Lunar Vacation’s Gep Repasky and Maggie Geeslin talk about the making of their band’s upcoming album, ‘Everything Matters, Everything’s Fire,’ from in-studio cry sessions to the joy of making music with some of your best friends.
Stream: “Fantasy” – Lunar Vacation
Eyeing the formation of a band made amongst your peers seems like a universal high school experience.
Whether it be the quiet kids abruptly starting an unexpected heavy metal group or the one tattooed kid in your chemistry class revealing he’s the lead singer in an indie rock band, we’ve all seen friends come together, and oftentimes, fall apart before their artistry breaks into the mainstream.
Lunar Vacation is the shining example on the other end of this spectrum, a high school band of friends turned into full-time musicians. The group’s days date all the way back to 2017 when they released their first EP, Swell. I sat down with lead vocalist, Gep Repasky, and guitarist, Maggie Geeslin, to talk about the band’s sophomore album, Everything Matters, Everything’s Fire.
Before Lunar Vacation moved into their house together in Atlanta, Georgia, they all attended the same high school. Geeslin looked back on her long friendship with Repasky with fondness, “Gep and I became friends in 8th grade but we went to the same high school… we were in a songwriting unit in our guitar class… our guitar teacher, Mr.Kennedy, pulled us aside after class one day and was like, ‘You guys should start a band… there’s this guy Connor… he’s a great drummer and he’s in marching band.’”
Repasky laughs at the notion now, she and Geeslin going on a hunt to find this elusive figure named Connor Dowd, who would soon become Lunar Vacation’s drummer. Their bassist, Ben Wulkan, also joined while they were in high school and Matteo DeLurgio (on keyboards) soon came onboard. Almost all of them went to college in Atlanta and shortly after, Geeslin says, “We all moved into a house together in 2022 and that’s how we started writing this record that’s about to come out.”
Everything Matters, Everything’s Fire sees Lunar Vacation exploring new realms of musical expression, particularly on the more wistful, solemn end of things.
Their first few EPs and most recent album, Inside Every Fig is a Dead Wasp, have an airy, youthful, beachy vibe to them, many of the sonics from those tracks sounding much like something that a group of budding teens would write in an indie rock scene. This is by no means a discredit to their earlier work. Lunar Vacation have bolstered an impressively devoted following with this only being their second album, all thanks to the band’s ability to create songs that have addicting melodies and impactful lyricism. Both of these traits are aided by the connection among bandmates, something that’s almost palpable when listening to the music.
This new album retains the hooks and beats that are easily singable and get stuck in your head, but has a darker, gritty rock kind of influence. The album documents the year of emotional upheaval and chaos experienced by lead singer Repasky: “There’s definitely a lot of mental breakdowns at the studio if I’m being so real… I probably cried like every other day… what I was feeling was still very fresh and new. It’s hard to not be transported back to when you were writing the song or when things were happening.”
Take one look at the lyrics of one of the leading singles, “Sick,” and you’ll understand the thematic shift in tone for the band:
I’m sick again, sick again
Demolition looming
Manhattan and its imminent destruction
The Earth is finally taking back her children
I’m sick again, sick again
I’m sick again, sick again
Of all of it
Reliving some of their darkest moments in the making of Everything Matters, Everything’s Fire wasn’t easy for Repasky.
“There were a lot of times where I had to stop doing vocals and I had to sit and go cry,” even telling themselves at moments, “I’m not doing music anymore, I don’t want to.” Despite all this, Repasky says, “I’m just happy to be around our band because everyone is incredibly supportive and so willing to listen and just a very calm presence to be around if I’m having a freak out, you know?”
Both Repasky and Geeslin speak highly of their bandmates. Having been friends for so long, the band has “transformed into siblings now… it’s nice because we’ve reached a point in our friendship where everyone can just be very honest. Nothing’s weird and nothing’s too crazy to talk about… even though we’ve known each other since 2016, we’re still growing as friends and as people learning how to communicate with each other… it’s a never ending process, which is exciting! Nothing ever really gets stale.”
Apart from the difficulty of unraveling past adversities, the making of the album as whole saw Lunar Vacation going through methods and processes that were perhaps foreign to them in comparison to how they worked on previous releases. On this go-around, things felt much less “manicured” and they embraced imperfections and unexpected moments while recording that they may have decided to cut if they were working on any other album. Repasky says that typically, “We’re definitely very hard on ourselves and love to run an idea into the ground and never really know when to stop.”
Embracing the imperfect “was hard. We learned a lot about letting go in the process of making this album,” says Geeslin. Their producer, Drew Vandenberg, who has worked with artists like Faye Webster and of Montreal, helped them to really hone in on the sound of this record. Geeslin recalls being in the studio for “You Shouldn’t Be,” the final track on the record, with Vandenberg on the first day of recording.
Having already performed the song live multiple times, they were confident it’d be an easy first session, but she said through laughter, “In the middle of recording it, we’re like, ‘Should we really do this? Maybe we should change the drum beat, maybe we should change this,’ and Drew got on the talkback mic, we all had headphones on, and he [said], ‘this isn’t the rehearsal space anymore guys, make a decision.’”
You shouldn’t be missing me
Even though you said so
Didn’t expect to really see
You moving on so quickly
Everything matters
Everything’s fire to me
Who really cares ‘bout keeping score
I checked out months ago
Shape it to fit a different thing
To mold is to be quiet
Too bad (it’s all too bad)
Too bad it’s how it ended (it’s all too bad)
Everything matters
Everything’s fire to me
From that moment in the studio, the tone was set for how the rest of the process would pan out.
Both Geeslin and Repasky remarked on how Vandenberg really helped to push the entire band out of their comfort zone, to hone in on their artistry and creativity. For instance, Geeslin says during the recording of, “Sick,” “there’s a few times where I accidentally hit the bridge of guitar and it makes this shriek sound and I was like ‘oh . . should we cut that out?’ and Drew [said], ‘No! It sounds cool.’”
If you listen closely, tracks throughout Everything Matters, Everything’s Fire have slight nuances like the one Geeslin describes and it only adds more character, texture, and heart to the already compelling and moving moments on the record. He broke down previous notions of what they thought made a perfect song – “it’s what we needed,” says Geeslin. From live-tracking, gripping and vulnerable lyrics born from jam sessions, to a lack of vocal layering, there were so many aspects that came into play when recording this album that were first time efforts for the band.
Lunar Vacation started demoing Everything Matters, Everything’s Fire in January of 2023 and began recording later that year in December — the band had a full year of workshopping the tracks and taking them in different directions, almost forcing them to fully embody some of the things that may have considered flaws or blots in the recording process. What results is a record that is full of personality and nuance, making for an absorbing listening experience.
One thing Repasky noted with Vandenberg was that he helped them to “focus on the performances” of the tracks, “I’m just excited to be more creative with the way we shape the songs for the live show.”
Looking back on the years when Repasky and Geeslin were going to shows together in their teens, Repasky said, “One of the reasons that Maggie and I became so close and that we wanted to be in a band was because of this band called Twin Peaks… we were 14 and we just discovered [them]… I think we just wanted to be rock n’ roll men who played these cool shows and seemed to have so much fun. It was a lot about the shows first… the way that they made us feel when we went to those shows was such an indescribable feeling… I want to do that and I want to be able to give people that feeling.”
Lunar Vacation have not only proven their prowess as musicians, but also live as an example of what can happen when a band of friends dedicate themselves to making art and pursuing their creativity as a collective.
The tracks they have released since 2017 may not have been nearly as impactful, meaningful, and a joy to listen to if the band wasn’t made up of friends that sincerely seem to have bounds of love and admiration for one another. It shines through in their discography, on both the lighter notes of an EP like Swell and the darker, more pensive realms of Everything Matters, Everything’s Fire. The record releases on September 13th on all music streaming platforms.
Repasky says, “Once it’s out there, it’s not mine anymore. People assign their own meaning to it… that is the duty, that is the job… I want other people to not feel alone.”
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Stream: “Set the Stage” – Lunar Vacation
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© Alexa Viscius
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