Iris Lune: COMPOSER SONGWRITER VOCALIST SOUND- DESIGNER

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Iris Lune- Pop without boundaries.

Interview conducted on

Iris Lune initially began as the project of singer-songwriter Ella Joy Meir when she met guitarist and composer Asher Kurtz in Boston. She si also an Israeli musician currently living and working in Brooklyn, NY. She is a composer, songwriter, lyricist, vocalist, sound-designer, and band leader. She has been a frequent contributor to the Facebook Sound Collection for the past couple of years, writing and producing music in a wide range of styles. Many of her tracks have been used on videos, garnering over 120 Million cumulatively views on Facebook.

What is your upbringing?

I was born and raised in northern Israel, and moved to the US in 2011 to study music at Berklee College of Music in Boston. I found my way to Brooklyn in 2015, and have been there ever since.

How did you discover music?

I’ve always loved music. I began playing the piano when I was seven, but my mom told me I used to make up little songs while walking down the street, ever since I was a little kid. I actually still do that all the time. Usually, I don’t even notice I’m doing that.

How did you start to write music?

I used to play classical piano and jazz but knew that what I really wanted was to be a songwriter. However, until I was 19, I couldn’t really finish a song. I would get over critical with myself and disappointed that a song wasn’t ‘perfect’ (whatever that means). When I was 19, I went through a pretty dark period, and finally managed to finish my first song. It just poured out and opened up something in me. I’ve never looked back.

Do you remember how you got your first guitar?

Yes, but honestly, it’s not an exciting story. It meant a lot more to me to buy my own piano when I was 23. I spent so much time researching and traveling to different sellers until I found the one. It was a Yamaha U1, and it sounded soft as butter. I was really proud of myself for putting in the legwork to choose what I really wanted, and I even got a good price for it. Unfortunately, 10 months later I resold it because I moved to Boston. Still planning on getting one in Brooklyn someday.

And do you still have it?

No, sadly I had to sell the piano when I moved to the states. My first guitar has also disappeared over the years, handed down to my sister and then gone somewhere that I’m not sure of.

How did you pick your name?

That was a process. Asher Kurtz, my co-writer and producer, and I worked on it together. We wanted something that evokes the magic we feel exists in the world – magic that we try to bring out in our musical collaborations. Iris is named after the Greek messenger goddess of the rainbow. Lune is French for the moon, which I’ve always felt a mystical connection to. I’m also a very visual person by nature and love the image that the name ‘Iris Lune’ evokes.

You have a lot of music out there. How many videos do you create in a given month?

Not many. I try to do monthly live streams for the wonderful members of my Facebook group – Lunetribe – but besides that, I’m focusing more on writing and producing new music. I have four music videos out and another one coming next month.

On your new LP Lovelosslove, why did you decide to have 12 songs on it?

When I worked on this album with my co-writer and producer/guitarist, Asher Kurtz, we actually came up with 40 song ideas, then narrowed it down to 16 songs (which ended up being fully written and almost fully produced). Then, we sat down with our bassist, Aaron Liao, and drummer, Angelo Spampinato, and chose our favorite 12. I think 12 is a good number. It feels whole and complete.

Why did you entitle it Lovelosslove?

The core of the album is exploring the relationship between love and loss in all their various permutations. These two emotions are so deeply intertwined that it made sense to write them one after another without spaces because often it feels as though there truly isn’t space between them.

What is the difference between creating an EP and an LP?

I think the answer to this varies between artists, but to me, it felt like writing an LP was making a huge commitment to ourselves. Asher and I met three times a week for four months, and really pushed our own boundaries. We also thought deeply about the concept of the album – love and loss and everything in between – before writing a single note. With that in mind, we wrote the album as a cohesive, single work of art.

Why do you call Asher Kurtz your musical hubby?

Writing music is such an intimate experience and Asher and I have been working together for so long – 7 years – that we’ve created a relationship that’s got everything a marriage would except for the romance. We are very close friends and I trust him as a collaborator in a truly deep way.

You just release HAVEN. Tell me about it? Why did you decide to use this song to preview your album?

I wrote this song to my sister, in the aftermath of my mother’s passing. My sister was going through a particularly difficult time, and I wanted to be there for her and comfort her. I wanted to listen and to make sure she knew that I was there for her. It felt like a strong way to preview the album because it holds so much loss and love in it. The loss of our mother, the love we both have for her, the love we have as sisters to each other. Also, in a way the loss of who we were before our mother’s death and learning to cope with this new reality. Alone, and together.

What is Pop without boundaries?

Music that thinks outside the box while not being afraid to be catchy, edgy with an eye to the mainstream.

How do you stay healthy while touring?

My bandmates and I are all big foodies and great cooks. So, we always make sure to eat well on tour. And we make sure to do stretches or yoga at some point during the day. That can feel hugely restorative after sitting in a car or driving all day. Especially as someone who dances around a lot on stage.

How do you go about creating a piece of music?

Every song is different, but it usually starts with a musical element rather than the lyrics. A few songs on the album started from a beat (like Midas and Debris), others from an improvisation session with Asher or a musical loop one of us created. Sometimes from a melody. I usually make up words on the spot that is half Gibberish, and after I feel like I have something solid musically I’ll work on the lyrics. Many times, I’ll discover that certain lyrics that were part of the improv ended up in the final song.

What are you’re feeling about streaming music?

So conflicted. I think that there’s a lot of beauty in what streaming music gives us as an audience. It has definitely opened my world. However, artists are paid peanuts for their music on streaming services, if at all, and so it means that the most popular way for audiences to consume music isn’t at all profitable for the musicians creating it. I also think that there’s huge inflation in music right now. It has become so easy to create music at home and upload it online, which is really wonderful on the one hand and makes it fair game for anyone, but on the other hand, it makes it really hard to make it as an independent musician on these platforms.

Digital vs. vinyl?

Vinyl for the inside, digital for the outside.

Any plans to tour?

We have an album release show in the summer and then will hopefully tour in the fall. It’s hard to know what the world will look like by then.

What song from the past is in your mind right now? And what is the meaning that song means to you?

I was playing Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah today, which is one of my favorite songs ever. Feels like everything right now is one big broken Hallelujah, doesn’t it?

How did you launch your own hot sauce “Eclipse” and how do I get one?

That’s also a result of us all being huge foodies! Aaron Liao has been a huge hot sauce aficionado for years and brought that love to all of us. Now we never eat a meal without hot sauces. So, when we were thinking of a new fun collab project we decided to work with a hot saucier Brodie Dawson from Dawson’s Hot Sauce. We tasted a bunch of different recipes and tweaked the flavors together and Eclipse was born. Now you can get it on our site: https://irislune.bigcartel.com/

You wrote the following statement- “Listening to music is like looking into your own soul. Writing music is like looking soul, grabbing it and throwing it into the air, not knowing who will catch it”. Do you feel that more musicians should live by that statement?

I never feel comfortable saying what others should or shouldn’t live by, but I think that being a songwriter means you have to be honest with yourself before you can be genuine with others. As long as you are telling your own authentic truth, it almost doesn’t matter who will catch it. It’s scary, but at least you know you’re true to yourself.

Why did you create the video Breadcrumbs? And how is your sign language?

The Breadcrumbs video was for a song I wrote outside of the ‘Iris Lune world’. I wrote the song about a month after my mom passed, and created the video in her honor a year later. She was an incredible linguist and sign language researcher, and so I wanted to create something that would honor her legacy in the most inspiring way, and be a gift to hearing and deaf communities around the world. The idea was to create a video in four languages: English, Hebrew, ASL, and ISL. I worked with a lot of extremely talented people who donated their time and efforts into making this video possible, including the amazing Alexandria Wailes and Lee Dan who interpreted the song and signed it in ASL and ISL. I’m really proud of the video and I think she would’ve been as well. I used to be able to sign in ISL a little, but unfortunately not anymore.

How do you feel the COVID-19 virus going to affect the music business in the future?

I feel live streams will definitely be more of a thing. There’s something beautiful about the direct way musicians can connect with their fans during these live sessions.

What have you been doing with your self-quarantine?