Shooting to the Moon

Moon Shot is such a great name for anything, especially for a music band. It makes me think how it is hard to actually shoot the moon. Or start up anything big. So many things should align to make it happen.

Many years ago, when I played guitar in a music band with my colleagues, we used to rehears in a studio called something like On Air. It was run by a guy, know as Alex The Cat. It was a great time and that particular studio was one of the best in the city. When we ended up our one-hour rehearsal, guys from the most favorite local band were already waiting in corridor. Cool feeling, to be honest.

One day I got to the studio earlier than expected and saw how the studio owner - Alex the Cat - played his music. He tapped pedals from his huge pedalboard while playing riffs on guitar. He had more than a dozen of different pedals, including a music processor with loops. The music filled up the whole studio room, I was able to hear it clearly because the door was a little bit open. Alex did some kind of magic with a guitar and pedals. I wouldn't tell it's a guitar audio if I had not seen it by myself. Sounds flew one into another, and tensions and unrealized feelings spiraled into waves of love. I kinda was in the middle of sound waves ocean, observing different species of sounds around me, like divers observes rare fishes in the bottom of the sea.

This story was not meant to be long. Alex had a band called Pocket Fish. They recorded a nice very interesting EP with about 8 songs. I think, I still have that CD presented to me because we used the studio. The band had 3 members - Alex, his girlfriend, and a drummer. Almost like The Subways, actually. After a while, they quietly broke up. Alex sold the studio and started to live a quite different life. I'm hoping, he is still playing. Great talent, open heart, simple to talk.

But sometimes what was built needs to be destroyed to open space for something new. This happened with guys from the Moon Shot band. They all were parts of other projects (Lapko, Children of Bodom, ...). When their projects ended, some time passed, Jussi Ylikoski called Ville Malja and shared some demo music he had. Ville had some demo lyrics. So, they arranged a barbecue party with two other musical friends. Ville and Jussi were worried a little bit, if a death metal bassist would fit a normal rock band. And they started a band. Band as a project, but when band members don't need to prove anything to anybody. They already had some success before (I actually think, that song Blackened Spiral is about it). They worked together and ... covid started. So they simply kept going remotely for a while until they can do public gigs again.

Several years of work and they are doing gigs again. It's a nice moment for such projects - they have some familiarity with each member, so they can actually get live audience all the time. But they are performing in small venues, which brings a feeling of something warm and nice, of something only for friends.

I told a story of a studio owner with a pedalboard for a reason. The sound of Moon Shot reminded me that intensive sound of Pocket Fish (played by Alex the Cat in a small Studio in the middle of Nowhere). It is intense, and full of different sounds and guitar skills. I can easily imagine how Jussi prepares for the performance by opening a big case with pedals and checking that everything works fine. But in the same time, this sound does not stick to your memory. It has lots of details, and different effects, it fills up all the space. Leaving so little to the melody and actual song.

Such different stories with such similar (to me) sounding and feeling. Try it - maybe one of Moon Shot songs might stick to your playlist for a while.