From grief to Opeth Alex from prog band, Lunar talks with us
HI THERE THANKS FOR ANSWERING SOME QUESTIONS FOR US.
AB: You’re welcome. And thank you for taking the time to speak with me.
PLEASE INTRODUCE YOURSELF FOR US WHO ARE NOT FAMILIAR WITH YOU AND YOUR MUSIC AND TELL US A BIT ABOUT YOURSELF.
AB: My name is Alex Bosson. I’m the drummer and main songwriter for Lunar. Lunar is a progressive metal project, for fans of stuff like Opeth, Devin Townsend, Haken, Caligula’s Horse, etc. The band has been around since 2013 and in that time we’ve released an EP, 2 full length albums and are currently working on our 3rd full length.
TELL US A LITTLE BIT ABOUT YOUR LATEST ALBUM ?
AB: The latest album is entitled “Eidolon.” It’s been out for almost a year now. It’s a concept album that deals with the stages of grief one goes through when losing a loved one.
WHAT INSPIRED THE ALBUM ?
AB: I was inspired to write an album in this format after Ryan Erwin (who was the other co-founding member of Lunar with me) had suddenly passed away. He was not only my bandmate, but he had been one of my best friends since childhood. So losing him not only had an impact on Lunar and how I would move forward with the project, but it also had a huge personal impact on me. So in the grief I was going through, I was inspired to write an album around the idea of losing a loved one and the stages those left behind go through. Each track on the album is supposed to represent a specific stage of the grieving process, but with a little bit of my own interpretation on it.
CAN YOU SUM UP THE ALBUM IN A FEW WORDS?
AB: Hmmm…. In a few words, I guess I’d have to say “a progressive adventure.” I hope that’s how most would perceive it. But I think everyone really needs to listen for themselves.
WHAT RECORD CHANGED YOUR LIFE AND WHY?
AB: Biggest life changing record for me was “Blackwater Park” by Opeth. It’s one of those that I remember so vividly because it had such an impact on me. I was barely 14 years old, I was a freshman in high school and this girl I was seeing gave me a CD-r of BWP saying “I think you’d love this.” I popped it in as soon as I got home from school that day and I just stared at my stereo in amazement. It was the first time I had been exposed to Opeth and it was so life changing for me. I was so amazed to hear such beauty and brutality combined in the same album, the same songs even. And hearing songs that had so many different styles and influences. It really shaped my interest in progressive rock and metal and I think had the biggest impact on the musician and songwriter I became. I certainly think that anyone who listens to Lunar can hear my influence of Opeth, and probably can even hear some specific influence from “Blackwater Park” at times.
DO YOU HAVE A FAVOURITE MUSIC VIDEO FILMED BY YOUR BAND OR ANOTHER
ARTIST?
AB: For this band, my favorite would definitely be the most recent video for the song “Comfort.” The animation and design was done by Miles Skarin at Crystal Spotlight and he did such an incredible job! I love that video so much! (Link to video is below)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnRz9BaUHik
For other artists some of my favorite videos would be “Stinkfist” by Tool, “The Devil’s Orchard” by Opeth and the recent video for “Invasion” by Haken – which was actually done by the wonderful people at Crystal Spotlight as well.
WHAT WOULD WE FIND YOU DOING WHEN YOU'RE NOT MAKING MUSIC?
AB: For me personally I don’t have a ton of free time. Outside of Lunar I also play for the power metal band Helion Prime. And aside from both of those I also do session drum recording. And when I’m not doing that, I’m also a stay-at-home dad to my 2 year old daughter and have another baby on the way (due in about a month). All of that keeps me pretty busy. When I’m not doing any of those things, you’ll most likely find me sleeping or just chilling watching some cartoon. Recently I’ve been rewatching a lot of old South Park episodes.
DO YOU GET NERVOUS PERFORMING LIVE, IF SO HOW DO YOU DEAL WITH THAT?
AB: Absolutely. I always seem to get a little bit nervous playing live. I think I usually just get in my own head about the potential for it to go wrong. I never really worry about myself or bandmates knowing their parts or performing well or anything like that… but I always get concerned about there being some kind of equipment malfunction or technical difficulty. I don’t like the things that are out of anyone’s control that could fuck up the experience for the fans watching the show. And there’s not really any way to deal with it other than just double and triple checking the gear and making sure we’ve done all we can to ensure nothing goes wrong.
HOW DID YOU FORM THE BAND?
AB: Ryan Erwin and I, as I mentioned, had been friends since childhood. We had both kind of gone in separate directions musically throughout our teenage years. But when we were in our mid 20’s, I was working towards recovering from some spinal injuries and trying to slowly get back into playing drums again. I didn’t want anything that was too much of a commitment yet. And I had just heard “The Raven That Refused To Sing (And Other Stories)” by Steven Wilson for the first time. I called up Ryan and told him to listen to that album and said “let’s start up a new project and do something like this.” And the rest is history.
HOW DO YOU WRITE? - DO YOU HAVE A KEY SONGWRITER, OR DO YOU ALL WORK TOGETHER?
AB: The writing has changed over the years, really each album has ended up having a different writing process from the last. But the one constant has been that the key songwriter has always been me. When the band started, we did the “Provenance” EP and that was mostly previous song ideas that Ryan had before we formed Lunar, and then I made some additions and some changes to his already existing ideas. Then when we moved on to doing “Theogony” (the debut full-length) there was writing input from both Ryan and myself. The majority of the writing and song construction was done by me. Then after that, Ryan passed away and the most recent album, “Eidolon,” I wrote by myself. We’re currently working on the 3rd full length album and the process has been different this time as well. We’ve put more effort into the demo stages of the songs and there is much more input in the writing from both Balmore (guitars) and Ryan Price (bass).
WHAT INSPIRES YOU?
AB: Life experiences is the best answer I can give to that. I think the different things I go through and see around me are where I find inspiration for writing. I know that’s a bit of a vague answer, but it could come from a positive inspiration of say a love for my family, it could come from the pain of losing a loved one, or it could come from anger towards some religious or political figure that I think is an absolute moron and fucking up the world and/or country. Any of those things could inspire me to write something, and all those examples have inspired me at one time or another.
WHAT IS NEXT?
AB: Next is album #3. As I mentioned before; we’re already hard at work on it. It’s still fairly early in the process so we’re not ready to reveal any details yet, but I think it’s gonna be the best album yet!
PLEASE TELL US ANY SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS SO WE CAN SHARE.
Music & Merch – lunarbandofficial.bandcamp.com
Facebook – www.facebook.com/Lunarbandofficial
Instagram - @lunarbandofficial
Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8E3zfhymdBnqndgKv6v8bg?view_as=subscriber
Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/artist/3amVYNRjbhJT8aaRJG31wT?si=d2W0-MjlSP-9bPCHoyTFCg