Bad Moon Born Unveil Their Timeless New Single ‘Light Leaves The Day’

Sydney hard-rock outfit Bad Moon Born unveil their timeless new single Light Leaves The Day, a track that sees the band lean more into an acoustic and melodic rock direction for their first offering in 2022. The song’s theme and honest lyrics shine a light on Jordan Von Grae’s (Vocalist/Lyricist) personal struggles with addiction whilst highlighting his journey to sobriety. Jordan answers some questions about the new single for Hi Fi Way.

How was the build up to the release of the single Light Leaves The Day?
It’s been quite surreal, to be honest. Light Leaves the Day is the final chapter of our 5-track singles series, The Heart From the Hollow, which we began writing in early 2020. The series chronicles a deeply personal story, and the opportunity to tell it in 5 parts has been wonderfully therapeutic. There’s an almost bittersweet dream-like quality in saying goodbye to this narrative, considering we’ve been working on it for two years, and it feels like such an achievement to finally bring it to its close. I feel we’ve all learned some really valuable lessons in the time leading up to this final single too, which we’ll no doubt take into the future of our music.

Was the process of making the single as challenging as you thought?
As a lyricist, it was quite challenging. Prior to this collection of songs, I hadn’t really delved into my personal life within the creative process. There’s quite a bit of trauma in my history, and I’d never really felt ready to address it in a compositional format. When Voya [Guitarist/Producer] and I sat down to pen the music for the series, we had a big discussion about where we wanted to go lyrically.

After a lot of consideration, we decided to commit to writing from a deeply personal place. The more we developed the songs, the more comfortable I felt that this was the right time to begin exploring elements of my story in a lyrical context. I’m really proud of what we’ve achieved with these songs, and eternally grateful for how beneficial the creative process ended up being for my mental health and personal development.

Was the song-writing for Light Leaves the Day a cathartic experience given the lyrics and themes?
It was. Light Leaves the Day addresses the struggles I faced being newly sober following years of alcohol and drug abuse. I’m now 18 months into my sobriety and can safely say that giving up those vices was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. It’s allowed me to properly address and manage my mental health issues, and has given me the opportunity to repair the relationships I’d damaged as a result of my addictions.

The road to making that decision and sticking to it was long, and incredibly difficult, but I found a lot of comfort in writing about it. I believe the chance to express my experience musically has been imperative to maintaining my sobriety.

Have you been happy with the feedback from fans on the single?
Absolutely! We’ve been inundated with supportive messages, Instagram stories and shares from so many wonderful people. It’s an incredible feeling when fans of your music connect to it on a personal level. We’ve truly been moved by this experience.

The single is a change of direction, do you think you’ll continue to go down this path?
Not particularly. This single was always meant as a ballad to close out the series, and whilst we love the softer side of rock and metal, I don’t think we’d look at basing our whole sound around it.

Was there anything significant that influenced this change in sound?
Probably just the fact that we wanted to try something different, and to provide the series with a breath in and amongst the heavier material. We’re always up for trying something new, and considering we hadn’t done an acoustic track before, it felt like a pretty good place to go.

Are there plans for more music in 2022, maybe an album or EP?
Definitely! The big news is that we’re smack bang in the middle of writing our debut album, and are currently eyeing off a 2022 release date. We’re also working on a new cover single, which I’d say you can probably expect in the next couple of months.

What are some of the biggest learnings you have taken away from previous recording sessions?
One of the biggest lessons we’ve taken away from our previous recording sessions is the value of investing in your own recording set-up, and learning how to use it properly. It does absolute wonders for your creativity, and not being limited by budget or time restrictions is a massive weight off the shoulders.
Other lessons we’ve learned include the importance of keeping an open mind and learning to experiment, as well as just how beneficial it is to take the time to do things properly. The one upside to the pandemic halting our work and touring was that it gave us the opportunity to hone in on developing our song writing and audio production skills.

Both Voya and myself spent a lot of time working together on this collection of songs to see what worked and what didn’t. The whole process was really informative and helped to solidify our creative chemistry. I believe these lessons will play a big part in the construction of the band’s debut album, and I can’t wait to see where this journey takes us.

Are you feeling more optimistic about more regular touring this year?
It’s looking pretty grim at the moment, unfortunately. I’d like to think that we’ll be able to get back to regular touring soon, but we’ve learned not to get our hopes up. The amount of shows we’ve had to cancel, postpone or pull out of due to Covid-19 over the last two years has been disheartening to say the least. We’re chomping at the bit to play live again, and to take these songs on the road. Fingers crossed we manage to get back to some semblance of normalcy soon. One thing’s for certain – as soon as we’re given the greenlight to tour again, we’ll be coming in hot.

What’s something that most fans wouldn’t know about the band?
A fun fact about Light Leaves the Day – During the recording process we were struggling to get the rimshot on the drums to sound right. We tried every part of the kit but came up short. Chris Blancato [Drum Engineer] had the bright idea of hitting furniture with the sticks instead, to see if that’d work. He brought out a wooden dining chair, and it sounded perfect. It was exactly what we had been trying to achieve with the rim of the snare. We recorded it a few more times and voila, that’s the ‘rimshot’ in the track.

Interview By Rob Lyon

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