Moonloop | Interview with Eric Baule

Hailing from Barcelona in Spain, Moonloop has spent the last several years of their career slowly developing and perfecting their sound and musical identity, and such efforts now culminate in the beautifully crafted debut record “Deeply From The Earth” soon to be released by Listenable Records.

We caught with lead vocalist and guitarist Eric Baule to discuss the bands beginnings, their current situation, and their plans for the future.

Moonloop has been around for more than ten years, but only now had the chance to present us their debut full-length album via Listenable Records.

Please tell us why did you take this long to come up with your first full-length work?

“Moonloop took a few years to consolidate, and our writing process changed a lot since the beginning, so until we didn’t felt that we had a couple of good songs to record an album, we were recording our first demos and improving our sound. Getting our personal sound and write good songs has been our goal, and since Vic joined on bass guitar on 2008, the band felt comfortable enough to begin the recording of a serious album.”

For those who don’t know you guys yet, how did the band exactly come together?

“Moonloop was born in 2001 with Raúl (drums), Juanjo (guitar & vocals), and Eric (guitar & vocals). We were good friends many years before the band formed, so it was easy for us to jam as we used to listen to the same kind of music. The following years after 2001 saw many bass players going through the band, but our definitive and best bass player is Vic, who joined in 2008.”

Let’s talk a bit about your first studio record “Deeply from the Earth” schedule for release in May 2012 through Listenable Records.

Tell me a bit about the writing and recording process and how you personally feel about the record?

“The album was recorded at our own studio and it took a long period of time because we had diverse technical complications. Then, we mixed at The Room with Gorka Dresbaj, who made an amazing work, and finally Goran Finnberg mastered the album at The Mastering room AB in Goteborg (Sweden). The songs are a combination of new and old material. The writing process begins usually with some riffs that I bring to the rest of the band, and then we jam around them, but sometimes I bring the whole song recorded as a demo and then we work together on the structure and arrangements. It’s the first time that our music sounds like we wanted, so we’re very proud of “Deeply from the Earth” because the message of our music can be finally appreciated.”

I understand some of these songs aren’t exactly new creations and were featured in your earlier demos. Did you rearranged them for this new record or they sound exactly like they can be heard on these demos?

“Yes, we re-recorded some old songs for the new album because they still sound good to us, and most important, they fit with the concept of the album. “Deceiving Time” was written in 2001, “Wailing Road” and “A Life Divided” date from 2003, and “Landscape” & “Strombus” are from 2006-2007. We rearranged a little bit those songs, but not so much compared to the original demo recordings. The rest of the songs are new ones.”

The album seems to have a very interesting story behind it as the title suggests. It seems to deal with environmental themes and Mother Earth.

Can you elaborate on the concept behind “Deeply from the Earth” and also how did these themes come to you?

“Deeply from the Earth” talks about respecting nature and taking care of our planet. Also, some songs are inspired on personal feelings related to those hard moments in life when you have to find the right answers inside you. I write the lyrics, and my biggest inspiration is nature and Paleonthology, which is my other big passion in life. Humanity is an insignificant matter in Earth history, and that brings me a lot of inspiration to write. I took some general concepts from writers like Eckhart Tolle, Alejandro Jodorowski, Deepak Chopra or Herman Hesse, for example, who are very significant authors to me.”

With a record label with Listenable and the imminent release of your debut work, everything seems to be going great for you guys right now. What do you have planned for the rest of 2012?

“We are very excited about having a label like Listenable believing in our music. We are working on live shows, and for the moment we have our next gig on June 29th in Barcelona, to present the album. It will be a very special event. We want to go outside Spain and play as much as we can, it’s our dream to share our music with the rest of the world. We hope to see some dates scheduled over the next months.”