Rolla may be a small town, but a local band helps to bring some excitement and entertainment to its audiences. Moon Jr., composed of guitarist and singer Augie Rolufs, pianist Nathan Showalter, bass player Luke Showalter, and drummer John Ammerman, is an indie rock band based in Rolla that has been together for almost three years.
“We just thought we’d be cool if we started a band in, literally, sixth grade,” Rolufs said. ““I remember actually standing on a bed with my new guitar, it was like a pee wee guitar, and Nathan just like filming me, and then he put all kinds of crazy effects on the video while I just played this stupid guitar solo. We thought we were really cool. So, yeah, that’s when we started playing music.”
From then on, the idea of a band slowly began to turn into a reality.
“[Nathan] got a Radio Shack keyboard, and his brother learned bass really fast,” Rolufs said.
The band has changed a lot since it was formed two and a half years ago.
“We were originally Pauline’s Basement. It was cool, I mean, we were playing lots of cool stuff, but it wasn’t really very serious; we were just kind of messing around. But we all kind of went our separate ways. Luke started filling in for Mack [ the original bass player for Pauline’s Basemnet], because Mack was missing shows and practices. Then I met John while Nathan was in Estonia, and he was playing with a Red Hot Chili Peppers tribute band called the Red Hot Tube Socks. That’s the lineup we’ve had for about two and half years,” Rolufs said
Describing the genre of Moon Jr. is extremely difficult. Some call it soft rock, while others say electronic and others say it has jazz influences.
“None of our songs really sound all that similar to one another, so [our sound is] kind of hard to describe,” Rolufs said. “I say the best way to categorize it is just to listen, because every time somebody new listens to it, they say they hear something else in it. We never really get the same ‘it sounds like this.’ It’s different answers for different people.”
Each member of Moon Jr. is inspired by different artists, further contributing to the varied sound that captivates local audiences.
“We’re all influence by different musicians. I’d say John, our drummer, was influenced by black soul drummers when he was young, and gospel drummers. He really idolizes Kings of Leon, because he came from a Pentecostal Church, just like they did, and he’s got a similar taste. He wants to get out of the crazy backwoods style, but it’s part of him,” Rolufs said. “I think Nathan and I listened to a lot of Radiohead from the time we were in seventh grade on, so that’s definitely a big influence.”
After two and a half years, the band is finally set to release their first album.
“I’m more excited about it than I’ve been about anything that we’ve done with this band,” Rolufs said.
According to Nathan Showalter, the album wasn’t exactly planned; it just came together.
“We just all write little songs and song ideas, and just kind of bring them to each other and build songs. Then we decided we had enough songs to try and record and put them on a CD I guess. I don’t know, we figured it was about time we become serious about the band,” said Showalter.
The album comes at a great time for the band, as they have finally gotten into a good rhythm.
“We sort of just hit a creative stride recently, and that’s good because it’s really hard to do anything otherwise,” Rolufs said. That was the problem with Pauline’s Basement; we had egos going around, and it was really hard to give people ideas on their parts or anything, and we’d get in arguments all the time as a result. But right now, we’ve been playing long enough with this lineup, and the people are chill enough, that we can really just bounce ideas off of each other. Songwriting’s a little easier.”
In addition to preparing for the release of their album, Moon Jr. is usually busy playing several gigs a month.
“Right now we haven’t been playing very many [gigs]. We’ve been playing like one or two a month, but sometimes we’ll play like six a month,” Showalter said.
While people may think the name Moon Jr. represents something quite profound, the band insists there’s no backstory.
“I don’t know [what it means] man. I don’t know. It really doesn’t mean anything at all. It means whatever you want it to mean,” Rolufs said.
Although the band is experiencing some success here, they plan to extend the reach of their music to more than just the Rolla area.
“We’ve made some good friends in Columbia. The Blue Fugue has us [play] quite often. Really, we plan on expanding after this album gets done. It’s going to be on iTunes and everything, and it should open a lot of doors for gigs anyway, because when you have a full, packaged album and everything it really helps with bar owners and stuff booking you,” Rolufs said.
The band also has plans to go beyond the state, and possibly play their music across the country.
“Our goal is to start to go on tour really soon, like this next summer. I think we just want to make enough money to support ourselves and get to travel,” Showalter said.
Their album will be available soon, and song samples are available on various websites.
“There will be a physical copy of the album, but it will be on iTunes first. You can hear sneak peeks of it as we’re remastering on our ReverbNation page,” said Rolufs.
Their album will be released around April 30, and audio and video of their performances are available on their facebook page, www. reverbnation.com/moonjr, and www.moonjrband.com.
