A Glimpse Inside Coral Moons’ World of Whimsy
So, here’s the breakdown – at their wits’ end, Coral Moons has leaned into all things whimsical
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Coral Moons, a Boston-founded indie rock band, created a lush guitar-driven soundscape for themselves with their 2021 debut album Fieldcrest. In the years since, they have thematically explored themes of love, loss, and growing up on their 2024 sophomore album summer of u.
In many ways, the group has always lived on two planes – lead singer Carly Kraft works a tech job by day and tours as a rock star by night. Their newest release, “Made Up My Mind,” explores the healing powers of daydreams and all things whimsical, even if one feels stuck in their reality.
Years away from the hustle of city life, Kraft and her husband, guitarist Justin Bartlett, spend their mornings tending to their expansive garden and chicken coop in their native upstate New York.
The group was formed initially at Kraft’s first post-grad tech job in Boston, where she teamed up with her coworker Manuel Camacho to network and meet other local musicians. Camacho has since exited the band (though he lent instrumentals to the group’s sophomore album). He has since been replaced with Miguel Cepeda on bass, with Kevin Krewer now on drums.
Since their humble debut release, the band has played Boston Calling in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Americana Fest in Nashville, Tennessee (including a video set for Jam in the Van), been nominated for two Boston Music Awards, released an album under Better Company Records, and will soon play SummerFest in Milwaukee, WI as independent artists once again.
“Made Up My Mind,” released today on July 2, sees the group at their wits’ end with the state of the world and the music industry – and at their wits’ end, they turn to whimsy instead of despair. The music video sees the group giving each other haircuts and dancing around outdoors sporting Renaissance Faire-approved outfits. While their previous releases have explored the past, “Made Up My Mind” charts a new course, exploring how to sit in the discomfort before moving on. The track sees the group reunite with Seattle-based producer Andy D. Park, a burgeoning indie producer known for his work with Medium Build.
Coral Moons also happens to be the first band I ever interviewed in my professional career. Since then, Carly and I have made a habit of catching up once a year – whether at a local gig in Nashville or Los Angeles, or over the phone about the band’s new music. I first met the group in 2021 ahead of their debut album, which I covered for The Boston Globe. I’ve since graduated from college, moved across the country, and now work at PEOPLE Magazine. Clearly, we have much to catch up on.
I caught up with Coral Moons about “Made Up My Mind”, fantasy novels, how AI has changed the music industry, and of course, pickles.
MG: What’s new for you and the band?
CM: “Well, it is gardening season in full force, so I feel like that is such a weight off my shoulders. I'm so excited to be spending so much time outside and making fresh pickles for the band. We're playing SummerFest for the first time. We're playing five bands before Third Eye Blind on one of the main stages, which is just hilarious. I feel like we're really excited to do a lot of outdoor amphitheater kind of shows, which I feel like is something we haven't really done before. We usually play a lot of indoor clubs.”
MG: I also love seeing your garden updates. How’s that going too?
CM: “Sometimes, I feel like when you're gardening every day, spending all of your extra time out there in the weeds, I think you don't realize how fast things are growing and then you take a step back and you come back and everything is flourishing. I feel like it's kind of a nice reminder that life goes on and things are happening, whether you're seeing them or not. Gardening is such a little special gift.”
MG: Tell me a little bit more about the inspiration that went into “Made Up My Mind”, what the writing process looked like, and how the music video came to be.
CM: “I mean, I always giggle at the music video. It was just a little song I wrote on Christmas this past year when I was hanging out with my friends and family, which is really fun. It started a little slower, and then when I presented it to the band, also, it was kind of poppy, almost soul-esque.
It had a very 1960s vibe to it. And I brought it to the band and we all just started playing down strokes and it started to get a little heavier, like with every waking moment that we were playing it together.”
MG: The music video really drives home that whimsical vision.
CM: “Yeah, I had been reading a lot of, like, Fairy smut books. I was joking a lot about dragons and Lord of the Rings. I don't know why, but these are the things that we talk about behind the scenes, and we and our producer were like, ‘what if we just compile a bunch of random stuff and put it in the bridge as a joke’, we were like, maybe this won't be cool.
But then we just fell in love with it and thought ‘this is so fun’ and such a good representation of us as the little nerds we are.
And then, when it was time to make a music video, I think we just wanted to lean in even more to the Ren Faire aesthetic, extrapolating from our last album with the Cottage Core aesthetics and going one more with that.
The music video was so fun to make, and it's just a really fun moment with some of our friends, and it just so happens that there happened to be a video camera, taping the whole thing.”
MG: You mention this fantasy aspect as a part of the band’s lore that listeners didn’t really get to know until now. Will this be a through line on your upcoming third album, and what is your vision for this project?
CM: “We have a bunch of songs, but I don't know what it's gonna be yet. I think we've just been totally exploring sonically, and we're not feeling like we need to be put in a box. I think this song is a little bit more punky, a little angsty, more edgy than we've done before, but we also have some pop songs and just slow ballads, too. So I feel like literally, my answer is that we are just doing anything and everything that's inspiring us right now, and we're not stopping to try to be any one thing. We're just following our gut and following where some of these songs take us together as a group. Definitely challenging, which is fun.”
MG: Speaking of challenges, are there any challenges or lessons that you learned from or overcame while you were recording Fieldcrest or summer of u that you're going to take into the recording process for album three?
CM: “Yeah, I feel like... one of the things that we always enjoyed was going into the studio with songs only at 60%, I think for the entirety of our career, it was really fun to just explore in the studio and just go with the flow and whatever instruments we were all feeling that day is what makes it on the track.
And I think as we're becoming more mature songwriters and honing in on our craft, one thing that we're looking forward to doing more with this group of songs is honing in on some of those textures and sonic palettes at home before we show up to the studio. That way, when we're in the studio, we can really just focus on doing the best performance that we can, and thinking real hard and long about how we want to portray ourselves sonically and through songwriting, at home.”
MG: So, you’ve continued to collaborate with Andy D. Park, but you’re back to being independent after you released your second album with Better Company Records last year. Can you share anything about that journey?
CM: “Yeah, I think it's 100% just the state of the music industry. I think Better Company is an incredible independent label. They're amazing and we're still keeping in touch with them about future releases and such. But I just feel like the shift that has happened on streaming services mainly and digital distribution is that we are seeing generic music rewarded.
Uniqueness is no longer being fed to us, so we're seeing that with AI playlists and Spotify’s mission totally changing. They are just not introducing us to new bands anymore, we're basically just regurgitating what already exists, and then feeding us AI music so that they can make more money.
Indie labels are trying to get indie artists like us a foot in the door, but a lot of that is digital distribution and I feel like no matter how good our music is or how bad it is, it's just not going to be fed to that kind of audience that will help get us to the next level. It's honestly devastating.”
MG: I realized that a lot of your songwriting is really centered on the nostalgia of a lot of firsts in life. Fieldcrest was about the nostalgia of growing up and leaving a childhood home. And summer of u was about losing a first love and learning to heal from that. Would you say that your third album is going to tackle a new theme of firsts in life?
CM: “Yeah, I feel like the new stuff is kind of about a relationship and a conversation with the music industry. If I'm being honest, I'm happily married. I have a lot of incredibly supportive people in my life. I have a beautiful home over my head. My life is so good, and the only thing that keeps me up at night is how royally f*cked all of my incredible music friends are. And I think the taxing emotions of this industry can really mess people up.
I think that's really what all of these songs are about, is the tough relationship of feeling like you belong somewhere and that you were meant to do something, but having a whole entire industry trying to pull you away from it. So it is a toxic relationship, but it's not really about a person.”
MG: Last but not least, do you have a favorite go-to tour snack this summer?
CM: “I feel like I always say pickles…”
MG: Pickles are a tradition!
CM: “Kevin is heading here in a few days, but they're going to be making guamis. Guacamole mixed with hummus. It's THE summer snack.”
MG: Sounds delicious.
“Made Up My Mind” is streaming now.
This interview was edited and condensed for clarity.