For most, living and touring with your high school band all the while racking up hits, is but a dream. For Lunar Vacation, it is a reality.
Coming to Showbox Sodo on Thursday, Nov. 8, Lunar Vacation is touring their latest record “Everything Matters, Everything’s Fire,” which was first released in September. The album saw the five-piece band finally breaking from the confines of surf rock, with them finding a unique voice in a rockier, more narrative and rhythmically complex set of songs than ever before.
Lunar Vacation wrote the album over the course of the last two years in their three bedroom, 100 year old home in Decatur, Georgia. Now that they are on the road, they finally get to see how people are receiving their new album. Lead singer/songwriter Gep Repasky has been particularly impacted by seeing the response to their work.
“When we released our album, we weren’t immediately touring after so were like ‘Well now what,’” Repasky said. “You just don’t see the effect of the album at all. But actively going on the tour, you’re seeing that people like it and people enjoy it, and it’s really nice to see.”
Lunar Vacation first came together in 2016 while still in high school. Eight years later, with multiple hits like “Blue Honey,” “Swimming” and “The Basement” under their belt, they did what few high school bands do — they actually made it in the world of music.
As guitarist Maggie Geelslin and Repasky reflected on the road they took to end up with the opportunity so rarely instilled on high school bands, their faces grew red with emotion as they held back tears.
“I feel like we’ve leveled up to family status now, I feel like they’re all my siblings,” Repasky said.
Lunar vacation’s brand of airy indie rock has managed to strike a chord with thousands of fans, a fact that is still a welcome surprise for the band.
“The past three shows I feel like every night I’ve been like ‘I didn’t think that many people were gonna come,’” Geeslin said. “I feel so grateful that people spend their time and money coming to see us and being so kind to us, it’s pretty surreal.”
While those aforementioned shows had Lunar Vacation as headliners, the rest of their tour will see the group sharing the stage with Manchester Orchestra and Thrice. The bands do differ in genre as well as size, they all share the mutual ground of performing emotionally charged, lyrically interesting music.
Lunar Vacation is not as big as Manchester Orchestra or Thrice, but they certainly have enough successful songs to where they must learn to balance the hits with their new work.
“I love those songs, but there’s just something about songs you wrote when you were 15, 16 being more popular than the ones you write now you’re like ‘ah! Listen to my growth!’ you know,” Repasky said. “But I think I’ve gotten over it now, I can appreciate it because we’re putting out more music.”
While striving for balance, the group has chosen to save the hits for last, ensuring that people stick around to give their new music a chance. Bassist Ben Wulkan is particularly keen on sharing Lunar Vacation’s latest tracks.
“On this tour, because it’s a lot of people hearing us for the first time, we’re gonna want to be playing our new record because they’ve never heard us and that’s the newest us,” Wulkan said.
Fortunately for Lunar Vacation, the audiences at their headlining shows have proven to be fans of their new songs as well. Keyboardist Matteo DeLurgio commented on how dedicated the fans are to their discography.
“They all feel like hits at the headline shows,” he said.
For Repasky, seeing a project two years in the making finally make it to the ears of eager listeners in a truly unique experience.
“Seeing people sing the new songs is pretty surreal, it takes some time getting used to,” Repasky said. “It was ours for so long, and now other people know it too. That’s been really really special.”
Lunar Vacation performs with Manchester Orchestra and Thrice on Friday, Nov. 8. Doors open at 6 p.m., show starts at 7 p.m. Door price is $50, online tickets are $45 and can be found here.
