France more fortunately.

19:33 Speaker 1: Unfortunately. Wow, we are looking.

19:37 Speaker 10: Forward to.

19:39 Speaker 5: The next few weeks. We are away.

19:41 Speaker 6: But actually the day after I come back from the States, we are on the nineteenth of July. We're playing in Dallians so it's a pub and ath and Rye go away and but the Capital we're playing in Dublin on the fourteenth of August and the Santis, which is Cuite a popular known venue, so shout out to anyone in Ireland.

20:03 Speaker 2: Has fourteenth excellent, excellent, very good. Well listen, I want to thank all four of you for joining us this morning. This has been wonderful and we will definitely do this again in the future as you're releasing new music and whatnot. And uh and in a moment, we're gonna play this. We're gonna hit this track Caught in a Fire, another great song.

20:23 Speaker 1: I love this. Uh, I love this very much. So I think you've got a great sound.

20:26 Speaker 2: You're off to a great start and and congratulations on everything that you're doing.

20:30 Speaker 1: This is wonderful.

20:30 Speaker 2: So uh, absolutely we will do it again.

20:36 Speaker 1: I'll let you go and we'll hit this track, Moonlight Eclipse. Thank you so much. Bye bye. All right, very good, very good. That is Moonlight Eclipse.

20:46 Speaker 2: And uh yeah, like I said, they're off to a wonderful start there. You know, they're so young. I wish I had that. I wish I had that level of ambition and discipline when I was that age.

20:54 Speaker 10: I think, well, obviously some of it comes from their environment. Oh yeah, it sounds like they have such an exposure to arts in this transition year where they get even more. I mean, I wish we did that here, I really do.

21:07 Speaker 5: I know.

21:07 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you should be introducing music in elementary school.

21:11 Speaker 10: Kids will be able to read music, they'd be able to play different instruments, because when they're so young, they're pliable, right, those brains suck up everything you give them. Yeah, and I think that's wonderful that these kids are. So they sound very confident. Yeah, I mean excellent to have somebody from Ireland reached out to us. Yeah, it's always an honor and I'm really excited to see where they go from here.

21:31 Speaker 2: Absolutely, me too, Me too. So we're gonna hit this track Caught in a Fire when we come back. We might have a little surprise. We might have somebody call in for just a few minutes who is not who we haven't talked to in a long time, but I really think I might know. But I'm really excited to talk to because I hope he's someone who does a lot in the music industry and the music scene here in Newmpshire and I love it and just a wonderful person, just a great friend who I haven't talked to in a long time.

21:55 Speaker 2: So but in the meantime, let's hit this track. This is called Caught in a Fire and this is Midnight Eclipse