Indy In-Tune

Getting Down to Earth with mOOnMen

It's 8:00 p.m. on a Monday in a dim room inside of Indy's most aesthetically interesting venue, Healer. In this room sits a television for video gaming, an enormous comfy couch that swallows you whole upon sitting, hundreds of toys, stuffed animals, and random knickknacky objects, the 3 members of the rock/progressive/jazz/funk/groove band "mOOnMen," and me. The only sources of light in the room are the television screen, my laptop, and the slight amount that spills in from the doorway leading out into the main venue. Guitarist Sietch Ramshackle, keyboardist Vinny Corsaro and I sit on the shaggy carpeted floor while drummer Zane Turi sips some sort of vodka-lemonade concoction on the colossal carnivorous couch. The band members sporadically and haphazardly heave random toys and projectiles through the air, at me, and each other throughout the entire 47-minute discussion about life, jazz, St. Louis, the Indy music scene, and musical aspirations. Paying no mind to the fact that the recorder is rolling and an interview is in progress, people meander in and out of the room frequently, Sietch occasionally leaves to go talk to guests, watch the first band, and to wreak random havoc. Vinny's lovely friend Makayla joins us halfway through and brings beer. Members of Robots and Magic Powers, another local band, wander into the room at one point and start a conversation. Someone walks in and starts playing video games. Sietch tries to make a Bugs Bunny action figure speak into the recorder during one of the questions; Vinny fiddles with a mangled Barbie Doll whose hair is matted, stuffs plastic balls (a la the ball pit at Chuck E. Cheese) into his shirt to resemble breasts (which I of course felt compelled to grope), and Zane sinks further into the couch with his water bottle o' booze, observing quietly with minor amusement the debacle that is this interview.

As the tape starts rolling, Sietch is telling a story about gold, silver, and bearer bonds, and Zane asks what a bearer bond is. Vinny responds, "I think he's a baseball player." (I explode into laughter). I wait until the lesson ends and start the interview questions.

AF: So, mOOnMen, how did you get this whole--Sietch interrupts,--"BORING!"

AF: Well, I have to tell people how you formed before going into other shit, damn it.

Sietch: So, I met Vinny when we were in a Doors tribute band…ah, I'll let these guys tell it.

Vinny: So, 2 things kind of happened at the same time. One was that Zane and I started listening to a lot of jazz fusion, and there's a specific band, Yussef Kamaal, that influenced us a fuck-ton---oh, I shouldn't curse…

AF: I encourage it.

Vinny: So we were listening to those guys for a while and then at the same time I was in a Doors tribute band. Sietch was the guitar player, I was the keyboard player, it was awesome. It was an ok gig; Sietch and I clicked there and just kinda hung out. It was a weird mix of people. We had a killer show, but after that was done (Sietch interrupts, making a joke about big balls, as he throws colored plastic balls wildly around the room at everyone) Zane and I made all these songs and they sounded pretty good; just piano, bass, drums, and we were like, "We need something else." I knew Sietch was an awesome and unique guitar player, and we were like, "Hey Sietch, we have all this rhythm stuff, we would like someone to play weird stuff over it." Sietch shows up, and we have a song called "Funktion" and that was the first one –(at this point, Colin from Healer walks into the room and doesn't realize we are doing an interview, and says, "I'm going to play some video games.") So we showed him our song "Funktion" and he sends us a video of a riff he wrote, and it's in 7/4 so it's pretty tricky (I then call him a nerd), yeah it was awesome. Sietch says, "Doing equations and shit….this song's in 75-Q!" Vinny says, the first couple seconds I heard of the riff I was like, YES (Zane chimes in—"You're in our band now.") Vinny continues, so it was basically like that. (Colin realizes what's going on at this point and says, in a surprised tone, "Oh! You're doing an interview right now, I'm sorry!" Me: Nah, you're good, man.)

Sietch: They sent me a whole bunch of stuff, and when it comes to like, interesting music, not rock & roll or whatever, I am really snobby. It's the one time I AM a music snob. But I heard their stuff and thought that I might want to actually devote some creative energy to impressing these guys, and you know me, I don't care about impressing people, but they were the only musicians in like a decade that I actually felt like I wanted to impress them with what I show them.

Vinny: It was nice. It was just a great meeting of the minds. I was super impressed. Like I said, the first 3 notes I heard of that 7/4 riff I was like, "Oh shit! This is cool!" And it's been how we've operated since. It's like Zane and I come up with the rhythm—well I mean for the most part, we've been working more on Sietch ideas too. It's been a… what do you call it?

Sietch: Synergy?

Vinny: Yeah! Synergy; it's very collaborative. Melting. Melbourne…Sydney Australia. (Laughs) The turtle from Finding Nemo!

Sietch: I heard about all those koalas that died, did you hear that?

AF: Awwwww.

Vinny: That was a misprint. They're technically not functionally extinct. They are super endangered, but technically not functionally extinct.

Sietch: How does EVERYBODY in Australia not have like, 20 koalas in their house?!

AF: I'll tell ya why! Because they are the most misleading animal, because they look all cute, but they will rip your fucking face off! They will fucking kill you, man. No joke.

Zane: Don't like, 80% of them have Chlamydia or something?

Vinny: No, that's Koalamydia.

Sietch: They're all cute, then they're like that thing in Jurassic Park that's like *loud growl, scream noise*

Zane: Anybody have any lighter fluid?

Sietch: In the van.

AF: I never leave home without it. You never know when you're gonna have to set some shit on fire.

Vinny: That's true.

AF: Ok, so before this whole mOOnMen thing, and before your Doors tribute thing, (Vinny and Zane) what were you doing musically?

Vinny: Zane and I were in like a funk and blues and rock band…

Zane: Before that, I was a belly dancer.

(laughter)

AF: But it just wasn't paying the bills?

Sietch: Do you know what the storage costs are for 5 sitars?! Shit adds up.

Vinny: We were in some blues funk rock band, and we came out with like 2 EP's for it.

AF: What was it called?

Vinny: Julia Kahn and the New 45's. She has since moved on to write her own stuff. We moved on. It was a good band for about 5 years, and we were like, "Yeah, we all kind of want to write different stuff." We still have a good relationship. We are playing a bunch of her songs for a set in Chicago. She's killing it. But yeah, we did that for a while, and we did a thing with a rapper Petey Boy, and then mOOnMen started.

Zane: In high school we were in rival bands.

AF: Really?! Like, sharks and jets shit?! Did you like, dance street fight whenever you saw each other?

Vinny: We were friends, but we'd mess with each other.

Zane: The people in our bands weren't friends with each other, but WE were friends with each other. I secretly wanted to be in Vinny's band but there was a drummer who took my spot. You remember freshman or sophomore year when you asked me to come jam and I was like, "FINALLY!"

AF: (to Sietch) What were YOU doing before these guys? I know you played and sang in Circling Birds for a while…

Sietch: I played with Circling Birds for about 6 years, but we didn't start gigging until 3, because musicians are lazy.

AF: WHAT?!?!?! (*sarcastic surprised tone)

Sietch: My hardest musical adventure when I got back into the Indianapolis music scene was finding people who didn't see it either as a hobby or something to get their creative rocks off. It was really frustrating because I did like 3 years of music I had written before I even joined a band. I love everyone in Circling Birds, and I played with them when I was a kid, so I did that, then I released 4 albums in one year that I did at home, that I just didn't circulate because… (Vinny starts playing a song on a toy xylophone)

AF: Who writes 4 albums in one year?!

Sietch: I legit came back and I was like, "I need to express." And I just lost my shit and I became convinced of the notion that I HAD to make good music. I had to play out and I had to do it with people of a certain level. Circling Birds were of that level, and these guys are of that level, but I was gonna be god damned if---my life goal was to do nothing but this. So, after the Circling Birds, I did the Hi-Fi Battle of the Bands with Echo Spill and all that stuff, and then I did Sietch Ramshackle for a year or so, and that's it! But I guess I went there because that's one of the cool things about this trio right now, is that every musician in it, in my opinion, are people who are really excited and happy to be doing something that isn't generic or mediocre.

AF: Yeah, nobody is doing what mOOnMen are doing, that's for sure. Talk about your first live show; first time you played live together. Where was it, etc.?

Vinny: It was Town Tavern. We opened for a touring band, Lullwater; like a rock...harder rock band?

Sietch: I'd say "alternative."

Vinny: Yeah. Rock, alternative, grungy. First trip out in The Battle Van, Sietch drove us to Town Tavern in New Castle. That was a really cool experience.

Sietch: Props to Larry and Mark!

Vinny: It was a good set.

Zane: I got my ass smacked. (laughter))

Vinny: Super fun bartender, super fun crowd. Real cool, strange cats. We played a relatively, not-sloppy set for our first set ever. People were geeking out about it.

Sietch: I've always said rural America is where the real music lovers are. We all love our cities, but in rural America you really get a lot of love.

AF: First EP…Failed Transmission. Did you two (Zane and Vinny) have this pretty much written, and then Sietch came in and added to it, or did you collab together to make it?

Sietch: The songs were there in totality…

Vinny: Not really. We had the bones of "Eagle," and "Funktion," and a decent amount of them, but then I think our "Four-Eyed Fish" and "Satchel Spillage"—those were our last two songs to write. So those were the first two to have a lot of Sietch bleed into them, which is a super good thing. And we have a couple of new things we are working on that----so yeah, it was cool, we had a lot of bare bones stuff, but it wasn't like, we'd written a song and said, "Let's put Sietch on it." We just had the bones of a song and it was like, "We need Sietch for this." The cool thing, and the reason I like working with Sietch a lot—

Sietch: Awwww!

Vinny: We'll record what we are going to play, Zane and I live by the studio—we'll go in and—

Sietch: Don't tell her where the laBORatory is!

Vinny: So we would record it on our phones and then send it to Sietch and then he'll send videos back with ideas he's working on. It's a pretty interesting way to work; I've never done that. Then when we get time to rehearse, it's not like, "Hey let's jam in ‘G' until we find a lick," it's like, "Let's work on this song." It's really productive and a really good way to make stuff.

Sietch: And I'll always be grateful to them because from the start I said I'm not a free-jammy—like, there's nothing I hate more than going into a space and somebody just starting off with a totally randomized idea that they had. I mean, there's something to that method, but I've done it and I wasted more time watching musician get stoned or bitch or not show up prepared.

Vinny quietly says something regarding getting stoned—inaudible

Sietch: Stoned and productive is ok, but show me very many productive stoners though---haha-anyway, but what I was going to say was…well now I forgot because of the stoners. (Laugh)

Vinny: I'm almost the exact opposite. I have a hard time writing anything unless I'm jamming.

Sietch: OH! I remember what I was gonna say! And I said it before but originally I told the guys that I was going to try to write so that their stuff kind of existed separate than this new satellite that came into their song orbit—this actually WILL end all in a thread that makes sense. The free jammy thing, sometimes when you do that a lot of good stuff can happen, but a lot of it is very osmosis and a lot of it feeds off of what is going on at that time with that musician's mind. Whereas I can hear their vomit and go through and pick the corn out of it, and I told them I would try to go through and fill every space that they hadn't already 100% kind of dominated, so I came up with a lot of weird stuff because I wanted to stick to my promise. It's a cool way of writing; I like it.

Vinny: Zane and I, it's funny how we come up with the bones, because I'm very repetitive when I jam, and that's how most of my ideas come. It's like, there'll be a progression that Zane and I like, and play it for like 12 minutes or so, and then each time we play it, as we get from verse to verse, I'll be like, "This is cool." Zane and I will be talking and we will be like, "that's a cool rhythm; we should try that for this one," and we just repeat, repeat, and then Sietch will just have at it, and it's a cool mix. (At this point, Sietch begins making the voice for a Bugs Bunny action figure talk into my audio recorder.)

AF: When did you record the EP, how long did it take, where did you do it, who did it?

Sietch: Uptown Sounds, and we did it in… like 4 days?

Zane: 3 days?

Sietch: Well, the recording was 2 days.

Vinny: 2 days of recording at Uptown Sounds with Kris Fricks at the beginning of July of 2019.

AF: Did you record it all together, separate, what?

Sietch: They jammed, and I was still so new….they are so tight because they've played together for so long…There was so much nuance that they do in the back, that I was just like, "You guys jam it, and I'll put it over top."

Vinny: The first day was all keys, drums, and bass, and the 2nd day was Sietch. It was cool.

AF: What about videos? Do you have any, are you making any; do you like doing videos and are you planning any in the future?

Vinny: Yeah, we did one for "Eagle." After that it's just been a lot of cool little live videos and stuff.

Sietch: We've been talking about doing another video, but that's top fucking secret, Commie!

AF: (Laughs loudly)

Vinny: It's like a lyric video; kinda, kinda not. It's like, not a music video, but more like a music accompaniment that Sietch basically put together all by himself, and it was really cool. It was what we needed and wanted, and something kind of "us," and quirky to release, but not the energy or time to make like an official music video.

Sietch: Well, and I don't think I'd be going over home plate here if I said that all 3 of us don't really like the whole side of the industry that's like, "Hi. Meet the band," and I like the fact that any videos we do do are going to be more like anti the musicians and more like some sort of expression.

AF: Let's talk about your upcoming tour of the West Coast.

Vinny: We're going on tour???!!

AF: Well, I heard a rumor that that might be happening.

Vinny: I'm unable to; I got stuff going on. (Laughs)

AF: When is it, how did it come about, are you pumped?

Sietch: I believe we start off in Amarillo, Texas in March.

AF: Oh! I thought it was West Coast.

Sietch: It is. This, to me, is kind of the test run, to see how the audiences are going to take us and all that. Then after that, I've got some resources where we can just really kind of pick and select cities and stuff, and I am just jazzed that these guys actually want to do it. A lot of Indianapolis musicians don't want to hit that road.

Vinny: 15 days. We are hitting like, Amarillo, Albuquerque—March 1st, we are going to maybe Phoenix, San Diego, Portland, Great Falls, Montana….L.A., Seattle….

AF: L.A.?!

Vinny: Oh yeah. We have 2 nights in L.A.; a Friday and a Saturday; which is fucking gnarly! We are gonna be geeking out.

Sietch: (Re-enters the room after going to check out the first band playing.) Oh, so where were we?

AF: West Coast tour.

(Vinny hurls some sort of toy through the air that narrowly misses my face and I freak out and scream)

AF: THAT SCARED THE SHIT OUT OF ME! I was like, "Oh shit he's going to totally nail me in the face!"

Sietch: Vinny is a murderer.

AF: That's what I heard.

Vinny: (In a defensive tone) Noooo! Acquitted!

AF: (Cackles)

Sietch: My whole goal has been to tour, and so the fact that we actually set it up and I actually have musicians who want to do it…..

AF: (Interrupts) So your goal is actually to tour; not just to record and release stuff and play around Indy….

Sietch: There is no way to get out of music what I want to get out of music by staying in one spot. We just played a really cool show in St. Louis to a bunch of really cool jazz people….

Vinny: Average age was probably about 65.

Sietch: Yeah, we told them that we weren't, like, jazz, but it was so satisfying that it really put a lot of things in perspective for me for why I do want to get…because it's all just about throwing it at as many people and getting that response. Otherwise it's just like sitting around talking about shit.

AF: Well, I'll skip a question then and ask you about St. Louis. You just played there like, yesterday or the day before, right?

Vinny: Saturday.

Sietch: A buddy of mine named Joe Mancuso really thought that we would go over well there, and it was such a cool thing for him to do that it was hard to say no to.

Zane: That shit was raaaad.

AF: Yeah, I saw some posts and it looked like you guys really had a great time out there. So was it a great audience, or what was the best part about it?

Sietch: We always have a great time. I have NEVER had a bad moment with these two. How rare is that?!

Vinny: (In a tone that sounded like someone had a gun to his head and was forcing him to say it) Yeah…we never have a bad moment…trails off….everything's cool….. don't check your phone, everything's fine….

AF: So, good crowd, good reception?

Sietch: It's called the Kinda Blue Club, and it's kind of underground. It's kind of like a house show; they keep it pretty hush-hush.

Zane: It's kind of upscale jazz….

Sietch: But the whole house is a venue.

Vinny: But they sell merch, and it's legit. It's been there for like 20 years. There was a crowd there. That shit was pretty tight. It was probably the biggest crowd we've had at a show.

Sietch: Yeah, full crowd, at a little underground house show in St. Louis. Which is why I love touring.

Vinny: Yeah, it was big, man. It was cool. There have been some local legends and some really cool people play there. There was a guitar player there that you (to Sietch) were a fan of before even going there. Which is crazy.

Sietch: Dave Black.

Vinny: They say you don't meet your heroes, but Sietch's hero was on a crutch. So, we coulda killed him if we wanted to…

Sietch: And the great thing, the guy he's talking about, Dave Black, who is the nicest guy in the world; because these are jazz people, and say what you will about jazz people and experimental rock and all of the genres and stuff, when you are in a jazz/blues environment, it really is about community. And so being accepted into that kind of genre/community (Vinny plays toy xylophone again) it is dope.

AF: Because those people know their shit.

Sietch: And they've seen EVERYTHING. They're not there to judge; they are there to let you be you.

Zane says something I can't make out because he speaks more quietly and he is drowned out by Vinny's aggressive hammering on the toy xylophone.

Sietch: Yeah, they're not there to say, "Why aren't you wearing black leather?"

AF: But really though….why AREN'T you wearing black leather?

Sietch: That you can SEE….

AF: Maniacal laughter

AF: New shit….new material? What's up next for mOOnMen?

Sietch: It's all Vin and Zane.

AF: I saw you post something about working on like, 5 new songs or something?

Vinny: Yeah, we got 4 new tracks tonight that we're playing!

AF: Oh God, now that means I have to stay around and actually watch your guys' set?

Vinny: I know, it sucks, right? But I think our next big project is going to be a little bit more jazzy than our first one.

AF: Full album? Another E.P.?

Vinny: Not sure

Sietch: Uncertain.

AF: No. I want an answer RIGHT NOW.

Vinny: AT LEAST an EP. We have about 5 new ones and plus, we are working on 2…

AF: Do it. Go for full length!

Vinny: I think full album would be cool.

Sietch: However, 2 6-song EP's in a year is a full album.

Vinny: But yeah, we are working on shit. It's longer, it's weirder, and I think it's good. We have 4 finished and a 5th that we are working on. It's less formulaic.

AF: I'd never call you guys a jam band, OR straight jazz, but you are—you kind of have this slight element to you where it is this sort of jammy, jazzy, vibe to it at times….

Vinny: Jazz fusion-y… Yeah, someone said at State Street Pub, this was the coolest compliment that I've ever gotten; they said, "You guys sound like Steely Dan meets Frank Zappa." And I was like, "That's the weirdest compliment I've ever received." I'm about it; that's cool.

Sietch: Dave Black in St. Louis said we reminded him of the "Shangrenade" album from the ‘70's, I forget the guy's name. The album has a hand grenade and it looks like a hill….

AF: Well that, and the whole Steely Dan/Zappa comment brings me to influences. Would you say there are collective influences as a band, or do you guys have all separate influences, or how does that work?

Sietch: No. Incredibly divergent, which is awesome. I mean he loves like, U2—

AF: Ugh. Oh man, why?? I liked you right up until NOW.

Vinny: Yeah, Imagine Dragons—(grin)

AF: *Cackling

Vinny: No, but our biggest influence for sure is probably Yussef Kamaal. Snarky Puppy; there's just a shit ton of really good jazz in London right now and that's kind of how Zane and I came up with mOOnMen, is because Yussef Kamaal. They are this jazz fusion band and they are just funky and jazzy; hip hop roots. It's like jazz over a very talented hip hop drummer who is classically trained in Jazz….and the keyboard player is this like atmospheric-- like thick chords and rhythm man; it's fucking gnarley. But that's where a bulk of mOOnMen comes from, and Sietch's Zappa and Al Viola like peppers over it, and it's gnarley. But if you were to hear a track with just Zane and I, it's just all rhythm. Sietch is crazy with solos and adds so much. Sometimes when we are showing Sietch some of our stuff, you can see it, it's like he thinks some of our stuff is too repetitive; maybe sometimes some of his stuff is a little too manic; and then we reach that middle and it's like what if we went here?! And it's a perfect compromise. One of our new songs we are going to play tonight is very atmospheric and very slow, and Sietch added this rhythm part and it's like, "yeeeaaaaah!" It's a good middle ground.

Me (To Zane): What about you? Who are some of your influences?

Zane: Well, growing up I listened to like, Chili Peppers, and a lot of funk music. I came from a family that didn't necessarily play the music I liked. So my mom listened to like, James Taylor, Jim Croce, Temptations, Motown. My dad listened to like, all symphonic classical music. So, and then I kind of got into the classic rock era, and then more toward jam bands. Pink Floyd was definitely—Nick Mason-his project as well. Then kind of lately into this jazz scene. There's a guy called Oscar Jerome who I really like. Also---I like The Dead too.

(Robots and Magic Powers enter the room and the interview completely derails. Sietch and I squabble over who has the most R.A.M.P. fan apparel, Jeremiah starts talking to Zane; Sietch leaves the room (again). I can't get to the rest of the questions until he returns. I explain that we are almost done and only have 2-3 more questions. I then yell out into the hall to Sietch, "Come on, man! Please get your pirate ass back in here so we can wrap this shit up!"

Sietch: What??? I'm here! God damn….I don't know what happened.

AF: Can we talk about your live shows? When you do your live shows, where are the –

Sietch: (Messing with me) Where are all the deep, penetrating questions?

AF: I can't even get to the deep questions because you have the attention span of a fucking----

Sietch: Alright. Wait. You didn't ask my influences!

AF: Because you left the room. Again.

Sietch. The Bible.

Vinny: The Constitution.

Sietch: Thelonious Monk, Eric Johnson, Al Di Meola, Capleton. Zappa. Radiohead. Gospel. Andres Segovia.

AF: Live shows. Do you stick to the recording version, or do you do any improvisation?

Sietch: Both.

Vinny: I'd say we 80% stick to the recording.

Zane: I started singing once, we were doing a cover, and I didn't realize how close the mic was, and I was like, "Oh shit….they can hear me…." So then I had to actually sing it.

Sietch: And the EP material is kind of codified, but one of the things about writing while you are gigging is that you'll start playing one that you were playing in the flower shop—like there's a cool video from St. Louis where Zane looks at Vinny and goes, "Now back to the studio version!" and plays a totally different drum beat.

Sietch: And for me being a lead and melodic guy, I can kind of branch off and do something that sounds kind of different, but a lot of times, they will be doing something that is really different.

AF: (To Sietch) So would it be fair to say that typically they will kind of stick with what they wrote but you have some freedom to like, change it up?

Sietch: Vinny never sticks to anything. (Laughs) He'll have a chord with like 3 root notes and like, throw his keys on the ground….(laughs)

Vinny: Yeah, it's a little easier for Sietch to get weirder and that's why we wanted him to play guitar.

Sietch: At the end of the day, you need to have a song, and it needs to be recognizable. Which is one of the reasons we're not "jazz-jazz."

Vinny. Yeah, we're not a jam band. We write songs and sometimes we mess with them, or extend a verse. We keep the groove going.

Sietch: "Funktion" and "Eagle" are the same like 99% of the time, but a song like "Don't Believe," since it's

really just an over the top guitar solo, can change a lot.

Sietch: Is this the last one yet? Whatchoo got Foxworthy?

AF: Well, I guess I can go to the last one….I had more, but I can just put you out of this misery now.

AF: Future goals, hopes and dreams, aspirations for mOOnMen…

(Band collectively groans)

Sietch: Oh gaaawd….

Vinny: An easy death.

AF: Well, I don't mean for it to be that cheesy. I mean what's the…..

Sietch: (mocking voice) I want the Greek notion of the soul residing in the spleen to make a comeback so I can look at my spleen as something other than a dark place…

Vinny: A death without pain.

Zane: I have no dreams…

(laughs all around)

AF: Where do you want to go with this project, damn it? Where do you see this going and what do you want? Desired outcome?

Vinny: Gigging. Playing different states. Make money so we can just focus on this and gig. I think the ultimate goal would be to be a touring band as a job.

Sietch: Make enough money to keep the lights on and have a life of our interests.

Vinny: To play the music we write.

Zane: We don't need much.

Vinny: And then die at 32.

Sietch: A little Sietch back story for you, really quick, when I was a kid I gave up on music because I thought that if you made a nickel on it that you were compromising what you'd created. But I realized that was the worst decision I ever made, so my goal since I've come back to creative artistic stuff is to just do something that no one could ever say "I've noticed that somewhere else." I don't want to play a power chord. I don't want to write a formula.

Zane: As long as I can play with these guys, I'm good.

Sietch and me in unison: Awwww.

(Everyone starts talking over each other at this point, and I say into the recorder: You can't see this but at this point there is major band love going on. Physically.)

Vinny: Don't touch my shaft! (He's referring to the tinker toys he's playing with)

Zane: YOU call them tinker toys….

Sietch: I normally don't do absolutes, but I am gonna go ahead and do one. The dream and goal for any artist should be to do something with a community of peers that you respect that is meaningful and that lasts until you die. There is nothing worse than seeing an artist say they've emptied their soul. If you've emptied your soul, you aren't an artist, and you never were.

Zane: You always have something left over.

Sietch: So that is the dream and goal. So many people think they have a dream to be an artist but really they are just a narcissist and so many people think they have a goal to be a wonderful musician but really they are just trying to find something so they don't have to get a real fucking job.

Zane: Who wants a 9-5?

Vinny: Not Dolly Parton.

Sietch: I know 100% that I can't do anything else; I'd be miserable. I was miserable. I did it, but I was miserable. I guess my goal would be to never ever again be miserable.

Vinny: That's a good goal. To die without pain. In the garage. Tomorrow. I'm kidding. Sorry that was dark.

AF: Wow, you really took it to a low place there, Vinny….

AF: Do you guys want to add anything?

Vinny: We are just trying to make cool shit with cool people and hope that people dig

it. We have a lot of stuff that sounds good; a lot of stuff is hard to play, and it's fun.

Sietch: I would like to add that in a music environment that is really crushing in the modern era, it is incredibly important for people to remember that you have to do something with people that you respect, that's meaningful.

Vinny: You have to have fucking fun, man. I'm not trying to go on stage and play "Can't fight this feeling" by Justin Timberlake.

AF: So there are no Timberlake covers in the future?

Vinny: Not yet. Maybe a "Bringin' Sexy Back" Jazz cover?

Vinny: Just trying to make stuff.

Sietch: Can we go smoke now, Hitler?

AF: Let's go. Thank you, mOOnMen.

Vinny: Thank YOU, Amy Foxworthy.

Sietch: Thank YOU, Amy Foxworthy. See that's the thing; you are without a doubt one of the most supportive and passionate people in the Indianapolis music scene, and thank you for doing what you do.

AF: Thank you. I love you.

-End of Interview-

If you get the chance to catch a live mOOnMen show in Indy, it is highly recommended, as the band puts on a fun, energetic, groovin' kick-ass show every time. "Like" the mOOnMen on Facebook to follow their West Coast tour in March, and watch for exciting new video projects coming soon. Make time to check out Failed Transmission on Spotify at your earliest convenience; it's truly "out of this world."

mOOnMen Links:

• Facebook
• Spotify
• YouTube channel

Band Photo Credits:  Ariane Collins

Amy Foxworthy is a writer, activist, music junkie, and professional hell-raiser. There is probably no truth to any other rumors you may have heard about her.