Moon Tan building a following

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This article was published 08/12/2016 (3388 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It’s a long way to the top if you want to rock n roll. But the boys in Moon Tan wouldn’t have it any other way.

Nick Kula and Adrian Dyer met while students at River East Collegiate. Kula, a percussionist with the school jazz band, was playing drums in a nascent cover band, and Dyer auditioned to play bass.

The two hit it off. They were soon joined in the cover band endeavour by a guitar player from Gimli named Brady Mitchell. After honing their chops, practising your run-of-the-mill social repertoire for a few years, Kula, Dyer and Mitchell felt it was time to create something different.

“We wanted to make original songs,” Dyer said.

The trio bonded over shared musical influences such as Led Zeppelin, Rush, and Guns N’ Roses while adding their own individual interests to the mix.

“If you were to grab each of our iPods, we have very different tastes,” Kula said.

From the outset, Kula, Dyer and Mitchell decided Moon Tan would do things differently.

 “We did have a common vision of where we wanted to go,” Kula added. “But maybe didn’t know how we wanted to get there.”

“We were always looking for a male singer who could sing high,” Dyer said.

After scouring Kijiji and coming up dry, Dyer decided to take on the vocal duties. He enrolled in online vocal training through the Ken Tamplin Vocal Academy and went all in. Through training, Dyer said he’s stretched his vocal range across four octaves, and learned key techniques like how to modify vowels while ascending scales.

Combining a theatric stage presence with a tight, prog-inspired sound, Moon Tan finds itself standing alone in Winnipeg’s independent music scene.

“We haven’t really played with a band like ours,” Kula said.

Moon Tan has released three discs since 2013, the most recent being The Faceless Knight, a seven-inch EP recorded by J Riley Hill at Private Ear Studios. The band has also hit the road hard, recently completing a Canadian tour in October, followed by a week of November dates in Toronto as part of Indie Week 2016.

“If you want to be a working band, touring is a must,” said Kula, who does the booking for the band. “It shows you have something going on.”

By returning to the same towns every few months, Moon Tan has built itself a fan base across the country, and is opening doors for itself in the process. The band’s Indie Week performances, for example, culminated in winning the week long club-based festival’s contest for an opportunity to perform at Indie Week UK in 2017.

“It’s kind of perfect, because we were already planning to go over there,” Dyer said.

While plans are still being finalized, Moon Tan plans to record a new record for release by the fall of 2017, in hopes of taking it along for the hop across the pond.

Kula said one major take away from his days in the REC jazz band program that has informed his work in Moon Tan was discipline.

“In Grade 11, we were entered in this Essentially Ellington competition,” he recalled. “We went to New York. That was an invaluable learning experience. You had to really buckle down on your instrument.”

But as much as the technical aspects of learning an instrument are important, Kula said performing onstage before an audience is a learning experience unto itself.

“I’d recommend that to anyone, if you want to play your instrument, just get up on stage and play,” he said. “Just do it. It’s a totally different feel from jamming in your bedroom or whatever.”

Moon Tan’s next hometown gig will be at the Festival du Voyageur in February. Visit moontan.net to hear music or get more information on upcoming shows.

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sheldon.birnie@canstarnews.com