Moon by Moon, a portrait of a young Maryland band

At any live show, spotting the band is pretty easy. If they’re not already backstage or sound-checking, you can spot them just from the energy alone: a practiced, understated confidence, which may or may not be a show to suppress the nerves. Often, especially at local shows, they are being hailed from across the room by any number of friends, acquaintances, or other performers. Whether the band is a two-piece, a four-piece, or a single performer, this principle holds true for most local shows, and for Moon by Moon’s latest show at Comet Ping Pong, this is no exception.

They sit together outside on concrete obelisk-chairs, the smell of cigarette smoke all around them. Every once and a while, random friends and show-goers appear from the bushes, hugging or waving or, in one instance, throwing a black-eyed susan at the band’s lead singer. Following this, the band erupts into chants, the person’s name: Lee! Lee! Lee! Lee! The scene feels so casual, it may come as a shock to learn that they are taking the stage in less than an hour. It is another night in the life of a young Maryland band.

Moon By Moon are certainly no strangers to live performance. Formed by Etai Fuchs and Gabbo Franks at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, the band has been performing live in different iterations since its formation in 2018. Just coming off the heels of a purported “weekender tour” that encompassed a two-day trip to Brooklyn and Philadelphia, the most recent iteration of Moon By Moon (completed by drummer Thomas Cummings and bassist Nolan Hill) finished their tour with a show at DC’s Comet Ping Pong on Aug. 16. The idea of a tour may sound romantic, yet Moon By Moon take a decidedly candid perspective.

“Doing the show thing, and touring especially, is exhausting,” explains Franks, front-person of Moon by Moon. “It takes time and energy, and you get back, and you don’t feel like doing shit… We have to set up little pockets of time just to record or do anything.”

Fuchs, the guitarist, backs Franks’ words up.

“[Tours] suck, and they’re fun. Sleeping on the floor, figuring out dates, stuff like that. I grew up thinking I wanted to be a full-time musician, but now that I’m older, I don’t love the grind of it. People who have to play live shows to make all their money… I mean, that’s rough.”

It is a sentiment that the whole band echoes, and understandably. Being an up-and-coming artist and balancing life responsibilities is no easy task, something that the drummer Cummings readily acknowledges.

One may think that this struggle is recent for the relatively young band, a postgraduate problem that only crops up when faced with a nine-to-five job. In fact, from the very start, Moon By Moon have had to contend with the realities of being a do-it-yourself band. “Baltimore,” a track off the band’s debut EP, is an example of Moon By Moon using their medium to articulate their frustrations – a melancholic, mid-tempo track that stresses the difficulties of the artist’s life in 21st century America.

The protagonist of “Baltimore,” an artist at their wits’ end, mourns their own inability to keep up with the demands of Baltimore life and music. Franks opens the song with, “trying to write makes me feel like an idiot/it’s obvious enough that I’ve lost my spirit… There’s not enough time to feel like I’m living anymore/My feet are so f***ing sore.” It is a dour, personal portrait of being a struggling musician, and “Baltimore”’s second verse only leans into these difficult emotions: “Avoiding the grates and sidewalks at 5:30, avoiding the roaches and things that are dirty/my mom always said I had a detailed eye, but it’s only that I’m terrified and don’t wanna die in Baltimore.”

The chorus of the track even makes light of the struggle: “I never wanted to be so busy, I’m so tired of the city/I’ve only really been here for like three weeks…” The irony in all this hand-wringing being the result of three weeks feels funny, but when you consider what the song is really about – the artist completely losing their purpose under the mad thrush of day-to-day living – the humor is tempered by frustrated sorrow.

“When I moved out of Salisbury and to Baltimore,” explains Franks, “I was kind of just a ‘single-on-a-compilation’ artist. Honestly, I just lost the motivation entirely, and that’s what ‘Baltimore’ is really about. Like, ‘wow, writing songs just feels so stupid.’”

Thankfully, it is not all doom and gloom. Coming to Baltimore and having access to the UMBC studio gave the band the opportunity to record their work in a professional setting. It also led to the foundation of the band itself, both at its start and its current iteration.

“I met [Gabbo and Etai] at a local show, but I was a fan of theirs for a while,” says Hill, bassist of the band. Cummings, who also plays for Janna Jamison, met Moon By Moon through local connections, having known Hill before the band.

“Actually, it’s kind of funny,” says Cummings. “I saw Moon By Moon at that same show with my friend Ian, but we just didn’t connect for a while. Nolan introduced us at a bar a couple months ago.”

The band’s general connectivity speaks to another takeaway from their interview. While being a local, do-it-yourself indie band is difficult – self-funded tours, little free time, and technical difficulties at different venues like a sound hiccup at their recent Philly set – the “local” aspect comes with serious upsides.

Moon By Moon are the last to take the stage at11:20 on a Wednesday night, and yet the crowd seems awake as ever. When the music starts, the crowd throngs along the front of the stage. At the front, Franks, smiling, moves as a practiced professional, their eyes never staying on any one thing for too long. Fuchs and Cummings are immersed in the music, and Hill jumps up and down to the rhythm of Cummings’ drumming.

In the crowd, some people dance and sing along with every word, their arms in the air. Some people tap their feet along the beer-soaked floor and nod their heads. Some people sit in the corner, sipping at Nantucket Pale Ales and nodding. Everybody is engaged, and nobody looks bored. Once again, Moon By Moon has a room full of people happier than they were when they came in. It is another night in the life of a young Maryland band.

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