Speaker 1: Oh that is epic. I love it.
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.
Speaker 1: Can you hear me?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 1: Wonderful, wonderful.
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.
So singer and guitarist Blaheen Hogan Uh Lucas Bradley lead guitarist,
That one's easy. Efa Keeg bassist and owen keeg drummer.
Speaker 1: That one's easy.
Speaker 2: Okay, did I did I get those even remotely correctly?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 1: Wow, wonderful, wonderful. That's a that's a relief. Okay.
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.
Speaker 1: I'm okay, gotcha.
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?
Speaker 1: Is that correct?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Exactly, or an Irish version.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's called secondary school.
Speaker 1: Here, but yeah, secondary school okay.
Speaker 2: And then so did this band actually start well, actually,
so is one of you still in high school or
secondary school?
Speaker 6: And so actually two of those are yeah, two of you,
two of us are and.
Speaker 5: Then the two other guys they just finished their last year.
Speaker 3: Like the other one.
Speaker 1: So yeah, outstanding.
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?
Speaker 3: So we have this like this kind of it's called
transition year. It's it's kind.
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.
Speaker 5: Just like figure out what you want to do.
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.
Speaker 3: So me and Lucas and then two.
Speaker 4: Other people from that year started just like learning guitars
and I started learning.
Speaker 3: Drums and stuff.
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.
Speaker 5: Yeah, because I'd been like playing a lot of music.
I played music for like two years for this.
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.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but it was.
Speaker 5: Like I always wants to be in a band. That
was like kind of my like dream.
Speaker 3: But then came up to me, yeah, oh yeah, my
friends a singer.
Speaker 4: Do you want to you want she joined the band
because we're like, okay, yeah, we'll hear her.
Speaker 3: So then we heard her singing. I was like, oh wow,
yeah this could actually work.
Speaker 6: Yeah, so this I didn't until much later after that
the social media.
Speaker 3: She was joined because we needed a basic.
Speaker 5: Face for the band, because that's it kind of just
like it just worked.
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.
Speaker 3: You know.
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.
Speaker 5: And then our first single, I think it was two
months we've been a band.
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.
Speaker 3: I remember hearing that first song.
Speaker 4: We played that song and I thought it was like
the best write.
Speaker 6: Yeah, It's like it's like the simplest song. It has
the five chords over and over again.
Speaker 3: We're like this, We're like, all this song is absolutely amazing,
you know.
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.
Speaker 3: Been a few months later listening back on it, it's
not a great song.
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.
Speaker 1: Already, So that's so that's great.
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.
Speaker 1: Musically.
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.
Speaker 4: Yeah, like we all come from fairly different backgrounds, like
music wise, Yes, yeah.
Speaker 3: I did a lot of traditional music when I was
younger and.
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.
Speaker 3: You know, Like they.
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.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, no, that's great.
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.
Speaker 1: But I'm curious what it's like over there.
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.
Speaker 1: They're very encouraging.
Speaker 2: It kind of sounds like like it is because you mentioned,
uh one of you is it called the discovery year?
Speaker 1: Is that what you called it?
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.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
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.
Speaker 5: You kind of know all the teachers and everything there.
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.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, do practice write songs in there. A lot of
writing went on in there and everything.
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.
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.
Speaker 5: Hole is as thin as a piece of paper.
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.
Speaker 10: So in school, did they do you guys get opportunities
to like learn string instruments or.
Speaker 5: Like we all.
Speaker 9: Study music in the schools like mandatory.
Speaker 5: They'll teach us ukul lead us. So we have like
like you can do whatever instruments you want, but.
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.
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.
Speaker 5: Go to them and figure out something. Like they're just
really good.
Speaker 6: They have free practice spaces around, like it's just they're
really helpfuls class.
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.
Speaker 1: I'm curious.
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.
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.
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.
Speaker 5: Always be.
Speaker 4: If we don't make it anywhere big, like you always
you'll always be playing on the weekends.
Speaker 3: You'll always you have for the fun, you know.
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?
Speaker 1: Are those?
Speaker 2: Are those the only two you've recorded so far? Or
do you have more or maybe you're working on more?
Speaker 3: There's yeah, there's more. We have like eight singles out
now on Spotify.
Speaker 6: Actually we have two recorded that aren't released with three
three record Yeah, three recorded are released.
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.
Speaker 3: You'll hear that first one we didn't?
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's not at the dates and make sure.
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?
Speaker 5: No, we were we were.
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.
Speaker 3: Well, actually we're always like a week.
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.
Speaker 3: But you see most of them.
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.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's like every name is taken. Where do you
come from?
Speaker 4: With Moonshine with moonshiny clips?
Speaker 3: And then we were like, yeah, but that sounds too.
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.
Speaker 1: You know, Oh yeah, yeah, no, I like it. I
like it a lot.
Speaker 5: We do have to say a really weird thing though.
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.
Speaker 4: With Moonlight Express, Moonlight Express or Midnight Eclipse.
Speaker 6: And because they've all comes to this like Sonata one
wear that.
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.
Speaker 1: Base, uh, people will uh will be more accurate with
your name. That's funny though, but but yeah, it is.
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.
Speaker 6: So this website where you can put in a bound
right and it will tell you no matter how unknown
the band.
Speaker 5: Is, if they are, like anything released, it's taken.
Speaker 3: That was really yeah, oh.
Speaker 2: Wow, Yeah, that's a good tool to have. Do you
remember what the site is? You know, off hand?
Speaker 3: Before I think it's it's gone now years ago.
Speaker 1: So yeah, okay, you know, because you.
Speaker 6: Can just look up the band registration name or something.
Speaker 3: You come up.
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.
Speaker 3: Yet not yet. That is definitely something we want to have.
Speaker 5: A friend of ours, he like makes a lot of
short films and he's coming like.
Speaker 6: Into that have like good quality cameras, and I think
he's hoping to make a music video with sometimes.
Speaker 3: On you.
Speaker 1: Yeah excellent, excellent.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So maybe maybe this summer because we'll be free.
Speaker 5: So we've just been so busy because like so much.
Speaker 4: And Lucas and final exams this year as well.
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?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, excellent.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
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.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
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.
Speaker 4: Why didn't you tell them how you broke it?
Speaker 5: It's on a mechanical bull.
Speaker 1: Really, you.
Speaker 6: See, we're in transition here and we're going on all
these like stupid weird treads around the world and.
Speaker 1: So what so what happened.
Speaker 2: Did you get thrown from the mechanical bull and you
landed on your hand or something or broke that you.
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.
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.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh no, wow, that's that's that's terrible. How are you?
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.
Speaker 2: Wow yeah now that's uh, but you're able to work
around it as far as playing or how are you?
Speaker 1: How are you doing that?
Speaker 6: Yeah, because like Lucas plays lead, so he just kind
of okay they combine yeah, like by.
Speaker 5: Turn the base of real well yeah exactly.
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.
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.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's cool to like, you know, it's grateful to.
Speaker 3: Pros and co. Exactly.
Speaker 1: You know, well that's a that's a good way to
look at it.
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.
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.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and we have a YouTube as well. Yeah, that's
just Moonlight Clips.
Speaker 6: And then Spotify and like all the other stream platforms
is Moonlight.
Speaker 3: Most of our updates are on Instagram and.
Speaker 4: Socials and then we post videos of some like concerts.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I think we went live on the you tube
yesterday as well.
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.
Speaker 5: On the Unfortunately, these guys are going to Italy. I'm
going to France more fortunately.
Speaker 1: Unfortunately. Wow, we are looking.
Speaker 10: Forward to.
Speaker 5: The next few weeks. We are away.
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.
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.
Speaker 1: I love this. Uh, I love this very much. So
I think you've got a great sound.
Speaker 2: You're off to a great start and and congratulations on
everything that you're doing.
Speaker 1: This is wonderful.
Speaker 2: So uh, absolutely we will do it again.
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.
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.
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.
Speaker 5: I know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you should be introducing music in elementary school.
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.
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. So but in the meantime, let's hit
this track. This is called Caught in a Fire and
this is Midnight Eclipse