Lunar Vacation Are DIY at Heart

Inside a 100-year-old house in Decatur, Georgia, you’ll find Gep Repasky, Maggie Geeslin, Matteo DeLurgio, Connor Dowd and Ben Wulkan—the five members of Lunar Vacation. Decorated top to bottom with vintage artwork and crafts made by the members themselves, the band has forged a creative haven, even if it means getting inventive with their sleeping arrangements. Having been friends since high school, the members of Lunar Vacation are about as close as you can get without being blood related. Repasky and Geeslin often finish each other’s sentences, and tell stories like a singular unit, as they experienced each other’s coming of age firsthand. After graduating from college, the band knew the next logical step for their creative process would be to start living together.

“After a long touring cycle for the first album, we felt a little burnt out and kind of unsure of how to start the process of the next record,” Geeslin says. “Gep and I had graduated college and stopped living with our parents so we were like, ‘Okay, well we need to find a place to live’ and the boys’ leases were up. So, we were like, ‘Let’s just all move in together and try to make the next album.’ It kind of felt like that was the only way we were going to get it done in that period of time.”

For Lunar Vacation, it was pretty difficult to get the process rolling. For the first six months, they all focused on paying rent, saving money. “Making music is such a vulnerable and personal thing so when you’re not in the same proximity [as your bandmates] or see each other regularly, it’s hard to do that,” Geeslin continues. During that time in limbo, the band tapped into other creative outlets. In lieu of a newsletter, Lunar Vacation has a blog on Substack (which Geeslin says was inspired by Jeff Tweedy’s “Starship Casual”) where they update the band’s ongoings in both their music and their lives—often sharing updates of their backyard garden and the various artistry they’ve taken up. “I just got a sewing machine and I’m learning how to sew because I was crocheting a bunch. I had to get an ice cream scooping job this summer to pay the bills, and both crochet and scooping ice cream can put a lot of strain on your hand. I don’t want to fuck with my hands, they need to be good to play guitar,” Geeslin quips. “Matteo and I are kind of the gardeners; we’re planning a big garden rehaul this winter.” Repasky has been “trying to take more photos, even though film is so freaking expensive.”

Complimenting their crafting prowess, Lunar Vacation know how to adapt on the fly. With a time crunch and budget restraints, the band was tasked with making the music video for “Set the Stage” themselves. The process quickly turned into a community effort, with the band calling on every creative they knew, in hopes they would be able to offer their talents. Among them was friend of the band and Stranger Things star Finn Wolfhard: “We’ve been friends with Finn for a long time. He’s been living in Atlanta shooting the last season of Stranger Things, so we’ve been getting to hang out a lot more than we usually have because now we live 10 minutes away from each other,” Geeslin explains. Inspired by Feist’s “1234” music video, Wolfhard wanted to make a dance-centric video: “He showed me [the Feist video] and I loved it. When we had to throw everything together, we were like, ‘Okay, let’s just get everyone we know together to make this so we don’t have to wait and try to meet people.’ [Our Bassist] Ben’s sister Elana is a dance student in college, so we called her up and she was down for it,” she continues.

The “Set the Stage” video is shot in a black void, after the band discovered that renting out their local art center for the day would set them back $12,000, but they say that was made up for by the opportunity to shoot the video on film. “We got the film for free, which is such a gift from Aja [Selbach-Broad], who was the lighting director on the video. He’s Ben’s older sister’s fiancé,” Geeslin explains. “The shoot day was literally the smoothest thing I’ve ever experienced in my entire life making something. It turned out so perfect,” Repasky adds.

As Lunar Vacation reached the thick of the demoing process, both Björk and Yo La Tengo were in constant rotation—the latter of which the band got to see live while both bands happened to be in Pittsburgh at the same time playing shows. The release of This Stupid World came during Lunar Vacation’s writing process for their newest album, Everything Matters, Everything’s Fire, and the light and airy drum mixing were a constant point of reference for the production of the record. Björk’s influence on the record was more subconscious than anything, with Repasky admitting that they “don’t even know if that will come through, but it’s definitely what was inspiring us.”

If any Björkism comes through on Everything’s Fire, it’s double-meaning sex metaphors. On the kitschy “Just for Today,” Repasky explores the cognitive intersection of sex and suicidal ideation over an unassuming indie rock instrumental with ditsy percussion. “I’d like to pretend / That somebody will remember / That I’m out there getting better,” they confess. The song was written about a time that Repasky describes as “being a little cray-cray,” and Maggie describes as a “period of self destruction,” giving an apt insight into their dynamic as best friends and bandmates. Repasky elaborates on the experience, saying they’re “trying to forgive myself for things that I’ve done, trying to forgive other people for things that have happened, and just try to not regret as much because I have a lot of issues with regret and shame.” “I think having that kind of wild period of going out and drinking a lot and having kind of a mental breakdown made me finally say ‘Okay, well, I can’t drink alcohol anymore,’” they continue. “I was either gonna die or stop.”

While much of Everything Matters, Everything’s Fire deals with internal frustration, the record’s opening song “Sick” is a display of frustration with the destruction of the things we cherish around us in favor of profit. “Sick again / Luxury apartments / Popping anywhere / Besides that / Comedy is perfect when I’m lonely,” Repasky sings, accompanied by bongos and an indestructible bassline. The line was inspired by the band showing up to a stand-up comedy open mic night and getting picked on by the performers. “The jokes were bad—really racist and offensive,” Repasky recalls. “At one point, they were like, ‘Oh, yeah, how about you gentrifiers in the back?’ I wanted to be like, ‘Girl, we have five people in a three-bedroom house.’”

Lunar Vacation will always find community and their DIY attitude as their greatest asset. Repasky and Geeslin’s warm and kind demeanor are clear examples of why the band has become something of a local staple in the town Paste calls home and, on Everything Matters, Everything’s Fire, their charm is going nationwide. Their longtime friendship is palpable and only bolsters their likability. “In my dreams, we got older,” Repasky declares during “Set the Stage.” “Found acceptance, found another.” Music as honest and straightforward as Lunar Vacation’s only becomes more effective when it comes from a place of realness and sincerity. You can’t help but believe every syllable.