Tom Lark on his sophomore album ‘Moonlight Hotel’
Moonlight Hotel sees Tom Lark (musical project of Shannon Fowler) explore the parallels between Fowler's family's historical displacement following the 1929 earthquake that destroyed Murchison – a pioneer town in the upper West Coast of the South Island – and his own following the 2011 earthquakes that levelled much of Ōtautahi.
Steeped in the Tom Lark persona's whimsical yet pragmatic sensibility, Moonlight Hotel is an evolution of what Brave Star introduced: sun-soaked odes to taking things as they come, and rolling with the punches.
Also releasing music as Shannon Matthew Vanya allowing for pop indulgence, Tom Lark is an outlet for the Fowler’s indie sensibilities. Returning from a 7-year hiatus in 2023 with his debut full-length record Brave Star, he returned to his first love – which turns out to be making sunburnt psychedelic folk fit for sensitive cowboys to meander and philosophise to. The album earnt him a finalist nod for the 2024 Taite Music Prize and Te Kaipuoro Taketake Toa | Best Folk Artist at the 2024 Aotearoa Music Awards.
HM: Thanks for taking the time to chat. First of all, I'd love to know about your musical journey from when you first started singing and making your own music!
Tom Lark: I did choir stuff at school. I think when you're at school, you have mixed feelings about it. Like it’s kind of a boring thing to do or something. But I knew I liked singing, so I just turned up. Maybe that is kind of a good way, or sort of exposure, to get into music. And a little bit later on, I joined the guitar group at school. And then once I'd sort of figured out about playing with other people in high school and stuff, it was kind of like all on for me in terms of like “oh great, I love doing this, playing music with people”. And my brother was in a band with his friends, and so they would practice. My brother played drums, and so it meant that a lot of band practices would happen at our house. So just seeing them play, sometimes I might get to join in on bass or something. That helped me. It was kind of formative anyway.
HM: Yeah amazing And who were your main musical and creative influences growing up would you say?
Tom Lark: I liked a lot of pop punk sort of stuff. And I think that pop punk are these often like 2 minutes 50 kind of songs, and so it's all melody I think. The guitar has to be really melodic and the vocals really melodic. And I guess, maybe the drumming style might go in and out of trend or something. But I think at its essence, pop punk songs have to be really catchy. So I think that was really inspiring. But at the same time, I started to get more into The Beatles as I started to get older. I always do this thing. I'm like “Oh, who inspires that person?” And then go down a rabbit hole or whatever.
HM: Right back to the beginning of time (laughs).
Tom Lark: Yeah, back to mid century folk (laughs).
HM: Great answer. And congrats on your sophomore album ‘Moonlight Hotel’. Can you tell us a bit about the concept of this album and how you landed on the name of it?
Tom Lark: The album is about relating my life experiences to historical family events, and sort of how this family has been for a long time living way off the track kind of thing. And then just looking for gold. And in many ways, I feel like being an artist is like that. You're kind of just going about your life mining for gold (laughs). But my third great, great grandma, she worked as a barmaid at this place called the Moonlight Hotel. It was owned by a guy called George Moonlight, who was like a local explorer and unofficial town sheriff. He was really good at finding gold, but perhaps not very responsible with his money. And so, he was kind of a local hero and just great dude, a great survivalist.
HM: Love the story behind that! And we absolutely love your song “Rock & Roll Baby”. Can you tell us about the inspiration behind that song and how it came about?
Tom Lark: “Rock & Roll Baby” is sort of inspired by just living a musical life. How funny how fickle it can be, and just things can be going great and then they don't go great all of a sudden. I guess it's not really autobiographical in the sense that it's sort of written from a character perspective. But an anecdote I mentioned previously was when we were playing the show in LA, we got paid. Well, we weren't supposed to get paid because we were just there visiting. And then we just got to open for this band, Echo. This is when we were like 21 or something. And they were like “here's your money”. We're like “oh, we're not really supposed to get paid”. And they were like “well, we'll leave it here and look this way and if it disappears, it disappears”. Then we were like “great!”. And we walked around the corner to the car that we'd hired and on the windscreen was a parking ticket for the exact amount that we’d just been paid.
HM: No way!
Tom Lark: And we were like “oh there is goes”. I guess it’s sort of like that.
HM: Yeah! I guess like you mentioned in musical careers, it can be fluctuating, like the highest highs and then the lowest lows. Quite a bit of contrast. And then another one of our favorites is “Fuselage”.
Tom Lark: Yeah, it’s like the middle of a car or airplane,
HM: Right, yeah! Can you tell us about how the song came about and what that process was like writing it?
Tom Lark: Yeah, the song’s about when you're trying to do things differently or adjust or change things up, but it's much easier to just do the tried and true, for better for worse kind of thing. And so production wise, I sort of had that riff, like that funny guitar riff, which sort of sounds like a classic rock riff. And so I just kind of followed my nose with that. I spent a while playing with it because it sounded too tough, like too pastiche or something. So then putting it on a nylon guitar sounds like what you wouldn't do, and that was great. Once I sort of figured that out, it became like this softer feeling thing and then the moments of the guitar riff, still had the toughness. But yeah, I guess that's kind of how that sound came about.
HM: Awesome. I guess that's the thing with music, is that you always want to try experiment in different ways, or bring out the unexpected like you said.
Tom Lark: Yeah totally.
HM: Have you come across that quite a bit where you're experimenting with something, and maybe it was a mistake, but actually it sounds much better than you thought it would?
Tom Lark: Totally. Yeah, I think it's so charming when you get stuff a bit wrong. I don't know, there's lots of records that sound perfect, but then just trying to, not to be annoyingly different or whatever, but just near enough has got its own charm sometimes. I think also for me, playing guitar is more expressive. It’s just how I'm feeling. I often will play things differently at different times but I think for me, making stuff is much more about conceptual rather than finishing it and polishing it to a fine product. I'd much rather have the idea go “this is kind of what it looks like” and then move on to the next thing. So I guess conceptual is more fun or freeing, or where I live or hover (laughs).
HM: Yeah I love that. And what would you say your main highlights were working across this album as a whole?
Tom Lark: While I was making the album, we were rehearsing heaps for these UK shows that we were doing and talking to my friend James a lot about the sound of it. Because I'm playing as a three piece, just with drums and keys and like a bass synth and I play nylon guitar, there's lots of moments that sort of sound bigger than just what you would imagine that sound palette sounds like. And so trying to figure out how to make it so small that the huge bits can sort of blow up. And that approach stuck with me, and I brought that into making the album so it's like really soft and really smooth and then has these moments in contrast to that. But I really enjoyed figuring out what the tonality for it was going to be like. It's like really punchy sounding, kind of like pop production, but with boxing gloves.
HM: Nice! I love that analogy. I guess a lot of the time when you're writing, you are thinking about what the live elements are going to sound and how that needs to be brought out in the recording. And who would you say are some of your favourite New Zealand artists at the moment? And do you have any songs in particular that you especially love right now?
Tom Lark: Yeah, really enjoying Keira Wallace and Neive Strang - I think they're really clever and write really awesome songs. My favorite show that I've been to was the Exploding Rainbow Orchestra. It only happens sometimes, they’ve only done like three shows. But they have an orchestra - they did it in the Hopetoun Alpha, it was amazing. As I said to someone, it makes me remember what I love about music with drums and bass and stuff, but it's like a whole orchestra. It’s the best.
HM: Incredible, I'll have to check it out!
Tom Lark: Yea it’s just a live thing - they bring in other artists to come and sing the songs and do arrangements of new songs, and it just happens.
HM: Awesome! And what's one of the biggest lessons you've learned in your career so far or one of the best pieces of advice you would have for artists that are just starting out?
Tom Lark: Best advice is probably just get it finished and put it out. Get on with it (laughs).
HM: Yeah I think that would be the hardest part about being an artist is really just being like “right, I think it's done”. You’ve just got to get it out and put it out there, and perhaps it’s the fear of rejection or validation, or whatever it is, can kind of stump you from taking that next step.
Tom Lark: I remember also when I was a little bit younger, sending music out to people that I knew and be like “hey, I just finished this” or maybe someone that I look up to taste wise or something like, “what do you think of this?” or whatever. And they might not see my message, or they might not reply to me. I used to take that so hard but then I was talking about the same thing to another friend. I was like “oh, I sent it to them, but they didn't reply to my message and it kind of bummed me out” or something. But they were like “what feedback were you after?”. I think that has been really impactful for me. Like what did I need from that person? What did I need to hear that I was really after? I already felt like the song was cool. I just needed to trust that it was all good and get on with it.
HM: Yeah, I think that's a really good point that you can't rely on that external validation. If you really love it and you're passionate about it and are driving it and believe in it, that's the most important thing. And the people who find that or discover your music, they'll reach out. And what would you say is your favourite part about touring?
Tom Lark: I love meeting and hanging out with the other bands and the people. That's the best part about it. And maybe see friends that you don't usually see. Also I love going on tour and using it as sort of like an opportunity to go to maybe a nice restaurant (laughs).
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