The project of singer and multi instrumentalist Tom Weir, Old Moon seamlessly blends clamoring post punk rhythms with jangling guitars and shimmering noise.

Jangly post-punk guitars, with just a touch of goth a la Radar Eyes, mixed with lo-fi Dead Moon-esque rhythms, just a touch of early 80s Oi! band Blitz’s bleak sounding anthems and late period Merchandise’s reverb soaked melodies.

“I find my influences to be so broad that I hate limiting myself to a single sound”

‘Altars’ is such a fantastic record. How long did you work on it?

Tom Weir: Thank you! I started writing the record in August of 2020, and finished recording in December of that same year so I worked for about 4 months. I honestly wasn’t trying to make a record at the time, but the songs seemed to flow out super easily and it all happened very organically.

Would you like to talk a bit about your background?

I’ve been playing music since I was a kid, though I never took it seriously enough to be a good player. I’d say I’m a passable guitarist, bassist, and drummer but I definitely don’t excel at any of them. I was drawn to punk at an early age and once I learned power chords that was pretty much it for me. I started Old Moon as a recording project in 2019, and was making some pretty weird stuff that never saw the light of day – sort of shoegazey slowcore with metal breakdowns and post punk elements. I started to focus more on the post punk elements when I was recording my ‘Past Lives’ EP that came out in June 2020. But I don’t really identify with that genre, I find my influences to be so broad that I hate limiting myself to a single sound.

When did you decide that you wanted to start writing and performing your own music? What brought that about for you?

I started writing and performing as a teenager in punk bands in New Hampshire where I’m from. It’s always been a big part of who I am and I honestly don’t know what I would do If I wasn’t writing music.

How do you usually approach music making?

I don’t have a set process that I follow for writing, some of my songs start out as a guitar riff while others may start as a bass line or drum beat. But I do usually write most of the music for a song before writing lyrics, I find that sometimes I get lost if I try to write lyrics without having a feel for what the song will sound like musically. I’ll typically demo a song up shortly after it’s written so I can start tinkering with it. Lately I’ve been trying to focus more on lyrics and make vocals more upfront instead of burying them in layers of reverb.

“Everything was recorded at my home”

Can you share some further details on how your latest album was recorded? It’s great that it’s also available on vinyl.

Everything was recorded at my home here in Lyme, NH. I have a little spare bedroom that I’ve turned into a makeshift studio. I’m a teacher and rarely have big chunks of time to work on music, so with this record I recorded it piece by piece in short sessions.

<a href="https://oldmoon.bandcamp.com/album/altars">Altars by Old Moon</a>

With ‘Altars’ I didn’t do a ton of multiple takes to be honest so there are some mistakes on the record but I think that’s part of its charm. I reached out to Shaun Durkan from Weekend about mixing and sent him some demos and he was into them, so we moved forward with him mixing the record remotely. This was the first time that I’ve involved anyone else in my recording process and while it was hard at first for me to give up control I’m really in love with how it turned out.

What are some future plans?

I’m in the middle of working on a new record that I hope will come out within the next year or so. I’m really excited about the new batch of songs I have written, and have been taking my time more with the recording process. These new songs will be a little different than the songs from ‘Altars’ both sonically and in terms of songwriting but I think anyone who already likes what I’m doing will enjoy them. They’re deliberately slower and heavier and shy away from some of the more post-punk stylings of Altars a bit. I’m also working on a compilation tape with remasters of my first two EPs ‘Past Lives’ and ‘Messenger’ that will be coming out this fall.

Are you involved in any other bands or do you have any active side-projects going on at this point?

I played drums on the new True Faith record ‘They Can Always Hurt You More’ that’s coming out this November. It was my first time recording drums for something I didn’t write and it was a lot of fun.

Let’s end this interview with some of your favourite albums. Have you found something new lately you would like to recommend to our readers?

Oh man, it’s really hard to choose favorites because I listen to so many different things. Weekend’s ‘Sports’ is up there for sure. The first DIIV record as well. The first couple A Place to Bury Strangers records. All the Jesu records. All the True Widow records. For older stuff I really love Lilys and For Against.

There have been some great releases from the past year or so that I’ve been into. ’12th House Rock’ by Narrow Head is amazing, they’re certainly one of my favorite newer bands. Sculpture Club made a really good record this year. Division of Doubt is a newer band from Salt Lake City that has a couple of killer singles out. I also love Hovvdy and am really excited about their new record that’s on the way this fall even if it’s not very on-brand for what people think I listen to!

Klemen Breznikar

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