Meet Crimson Moon, our Artist of the Month for November! It’s been a long time since we’ve had a band as our AOTM and we’re so happy to have this comeback with Crimson Moon. They are an indie/alt rock band from Orange County, California and their guitarist, Alessio Thorpe, is one of our LGBTQ+ Emerging Artist Award recipients! We spoke to Alessio about the band’s inspirations, his solo music career, and how music has helped his personal journey.
Can you introduce yourself and share some insights into your background? Describe your journey into music and the experiences that have shaped you as an artist today.
Crimson Moon as a band can be traced back to a cover band that some of us were part of called The Detours. Our singer Emily, our drummer Luke, and I were part of this project together, where we would play mostly gigs in bars with longer sets consisting of 60s/70s rock covers. I played bass in this band but would occasionally write songs on the guitar and teach them to our guitarist. After about a year and a half, we decided to restructure the group and focus only on original material, which our guitarist was against, so he left the group. I then switched over to guitar and we found our second guitarist Landon, and bass player Cooper over the next few months. Our early work was inspired by artists such as The Backseat Lovers and early Coldplay, which can be heard on our first three singles which we released in 2023.
What is one Crimson Moon song that you feel represents the band as a whole?
If I had to choose one song to represent the band, I would say it is the closing track of our debut album, “The Last Song/Coming back”. To me, it was the song from our album that had the most collaboration between our members, with Landon writing the first half of the song, and myself writing the key change at the end that brings the whole album back to the same song it opens with.
You are one of our 2024 LGBTQ+ Emerging Artist Awardees. Can you talk to us about
what this means to you and where this will take you?
The award means a lot to me for a few several reasons. Firstly, I only recently came out as Bisexual after having spent years questioning my sexuality, and being granted an award where I had to be open about my sexuality was a huge step for me. Secondly, being awarded something based on my art is something that has never happened to me before, and it was such a jarring experience to have my art be recognized by someone outside of my immediate circle. Having spent my entire artistic life questioning whether my art would resonate with anyone, I am so happy to see that it has.
What will your solo music sound like in comparison to the Crimson Moon sound?
I would say that my solo work is much more introspective than Crimson Moon’s body of work. The music I am working on at the moment is much more self-reflective and draws a lot from experiences I have gone through the past year. I would say that Crimson Moon’s sound is quite “big”. A lot of larger-than-life production and a more refined sound. My songs tend to be acoustic, with much smaller production than Crimson Moon’s work.
Let’s talk about the band’s musical inspirations. How did these inspirations help you to
create your own unique sound?
I think a big part of the reason our sound is so unique is because we all draw from an extremely diverse pool of inspiration and influences, that when blended create an interesting sound. I would say that guitar playing wise, I draw from artists such as Brian May, Lindsey Buckingham, and Blake Mills; whereas songwriting wise I draw from Chris Martin and Johnny Cash. Our singer, on the other hand, is more influenced by
newer country music, artists such as Tyler Childers and Miranda Lambert. And then our drummer is a jazz/psychedelic rock drummer who is influenced by Nick Mason and Elvin Jones. Our guitarist Landon is massively influenced by Johnny Marr, and The Marias, and our Bassist has a love for 50s and 60s country and folk music that he brings to the table. This wide range of musical influences makes our songwriting process interesting. A song that I write and arrange instrumentally will have quite a different production style to one that Landon would write. I think our best work is when we all work together on a
song and bring our influences together
What keeps the band going? Have you received any words of wisdom to keep you
pushing on? What is your band’s mantra?
I would say that the biggest thing that keeps the band going is the love we all have for the songwriting process. Writing music is the thing I love most about life and getting to do that with the band is what keeps me in the group. I have told them time and time again; the moment we stop writing music is the moment I leave the band.
Share some wisdom with us. What’s the most valuable aWhat is the band’s biggest “flex”? Don’t be afraid to brag a bit! Tell us the story about it.
Our biggest flex is recording our album at Paramount Recording Studios. Our singer sent them an email as a joke, asking them to get a tour of the studio as a birthday surprise for me from the band. The general manager responded to us saying that he liked our music and asked us to send some demos. We quickly recorded some demos at my house, and I did some producing and mixing to make the songs sound a little more complete than they really were. Our producer Eli Smith took us under his wing, and Landon and I arranged the whole album with him. We recorded our instrumentals in Ameraycan Studio A, our vocals and acoustic guitar at Paramount Studio E, and additional guitar and piano overdubs at Encore Studios, in the same rooms as artists such as Fleetwood Mac, Seal, Foo Fighters, Guns N Roses and Led Zeppelin. It was such a privilege to be able to record in spaces with so much history, and to have a producer as involved and as talented as Eli to work with us.
Looking ahead, what are your future aspirations in your music career? Can you share specific goals you have for the future, both artistically and professionally? Do you have projects coming up that will help you meet these goals?
Our creative vision for the band has really shifted the past few months. I may only speak for myself, but the luster of the album has gone, and I am already thinking about the next one. And I want the next one to be better and more thought out than the first one. I personally think we rushed the album process on our first go, and that may have been because we were so swept up in recording at such a crazy studio that we thought we had to do it quickly. I think for the next album I want there to be a stronger and clearer message from the band. We’re really working on making our music speak more. For myself, I am working with a few different people on songwriting for acoustic projects that I am extremely excited about. Both don’t really have names yet, but one is in the process of demo-ing out our songs, and the other is writing. My professional goal is to become a producer and engineer in the studio, and I am so happy to say that I was recently brought on as an assistant engineer at a local studio. I hope to gain some experience there over the next few years and eventually work for a major studio in LA.
Let’s delve into the essence of music. How does music personally move you, and what emotions or experiences fuel your creative process?
I think music moves me in unusual ways depending on what I’m going through at the time. The last few months where I was questioning my sexuality while still in a long-term relationship, I think a lot of the music that I was listening to was very unsure. A lot of songs of introspection by artists such as The War on Drugs, Coldplay, and The Backseat Lovers. I felt extremely lost and found comfort in the music that reflected that. There was a sense of running at a brick wall at full speed and just hoping you could magically go through it, and I wrote lyrics that resembled that at the time. I went through a lot over the next few months, including an ADHD diagnosis and a serious ED. I wrote a lot of songs during tumultuous moments at this point in my life. This run of events caused a lot of turbulence in my creative process, but I think it ended up working out for the better. I really think that having my songwriting go all over the place helped me find what I really needed to come back to. I really understood that extrospective songwriting is not something I’m capable of doing, so there’s no point in trying to force it. I think now I am at a much better point in life and have been appreciating music that’s a little more “positive”, a lot of Bruce Springsteen, Aretha Franklin, and Suki Waterhouse.
Where can our readers find more about Crimson Moon?
Definitely take a listen to our album and singles on all streaming platforms, titled “Internal Affairs”. If you want more info on the band, check out our Instagram and TikTok @crimsonmoon.band and our website: www.crimsonmoon.band!