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Moonsville Collective makes music that feels celebratory one moment, bittersweet the next. It tugs at heartstrings, pulling the listener in over tales of love, family, children, change, and growth. The band’s new album, “A Hundred Highways,” paints a picture of a band in its prime — lyrically stronger than ever before, musically finding its stride and exploring traditional roots more than in the past. The result is charming, thought-provoking, and honest. Earnest. Real.
Vents Magazine sat down with band co-founder, vocalist, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Corey Adams to talk about the new album, and we discussed the track “A Hundred Songs,” including its inspiration. We chatted about how this album is an exploration of finding peace in our shortcomings, losses, and foibles, and how family and love always wins out. And we found out what’s next for this very special group.
Hi Corey, welcome to VENTS! You have an amazing new album out in April called “A Hundred Highways.” What can you tell us about it? What is the story behind it?
Thank you kindly for listening to it. A lot of the inspiration from the album really came from the transition of one chapter of the band (and our lives) into another. When you play in a band, not just a singer with hired hands, you really form a bit of a tribe – at least we did. We were kind of at a high point when we released “Heavy Howl,” with that group of guys back in 2015. We’d tour together, make vacations out of the destination gigs we’d do – wives, kids, the whole deal. As life began to pull us into different directions, naturally there were a lot of emotions there to digest. Not negative or positive by any means, just the space created by change.
Years later during the lineup change, we added Phil Glenn to the band, who would contribute vocals and songs, and he, along with Seth and I, all began having kids. Phil also had a tribe change with the closure of his former band. So we’re all kind of in this space of closing the past as we take on new chapters of fatherhood and marriage, and all that comes with it.
Anyhow, two main anchors on the record are “Helen Highway” and “A Hundred Songs,” about those two very concepts above. It all happened very quickly, and we knew we wanted to call the record “A Hundred Highways,” because it felt like we’d traveled that to arrive here as a redefined band years later, but also as an homage to “Heavy Howl” and that whole period. All of the H’s have a nice way of rolling off the tongue, which we’ve always kind of liked. Overall, a little bit of old, but a lot of new went into this record, and we’re proud of it.
What do you hope listeners get from hearing the album? What do you hope the overarching message is?
Music has a way of making us all feel connected; it’s one of the ways the universe speaks, I think. All we can hope is that the record adds a new thread to that conversation, making someone feel something, share something, explore a space they hadn’t before. On a more simple note, we simply hope that our fans enjoy the songs, melodies, instrumentation of it all, perhaps see it as a good record. That would be cool.
As far as the larger message, I think the whole record is about us trying to come to peace with our shortcomings, our misses, our losses – while somehow stumbling upon the silver linings of gratitude, or better yet, acceptance. Or perhaps, even surrender – to ourselves, if nothing else. I feel that’s all in there a bit between the notes.
We really love the song “A Hundred Songs.” What inspired you to write that song? What is it about?
This one’s about love and parenthood and all of the failures and challenges and successes that come along with both. Most of the songs I write are autobiographical, but this one is probably the most vulnerable, as it deals with the experiences my wife and I share, which is, of course, a sacred space. The song doesn’t lend itself to the details of it all, but hopefully it does paint a picture of how two people, perhaps broken by their experiences, still find a way back to each other. Whether it’s a choice, or damn good luck, true love can and does find us all if we put in the work to find it back.
What was the recording process like in the studio for the song? Did this song end up sounding like you expected it to, or did it take a different direction in the studio?
The band recorded live on every song, either to me mouthing the words to be recorded later, or done completely live. This approach was so special for us. Usually, your brain kind of defaults to following the singer, following the vocals guiding each verse along. When you take that out, at least for us, we simply just listened to each other, through every phrase. Somehow this translated to nobody ever really overplaying, which is kind of the opposite of what you’d think would happen. So when we got to this one, we chose to keep it even more simple, hoping that the story and subtlety would guide the feel. We chose to have banjo instead of fiddle, rooting the song even more in simplicity without some big fiddle solo that I’m sure we, or everyone, would love. We made the choice to just have it be – the song – for better or worse, perhaps to reflect marriage itself at its most vulnerable. I think that’s in there somewhere.
What is your favorite part of the song – either musically or lyrically?
My favorite parts of the song are the spaces between verses or the end of the chorus, where there’s a second of dead space before the next line comes in. When I wrote the song, those little breaks helped the lyrics hit me in the chest a bit more. They might not do that for anyone else, but they did for me as I wrestled my way through telling this story.
Your sound ties together some different vibes that make it really special. The result is really great. How did you settle upon your overall sound? What do you think defines the “Moonsville Collective Sound”?
I think what has allowed us to settle upon our unique sound is that we never really chose a specific lane. We aren’t a bluegrass band, or a country band, or an old-time string band. We’ve always just pulled water from all of those wells, trying to blend a little bit of each into every pour. I think that’s why the songs work together. We’re not trying to replicate something great that’s already happened so much as borrow and make something that feels like us, a bunch of dudes from Southern California who love to smile, laugh, surf, fish, get lost in the mountains, root for the Dodgers, drink too many Pale Ales, get real about our lives, and, being good people, heal. That sort of thing. We call it California Goodtime – a play on old-time, of course, and we find that works for us.
What else is happening next for you? Can fans see you on tour anywhere this year? Any other new music coming?
Indeed, we’re playing a lot this spring to support the record. We’ll be in San Diego a couple times, Orange County, LA County, the Bay Area for a few days, and a quick jump into Utah. Then in the summer, we will pass through Ventura and San Luis Obispo counties as well as just playing around our home base of Los Angeles.
We do have some new music coming along, about enough to start building another record. But we’ll take our time to make sure the songs feel right. I do think we’ll get back in the studio after the dust settles this summer and record a couple of them that we’ll share with everyone. It’s been six years since we released new material with all the changes mentioned above, among other things, and I think the train is on the track with no sign of getting off.
Thank you, guys!
Website & social media
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/moonsville/?hl=en
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Moonsvillecollective/
YouTube: https://m.youtube.com/channel/UC5B1BPBpJEzJXlK9CdzVT-wWebsite: https://www.moonsvillecollective.com/
