little luna Interview

0:00 little luna My favorite collaborators are ones who are not afraid to challenge my idea, challenge my melody, but like are hearing me, seeing me and we are in the moment together.

0:09 Luke F. Walton Everyone just had a great conversation with little Luna, incredible musician, love, love, love her music was great to be able to finally talk to her and connect and get to hear kind of about her background and how her experience as a yoga instructor and leading meditations. helps to root her in her musical practice. It was a really nice, refreshing kind of conversation, very artistic.

0:31 Luke F. Walton And we talked about the aesthetics of music and of film and how it all connects. And Wildflower Woman is out right now. Great song. So go check that out and then come back and listen to the podcast. Before we get into the podcast conversation, I want to invite you to check out DistroKid.

0:51 Luke F. Walton District Kid makes music distribution fun and easy with unlimited uploads and artists get to keep 100% of their royalties and earnings so you can put out a whole bunch of music and keep the money that you make. And we've got a 30% off discount for you at distrkid.com slash VIP slash love music more.

1:08 Luke F. Walton A million plus artists rely on District Kid to get their music onto Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, TikTok, Tidal, Instagram and all of the major streaming services. So we should sign up today. Enjoy the conversation. Love music more. Love music more. Love music more. Love music more. What's good, everybody? Welcome back to Love Music More. I am joined with Little Luna. Welcome to the show.

1:37 little luna Hey, happy to be here. Thank you for having me. I'm so excited to talk music with you.

1:41 Luke F. Walton First question, like what have you been working on lately? What are some of the things that you're most excited about for and in your current music career?

1:48 little luna You know, you're catching me at a really fabulous time because I have an entire year's worth of music that I am currently rolling out. My next song comes out this Friday, Pushing Daisies. So depending when you're listening to this might already be out. And then another song called Talk in August and then my third studio EP in October that's called Whenever We Get To Wherever We're Going. So all of that music.

2:12 little luna finally getting to come out after spending so much time you know writing it getting it mixed getting it mastered making the visuals everything for it this I've never gone into a year with so much music ready to go so I like this is just truly you're catching me at the most fabulous time to actually be not only excited about the music I'm making proud of it

2:35 little luna Yeah. but that it is actually seeing the light of day like right now

2:38 Luke F. Walton That's so awesome. Let's dig into how this came to be. How did it all kind of come to this at once? Was this an intentional plan where you just very prolific, like meet the right people work with the right team? Like how did this all kind of lead to this moment?

2:50 little luna I had a strike of genius Yeah, and I wrote just a a bit. small album in one night um no I but I basically quit my jobs five years ago and started making music and taking it seriously in that like I really want this to be my full-time career and

3:04 little luna Yeah. disclaimer we're five years in and I still pay for my art through side jobs but the art is starting to make money now and I can see like the light at the end of the tunnel I say that just because I really want it to be my full-time career not that there's anything wrong with making music and having other jobs but I would love to be able to focus all of my concentration into art live shows meeting people having the human connection um so for me

3:29 little luna These last five years, I have been writing and releasing, writing and releasing pretty much nonstop. I've taken no real breaks and I haven't felt like I needed to. And so last year I just was. I mean, I have since the beginning, but really trying to write the music that's the most honest to me. And last year, I just had a really lead foot on the pedal and wrote as much as I could,

3:53 little luna Mm knowing -hmm. that I wanted to set myself up for this going into this year 2026, being able to release more so than the dance of write and release and write and release, but just to be able to do it like, you know, not everything is different now.

4:09 little luna nowadays but um that is one strategy that is how it used to be done where you would write it and then you would release it and I haven't got to experience that yet um so that it wasn't the album the EP was made over um the course of last year but I had a feeling when I was in the studio

4:29 little luna I had a feeling when I'd make a song and be like, this is going to be a contender or

4:33 little luna Yes. this is going to be a contender, but I'm glad we wrote, you know, this song today. I didn't set out to write an EP with a group of people. That's my next step that I would love to do down the road. I was writing with intention all year of knowing that I would like to spend this year releasing and being in the release market versus trying to do. the dance of both at the same time oh

4:57 little luna Yeah, that's really interesting. I think that is one of the hardest things for artists, especially now, is all the different hats you have to wear, all the different skills you have to have. You have so many different jobs. It's a sick hat, by the way.

5:11 little luna thank you so much wow it's vintage so is my my shirt you can't see my shorts but they're made out of towels from the 70s not my hat this isn't that old because it's like 2000s but I digress yes it's

5:21 little luna it is we do wear so many different hats and I think there's the pros and the cons to it right because in the past maybe we didn't wear so many hats but you really had a smaller point of entry to even be able to get your music out into the world now we have an entry point where anyone can release music at any time so then you're wearing all the hats of like okay so if I can just release my music at any time then I don't need to wait for a label I don't need to wait for a yes I can

5:47 little luna I can do it all myself or, you know, with a small team around you. Mm And -hmm. there is a lot of freedom in that, even though there is all equally just as much competition because,

6:00 little luna Yeah. or not even competition is the word, just like pool, just pool of options. There's just that many more options because I really don't view it like a competition.

6:12 little luna Hmm But more so, you know, I think, I don't know what the number is. 17,000 songs released today or something who

6:21 little luna Yeah, knows what the pool of people being able to find you to decide if they even like your music or not is so vast but that does come with the freedom of not having to wait for a label or someone to say yes for you to be able to make music

6:36 little luna yeah. And it is also something where if you're able to accumulate a lot of different skills, you can separate yourself from that pool a

6:46 little luna Mm little bit like -hmm. Mm-hmm.

6:47 Luke F. Walton like maybe could you tell me a little bit about your recording process and kind of how you go about that

6:52 little luna Sure. Well, I don't play any instruments yet. My barrier to entry was getting out of my own way and just allowing myself to sing and write.

7:02 little luna Yes. So although I'm excited to hone my guitar skills down the road, and I've tried a little bit of bass,

7:07 little luna Sweet. for me, what I can bring to the table currently is the writing and the singing and the songwriting.

7:13 little luna Yeah. So for me to have a song come out, I am heavily reliant and in partnership with who I've whoever the producer is,

7:20 little luna Mm whoever -hmm. the mixing engineer is and whoever the mastering engineer is. And then Well, you asked me recording, so I won't get into what happens after recording.

7:29 little luna I But so want to know too, for but the recording process, I write two different ways.

7:33 little luna yeah, One way is I will just be going about my daily life and I'll hear a little melody or a little tune.

7:41 little luna yeah, I'll pop it into my voice memos and I will save it for the next time I'm in the studio.

7:44 Luke F. Walton cool.

7:45 little luna The other is I go into the studio with I do quite a bit of meditation. I've taught yoga and meditation for the last.

7:52 little luna glass decade so I that's kind of heavily involved in my creative flow I guess you could say I Yeah.

7:58 little luna don't meditate all the time but often when I am in meditation different lyrics or just titles or concepts will come to me so I either go into the studio with the words or I go in with a melody idea and then if I have a co-writer in with me that day and the producer I'll normally just pitch an idea of each and be like does this does this resonate with anybody else today because I love to follow that creative flow although

8:26 Luke F. Walton Cool.

8:26 little luna it will end up being my song we're still making it together we're having this you know creative exchange so it's funny normally when I pitch like oh here's this little melody or here are these words or here's this title there is normally one that the room gravitate towards and then I just go with that energy 100

8:46 little luna Yeah, that's really interesting too. And you're leaving the door open then for their energy for their passion.

8:51 little luna % because if I could if I could and wanted to do it without them then I would just do that but I don't I don't want to create art that way I enjoy the human process of it and I also think that As anyone who is an artist or creative person in any field, I feel like you can only see so far beyond like

9:09 Luke F. Walton Totally.

9:09 little luna your own scope. For sure. So I enjoy having the, you know, multi perspective in the room when, you know, writing a new song.

9:18 little luna Yeah.

9:18 Luke F. Walton What do you look for in a collaborator?

9:20 little luna I mean, to be honest with you, I haven't been making music that long. So what I was first looking for was just anyone who would want to write with me.

9:26 little luna Yeah. What I look for now, I'm going to be honest, it's been, I feel very proud. No one's asked me this, but I feel very proud to sit here and say that now that it has been these five years, I do kind of know what I'm looking for when I write with someone new. And my whole thing is, is if I'm in a writing phase or time season. I'm

9:46 little luna Yeah. really down to write with anyone that is like recommended to me through Yeah,

9:50 little luna someone yeah. because you just never know if you're gonna it doesn't matter what they've written you just never know if you're gonna click and what you're gonna make outside of that like first initial meet um for me what I look for in a collaborator is someone that hears me out I hate to be so stereotypical but like with different producers that I've been in

10:11 little luna they have happened to be male the ones that this has happened with where I just feel like I am not seen or heard and that like that's if we're in the session for my own music that is an energy I will absolutely not be participating in like that's you know I don't want to be like the flight of a woman but like if I'm gonna be in the room making art like I'm not gonna have you just bulldoze me absolutely not

10:36 little luna not so I mean I would just say who my favorite collaborators are ones who are not afraid to challenge my idea challenge my melody but like are hearing me seeing me and we are in you know we're in the moment together versus just what they think would be strongest or maybe you know because I don't play an instrument or have any knowledge of music theory whatsoever they're like oh this is technically this or we could you know whatever it might be

11:00 little luna If I don't feel like we're hearing each other, it's like I'm not going to work with that person again because I just don't need to. I'm funding all of this myself, so I don't have to do that.

11:13 little luna Don't that's I think that's a really big thing to to share with people because it's you're not alone I have worked with a lot of like young women who have

11:23 little luna collaborated with me and told me like hey so i've hated every song i've ever released because it's been some guy that made me sing those lyrics or was like you're gonna do an independent woman song now or you're gonna do a love is a game song now just these like tropes

11:37 little luna right they just kind of get yeah exactly exactly and so it's funny it's like unfortunate that you're like oh what do i look for in a co-writer and my answer is like i look for not this and everything else pretty much goes but that's

11:49 little luna Yeah, Well, it is kind of that at this point in time, but I feel lucky to have had enough sessions now that I know like, oh, there's people out there that we're going to just get each other better and I can prioritize sessions with those people.

12:01 little luna for sure. And like making making music, especially when you're writing music. It is vulnerable. It requires some level of failure and jokes and like you're not just going to be like, here's the song. It's going to be a windy, weird path and you might fall off the cliff and start a new song.

12:21 little luna absolutely and so it's that's what it's there's no problem for me being challenged or like well what about this or Yeah, what about this but like at the end of the day I want to make sure I'm leaving that room feeling like my ideas were at least seen and heard even if we end up not going with any of them because we've through my pitch we found something better like I'm all for that whatever is going to serve the song the best but yeah it's been interesting to

12:46 little luna have now been in enough sessions to be like okay I'm

12:49 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

12:50 little luna this is good who I'm gonna you know look for and work with again and these people not so much 100

12:56 little luna oh I but I also think that so much of what taste in artistry really is is not necessarily a positive thing a lot of it is kind of a negative thing of like I don't want to do that I don't want to write songs like that I don't want to sound like not to say you hate xyz artist but you're like that is not me and

13:12 little luna % you might not be if so and so and so and so had a baby you get me it's like okay yeah baby but I think it's a lot easier to be like yeah I don't do that that i don't like that that doesn't vibe with me and that kind of constructs your identity or whatever no

13:26 little luna Absolutely. And it has truly nothing to do with liking that artist or not. no It's just with a unlimited amount of options of how a song could sound or what it could feel like, then are actually, like you said, just as powerful as the essence. Because the nose.

14:03 little luna guys you know what that's just how i fucking sing it's Yeah, oh sorry it's worried.

14:06 little luna i'm sorry i apologize Don't worry. i'm like put the little example um i'm like that's just how i sing and now there's there's moments where i'm like oh i hear what you know the vocal producer engineer is saying that it might land more if i pull back on the vibrato here or something but the overall is like my vibrato is staying and that's something i found from people being like hey can you not do

14:29 little luna not do that and then me being like wait I think this is actually my this is my voice though and

14:35 little luna yeah yep so I don't want to do it like that female artist or like how she sounds that's her thing I want to sound how I sound

14:42 little luna and you have to sing it live like you have to sell it then like 100% 100% it'd be different if you were pitching the song to somebody then you can kind of take yourself out of it but it's like you're the artist

14:54 little luna Yes. And I also think too, let's say that I had a bunch of vocal training and for so many vocalists that I know, that's actually a really fun thing. Put on some vibrato here, take it off here, sing it straight here. That's not my world or realm. So that.

15:13 little luna anytime I dive too much into changing it it just feels like not me and not what I have to bring to the table or to the song

15:20 little luna exactly exactly and it is interesting though i think that that is a fork between two different types of artists where there are some artists and these are usually the ones that have a lot of like imposter syndrome or like they're the chameleons and it's a really i'm sometimes very very jealous of them because they can kind of like

15:39 little luna like do a bunch of different genres sing a bunch of different ways can place their voice in a bunch of cool different areas but then you'll watch as they kind of drift and they have less of a north star then you have on the way other end that it's like this is me and i fall closer on that end of the spectrum maybe not all the way um But it's harder to take your musical DNA,

16:00 little luna your fingerprint out of a song, even if maybe the song wants to or maybe like the commercial environment wants you to.

16:08 little luna Yes. And how I feel about it is I have. been fortunate enough so far to have some sink placements and have some sink cuts. And so if I need to remove myself a bit from it, I will because I'm still in the world of working other jobs to pay for my

16:27 little luna Yes, art. So pulling yes, myself out of a sink song to make money from music, my goal, that's fine for me. But that's also just the place that I'm at in my path right now, you know, that could change in the future.

16:39 little luna Yeah, so what is what is sync music just in case somebody hears you say that word and they're like

16:43 little luna Yes, yes. Sync music, to my understanding, and actually is why I'm passionate about it, is the music that gets placed behind the scene of a commercial, a TV show scene, a film. I am I get actually like quite passionate about it because

17:02 little luna Yeah. I my background was I was a child actor so I spent a lot of my life in the front facing in front of the camera tv side of things and then in post-production is when they would always put whatever music was going in behind and

17:17 little luna Yeah. the music as an actor the music that is there accompanying you I mean it could make or break the scene you could have the most emotional scene you have the wrong song song it will be the cheesiest scene and it won't land at all

17:29 little luna Yeah, also like so it says. you can have like Kind of like a mediocre take, but put just the best song behind it and you feel it as an audience member when you're watching the show or the movie. And so to me, a visual of what you see, whether there's actors or not, and the music of what you hear is everything and I can nerd out about it all day.

17:50 little luna And so as an independent artist, for me, getting sync placements, meaning one of the songs that I've written has... The opportunity to be in a commercial TV show or movie has been placed by different companies that work with independent, unpublished artists. I don't currently have a publishing deal and so far I've actually really enjoyed being like fully independent.

18:12 little luna But so, yeah, for anyone listening that's like, what is sync? It's just your song getting placed in some piece of visual material and getting paid for it. Sometimes like $250.

18:24 little luna and sometimes a ton of money I would love for a ton of money to come in but I have yeah I've had some good placements so far and yeah I think that it's just up to the artist how far they want to dip their toes into making a song that could sound good for a commercial and

18:44 little luna Yeah. is nothing that they would make I try to do a hybrid where I'm like Because it is in, I think as an independent artist, it is in my best interest to release the song or promote the song if it gets placed in a TV

18:58 little luna Yeah. show commercial or movie because Right. it's all signed to my music. Yeah.

19:01 little luna So if what I'm making sounds way too far away from my artistry, then when it gets placed in something, I'm probably not going to promote it because I don't, I'm like this doesn't relate to my artistry. That's just my own personal. little take on it

19:16 little luna Makes so sense. whenever I'm making music quote-unquote for sync I really am trying to just make it as little Luna for myself but maybe have it not be so poetic you could say Sure. I feel like my lyrics

19:29 little luna Yeah. of my songs are sometimes a little bit more poetic like I said I do a lot of meditation they can be more hippie dippy and yeah but then at the same time you know thinking to the catalog of every film and tv show you've ever seen if it's a great song it'll probably land a placement no matter what the lyrics are so there's a there's a balance between are you doing are you like I'm really going after sync and I'm going to try to use you

19:53 little luna use the quote-unquote sync formula or are you making your own music that you think could like tick some of the boxes that a sync supervisor might be looking for right

20:01 little luna For sure for sure and it is interesting too because there are those different types of syncs you have some people that are really just looking for a great song great vibe Then other ones that are kind of looking for a specific set of lyrical themes or a certain kind of hook That's like I don't know give this

20:16 little luna and to me sometimes it's not it's not even for even like a negative reason and No.

20:20 little luna sometimes it's fun to see and if Yeah. the actors are talking like you can't be wailing in the background like like you're saying something super fast it's like the actors are talking so it's you know it doesn't have to be for a negative reason but I do think that anyone newer to the industry entering into sync I think it's important to just have your own goal with it what's your goal and then you can go forth like from that place

20:43 little luna Really good advice. Really good advice. Because I think that everybody sees. sees this naturally as they should as like the industry's lotto ticket outside of a record deal you could make that big money that could pay for your rent for years i'd also think that anything like that you can accidentally lose yourself in because it's so big and it's so attractive and it depends on what your goals are maybe that is your goal

21:04 little luna Right. It's like if your goal is just making money for music, then it would probably behoove you to study your favorite sync supervisor. advisors and try to make stuff that you feel like they're placing but even that it's like everything is always changing

21:20 little luna so Okay. I don't even it's like it really is kind of like a lotto ticket for those very high number placements um and then the rest of it is just kind of nice little oh cool you know 250 bucks or oh cool like a couple grand you

21:36 little luna Yeah. know um but I think it is more of like a lotto ticket for the the big, big placements.

21:42 little luna Right, totally. And also that distribution side, like that's one of the hardest things, especially today where, yeah, there are more music fans with more access to music, but the distribution of music has gotten so splintered. Even Spotify playlists don't quite get the lift that they used to give.

21:58 little luna So it's kind of hard to find like what, what will actually bring you an audience and expose you to the number of people that some percentage of them will like it. Some percentage. Some percentage will love it, some percentage of them will come to shows, and

22:10 little luna You you kind of need to hit a certain scale just to get to that smaller number, just like math.

22:16 little luna Yep. It is like math and math is my least favorite subject. Yeah, right, But

22:20 Luke F. Walton exactly.

22:20 little luna when it becomes important, I think it just goes back to what are your goals as an artist? Because whether you talk to a label, an A&R, a YouTuber, someone viral on TikTok, someone not viral, like everyone is going to have their different crash course of how you can reach all of your fans.

22:40 little luna And I I think that there's honestly assemblies of truth in all of their strategies because it has worked for them some way in shape and how. But I think taking the wide, okay, here's what has worked for other people and then trying to find your own stamp on it is what is infuriating about participating in the music industry in 2026 and

23:05 little luna Yeah equally like I kind of said at the top. of us talking is freeing as well because you do get to just keep trying different strategies

23:14 little luna so true and at the same time you have enough autonomy and ability to set your own schedule and your own release schedule that you can nobody's dictating these things to you so you can sometimes you can get ahead of a curve or you can find a new distribution thing or find new ways to find fans that somebody that was just following

23:35 little luna roadmaps or following what worked for another artist that sounds somewhat similar to them i'm i'm always kind of thinking that there's there are a lot of ways up the mountaintop and it's very rare to follow the exact same path maybe the exact same time like like if you're in a musical scene maybe everybody can kind of follow a certain type of road map but

23:58 little luna Yeah. One thing about me is I unfortunately believe that there's room for everybody at the table.

24:03 little luna Yeah. And I don't mean that in like you can make a shit song with pseudo sorry, and maybe that will take you up to the mountaintop. And when you're there, like the song that's being played with the other songs in the mountaintop, it's like it's all art. So it's all perspective of whether it's like good or not.

24:23 little luna But I really do think if it is is a song from you know your truest self with even if you were making it as like a joke you're just having fun like whatever it is but like you organically made it I believe there is a seat for it at the table meaning there is a listener for you out there I

24:38 little luna I agree. I mean I agree. it doesn't mean that it's going to be in the if we all collectively agreed as humans as what what are the greatest 1000 songs of all time like it doesn't mean that it's going to be in that but it could be somebody who is living and breathing in this timeline it could be their favorite song and

24:53 little luna Yeah, they might run it up a million times and you know send it to all their friends so I just think that there's room for everybody at the table yeah

25:01 little luna I agree. I agree. I think but I think you can believe that and also believe what you said at the same time of there is such a thing as bad music, like there is good music and there is bad music. I'm sorry, that is kind of a hot take, though. But

25:14 little luna yeah and that's what I was saying it's like I Ha, ha, ha, really do think art is so subjective but I do think we could probably all collectively agree there's some line in there somewhere and I'm not saying it just has to be done by Suno but there's some line in there where we could all collectively be like that's not a good song you know but I think even I think that though is more often.

25:41 little luna rarer than a song that's like oh yeah like cool or oh my gosh I love this I think it's I think it's a smaller pool that's like just crap

25:52 Luke F. Walton Sorry to interrupt this very important broadcast. What I'm asking for is for you to rate it five stars, share it with your friends. This is like the most important thing for this podcast to grow. So if you want to do this, you go into the podcast screen, right? You click on the dot dot dot on Spotify. Under there, it says rate show.

26:08 Luke F. Walton And you go and you click it five stars. If you could do that for me, that's the best way for the algorithms, all this stuff to share it out with the world.

26:14 Luke F. Walton I know that it's a lot to ask, but if you could please, please, please, just please just hit those three dots and then a five star would really help us out and helps us, you know, get the get the word out and spread the love of music. So thank you. If you're listening on YouTube, you know what to do. Like, subscribe, all that good stuff. Thank you so much. And here's the rest of the episode. Yeah,

26:32 little luna from an audience member sure, i think as an artist sure, probably sure. what most of what you make you're like this is trash but i mean from an audience member perspective like collectively agreeing like This ain't it, you know?

26:45 little luna yeah and i don't know this this is like such a rabbit hole of a conversation but i do think that there is an element of there might be commercial success and there might be artistic aesthetic success and like the commercial one is certainly subjective but a really good well-crafted song

27:05 little luna I would actually say that there's some objective reality there of the people that have done it, people that have studied it should have a little bit more say than the people that are just enjoying it in terms of people,

27:18 little luna you know, there's like, there's like, I feel like when you hang out with musicians, there are certain when you find those overlaps and then everybody starts to kind of find those overlaps, you're like, okay, no, that that's it. that's

27:28 little luna Mm the hmm. real that's the real stuff to to put into the canon to to say is aesthetically yeah

27:33 little luna Yeah, something to strive for yeah

27:35 Luke F. Walton totally,

27:36 little luna which I do agree with you, but then I think and we can get out of this rabbit hole anytime.

27:40 little luna it's cool i'm enjoying it In that, in that same regard, though. do you know is your goal to make music as a hobby or is it as a career because if you do want it to be a career there is that pulse track of what is the how is the audience responding to this song and

28:00 little luna For sure. so you could have a kind of trash song but somehow with like the right marketing or the right visual or the right hook around I don't mean like I don't mean melodic hook I mean like TikTok has cook,

28:14 little luna Yeah. that it could end up. you know being massive even though it's kind of a trash song because if the audience like thought it was funny or like I don't know there's something about it that just like got people then it's it's really up to them to decide I guess is what I'm saying whereas as artists we could all you know sit around in a room and decide what we think is like really it and if we want to do that as a hobby I think that that is

28:43 little luna why not but if you are hoping to have the career from the audience feed you it's I do think that they decide like what what they think is good or not and

28:56 little luna For sure and what I'm saying is I think that there are two realities that can coexist and in the best artists they do

29:02 little luna you know what that's what I say about all of life everybody Yeah, cool. everything

29:04 little luna Yeah is duality nothing is black and white it's kind of like your mountaintop analogy of how to be a successful artist like I don't know maybe when I'm on the top of the mountain I'll have some other thoughts to share but until then it's like there's just not one way nothing is black or what black or white and it's just not um yeah it's not linear in that

29:24 Luke F. Walton totally

29:24 little luna way 100 and i totally agree and i think that the difference though that i i'm trying to say is that just because it's not black or white doesn't mean that black and white don't exist still and

29:32 little luna 100 yeah the best stuff is both somehow like it's like it's quantum it's what if it involves worlds but like yeah if you can make a really a really well-crafted fun and catchy and funny song all at the same time It's like that's that's some peak music to me like if you could do both it's

29:52 little luna Yeah. like Yeah. Come on. And there is something to be said, too, for studying like the greats, right,

29:59 little luna Yeah, that have come of before course. us and looking at why their records did what they did. And they're usually great records.

30:05 Luke F. Walton Totally.

30:05 little luna And by greats, I include like Captain Beefheart, you know, like I include some like weird stuff in there that are not commercial greats, but boy, do they mark like a fork in the road of what Sonic stuff. Stuff can be.

30:20 little luna Yes, I so hear you on that. And I think that we're both saying the same thing here

30:25 little luna Yeah, I think where so. it's just not. It's not black and white, but there are some defining markers from the perspective of an audience or an artist of like, oh, yeah, this this is an awesome piece of art that was made.

30:41 Luke F. Walton Totally.

30:41 little luna Well, like, you cannot like Prince or you cannot like D'Angelo or you cannot like Chuck Berry or like whatever, doesn't matter. But music is not the same after each of them.

30:52 little luna Yes. all music it changes Period. you cannot like the beatles Yes. that's fine you could just not listen to the beatles but like you should study the beatles a little bit because

31:00 little luna sure it's the water it's the air that we breathe is defined by the beatles and you should at least know it and even if you know it just to push off from it like we were saying at the very beginning of the nose like hey i hate the beatles i don't want to sound like the beatles and that might be exactly what music needs to go to the next phase is somebody like you

31:19 little luna right right yeah i you're you're definitely onto something there but but there Oh,

31:24 little luna are yeah. significant artists there Yep. are significant artists and also just timelines like

31:30 little luna Yeah. Yeah. again but timelines on planet earth in which artists made exactly what was needed for that timeline i'm also a big proponent of just sometimes you're you know pulling down a creative thought and you're making it and you're doing it justice but this just isn't like like the timeline for it.

31:49 little luna sure yeah i totally get it no it's good i i really believe in the whole like artist with the antenna up like that's why my brain lit up when you're talking about the voice memos that's what the best songwriters do is they are not just writing the song when they're at the desk or in the studio they're just collecting information and trying to be part of their society and the crazy world and unplugging from it like like meditation but the people that can do

32:13 little luna They can do both. They can channel interesting melodies and interesting lyrics and topics and stuff that other people haven't

32:19 little luna Yeah, made. and that is, you know, thank you for that compliment, because I will say there, there also is something to be said for.

32:29 little luna when I started making music I didn't look up how other people made music and I think that that has pros and cons right

32:37 little luna Yeah, because there definitely. are the greats that I could probably learn some really great things from but at least starting out I didn't go in like I don't I don't know like you just made that observation like I didn't know that many other like artists are hearing things and putting them in their voice memos like

32:54 little luna like that's just how I figured out how to write a song so I think there's something to be said too for knowing the history of what has come before you and also just kind of trusting your instinct of how your own creative process versus like well the greats do it this way so I should do it that way like maybe maybe that's not the way your antenna is going to work

33:16 little luna Exactly. Exactly. And also my way of doing stuff, I get inspired by like learning songs, listening to songs, studying history or recording process like those the great stuff does inspire me, but it usually does in a weird way of like learning that Paul McCartney would often record his bass last.

33:34 little luna and i was like how fun is that doing it stealing that gonna try it on this next record and i pretty much do that most of the time now because it's so fun um and

33:43 little luna awesome it's i so awesome wouldn't have had that idea i just wouldn't like why would you do that it's silly um yeah

33:50 little luna he i mean i don't know but he probably did that because i don't know that's just the way that he liked to do it or he heard some other person do it so it still goes back

34:00 little luna back to like okay you got that idea from him but he might have pulled that down himself he wasn't at right at the time when people are like coming down the baseline like that they were not doing it last but that was just the way he liked to do it so it's like still having that like organic original thought at some point in the line

34:17 little luna Yeah, for sure. I mean, in the same, doesn't no. really make sense in the order of operations like in the in the math of a song the structure it's like huh What

34:25 little luna yeah do you mean playing the bass line? yeah exactly but like like another example is i love doing stuff with melodyne that is off-label usage like not necessarily the stuff that they designed melodyne to do but i learned it by reading the manual and like watching tutorials and stuff like that and then being like what if i put that on something very wrong and now i do like a bunch of effects and sound design whatever because he'd reach in and you can turn up and down the harmonic series and

34:51 little luna and do all Yeah. sorts of crazy stuff in there and i'm uh i'm obsessed with it but like i like to think that that was somewhat my original idea but it was rooted in okay i'm gonna deep dive on something i'm gonna learn a lot about it and then maybe out the other side i'll be like oh no no i can put this where it's not supposed to be

35:06 little luna Wait, but there is to like, yes and you, I don't know where I've heard this. I just like I've heard this throughout my whole life, but it's like, if you do know the rules. or the boundaries of how something works and also like

35:21 little luna yeah you like you're using it for the wrong reason or yeah something i don't know how it works so then you're like oh okay i see how that would work and i could use that for this vocal but actually i'm going to use it for this other you know instrument or effect instead so

35:34 little luna and like you could yes get the deep dive and you didn't like you knew the history you knew how to work it

35:39 little luna yes and like also then the antenna side so like i Say, for example, being in an environment that is not.

35:45 little luna technically pitched but like say it's like a bunch of kids running around and there's birds and there's traffic noise you record that on your voice note you throw it into melody now you can pitch it you can turn it into instrument now you can play it on a keyboard and it is quasi pitched it lives in between the world of the ambient and like hi-fi recording studio i love that shit yeah

36:05 little luna That's so cool. You're like getting me excited. This you should is awesome. do it i want everybody to do this this is this is like the thing that i want to contribute like paul mccartney paul mccartney taught me the bass thing i want everybody to do this stuff because it's so cool i love listening to it i want to hear other that people's

36:17 little luna can be yours like exactly that can be snoops uh conversation just like scoops special sauce

36:23 little luna yeah exactly so i'm i'm really curious about that moment five years ago where you decided i'm diving in was there anything going on in your life was there something that was super exciting in music how did that Transition.

36:37 Luke F. Walton Was it a dimmer? Was it a light switch?

36:39 little luna It was a dimmer over years and then eventually just a point of me being like, I. part of how my brain operates is I need to quit the other things around to

36:54 little luna Yeah. allow myself to go 100% into this and I think because for most of my life I had been 100% into acting I was like I cannot do both and so for me like it was it's it's not like I had some like big crazy acting career but I just I had to like

37:13 little luna like to myself be like I am no longer this and instead of going to auditions during the week I'm going to set up producer sessions and also for me just the logistics of it if you are are a working or continually auditioning actor a lot of the times the 24 to 48 hours before sessions are normally set you know at least a week in advance unless it's like your homie and you're just like kikiing it's like

37:38 little luna like it's on the calendar it's set so

37:40 Luke F. Walton Mm

37:40 little luna i was like there's no way that i am at this point in my career right not uber successful actor not uber successful musician i have to either be available to show up when i get the audition or my agents are gonna be pissed or i have to be able to show up to the studio or the producers are gonna be pissed and they're not gonna work with me especially when i'm coming in with really no music to my name

38:04 little luna Yeah. um I think that when you have an established career in either one then you can totally do both but in the making of it I was like this needs to be 100% and it sounds cheesy but like as an artist as like a conduit I was tired of seeing other people's lines for

38:19 Luke F. Walton Ooh.

38:20 little luna you Yeah, know and yeah. I want to write my own and it is as cheesy as it sounds and so yeah I but when I say it was a dimmer it's because I had I had made a few demos with friends here and there, and I had very specifically set what my name would be, what I wanted the first color palette to be like, what I wanted the visuals to be like,

38:39 little luna and a friend of mine at the time who is now still my creative manager to this day who I knew could help me. trying to get going and know what direction is you know what's

38:51 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

38:51 little luna left and what's right as far as just the stepping stones of like i don't know how do you get a session and that and then what do you do at that session and then like oh i don't want this session so it was a dimmer over a few years and then a full stop of like okay it's it's time now and so october of of 2020 is when I released my first song.

39:15 little luna I want to talk about the visuals too. Color palette, understanding your artistic identity and approaching it from the very beginning knowing that musical like artistry is a visual medium as well.

39:26 Luke F. Walton How do you go about that? How do you find inspirations? Is it a similar thing? Do you have like a Pinterest board or like screenshots or like how do you do this?

39:32 little luna I'm so obsessed with the visuals and that side of it. I think it's partly because of of my background of the acting visuals side of it and I went into it at first when my dimmer was dimming you know that was the in general those were the years like 20 16 to 20 20 right

39:52 little luna Yeah, and so I would so into electronic music I thought at first I was going to be a future bass artist which is hilarious now because I don't produce and I don't play any instruments and I now that I know my voice and how I write like top lining for an electronic track

40:12 little luna not my strong suit I can do it I can do it but others can do it way better absolutely um and that like I'm I'm fine with you know establishing that but the hybrid that I ended up kind of finding for those first few songs were indie pop alt pop where

40:33 little luna Mm the pop -hmm. pop part pulled from more of the electronic space and then the indie part pulled from what I realized of how I write songs kind of based on like poems and like poetry and the visuals for those were dark blues dark greens some reds very leaning into the night time of like my name little Little Luna very like moon you know lit up in the sky at night about

41:03 little luna Yeah. three songs in I was having a ton of sections and really just doing a lot of work in myself. And when I was growing up, my parents, they played everything, but they primarily played music from the 60s and 70s. And I just kind of found myself, I think in maybe like 2022, 2021, 2022 of really being drawn to the aesthetic of the late 60s and the early 70s.

41:48 little luna I understand that for a lot of musicians, it actually is a role in a performance and that's like fun for them and partly how they separate their music life and like every other time that you're not on stage or not in an interview for me, I'm doing it backwards. I'm like no more roles.

42:03 little luna I want to fully embody like is my birth name little Luna now, but like I want to fully embody whatever I'm making needs to be genuine to.

42:13 little luna how I'm operating like on this planet and like in day-to-day life so really just the aesthetic of the late 60s early 70s spoke to me started doing more like thrifting and like vintage shopping and liked how the clothes were on me enjoyed the the songs and the production of that time everything just kind of snowballed from there to visuals turning more oranges yellows sunshiny

42:38 little luna kind of even if it's not like a joyous song or a happy song the visuals all feel like daylight now like they started in nighttime and now they've moved on to daytime and you know I don't know where it will be for forever but this all still I'm like what are we in 2026 so you know it's it is almost like four years later and it still feels very genuine to me which is all that matters to me i

43:06 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

43:07 little luna hope

43:07 Luke F. Walton yeah

43:07 little luna i hope you know it's like if if some of the fan base is like very locked into how things are i hope that one day we could all just have like open hands and see where it goes next but this you know this still feels genuine to me at this point and the visuals are

43:22 little luna I guess you could say like my like looking through my own lens of what I interpret the late 60s and early 70s as for like color palettes and tone and film and I shoot a lot on film so all of it kind of ties together.

43:38 Luke F. Walton Well, that's beautiful too. And I think that The whole artist as a lens is one of my favorite ways to think about it from a sonic perspective too is like if I'm working for an artist I'm not making my own stuff I'm producing or engineering or whatever I'm trying to figure out what is their palette where are they drawing influence from but not just

43:58 Luke F. Walton to put on the costume of that time be like okay i'll like reach for only plugins that are emulations of the 60s and 70s but

44:04 little luna Wow!

44:04 Luke F. Walton to be like yo what are they going for though what is how are what is their vision of that like volfek is a really cool example i think for me because they don't sound like they they use the same ish notes and the same ish instruments but they don't sound like that they're like heavily compressed they're doing all these different things and it's like a like

44:22 Luke F. Walton a dream version like the version of that song you would have in a dream is that band and i think it's cool license to say okay yeah i'm rooted in this i'm inspired by this but i am the filter i am the lens

44:34 little luna Yes, I got to collaborate actually with Jacob Jeffries who does a lot of collaborating with yeah with Volfak and I think that there is something to giving the audience the world to dive into.

44:45 little luna So whether your lens is pulling from a different decades sonically or visually or you know whatever it is it's like it is world building it is story building and I think that that's part of the responsibilities an artist if you would like to perform live and you want to be out there live is

45:03 little luna having that through line of that lens and how you know you perceive it and for me it's like you could probably ask a majority of my fan base like if they think my music sounds like it's from the 70s and they'd probably say no which is that's great because I'm not trying to pretend like I'm in that era but I am taking my favorite things from it and then like bringing it into 2026

45:28 Luke F. Walton Cool.

45:29 Luke F. Walton What was your first live show as little luna?

45:31 little luna Oh my gosh, this is kind of a funny rabbit hole itself. I'll keep it short though. First show, I want to say it was in 2021. So like a year after releasing music, when I play live, I prefer to play with a full girl band, depending

45:46 Luke F. Walton Cool.

45:46 little luna on the live setup. Yeah. Sometimes, you know, there's a lot of budget to have the whole band. So then it'll be like me with tracks or me with one of my favorite guitarists. His name is Luke Villegas and he's amazing. And so sometimes I'll do just Luke and I, sometimes the full girl band, sometimes just me.

45:59 little luna of just working with the opportunities that are around um but the very first show I was like we have to do the first show to set the tone how

46:07 little luna Yeah, I want the rest of my life to be uh and -huh I had the full girl band and we were opening for an LA based band called LAXs uh this like random warehouse venue on the east side that I don't even know if it still exists it

46:21 Luke F. Walton Cool.

46:21 little luna was called office space um but I treated it fully like it was you would have thought I was playing Madison Square Garden Yeah.

46:28 little luna because that's if I'm in it I'm in it a hundred percent and I'm really proud of that first show and then the months later the second and third shows I ever did were opening for Five Seconds of Summer at the Palladium two nights sold out 5,000 people a night so I really feel like because I did that first show like I was like playing to Madison Square Garden when I got the opportunity to open for them I wasn't like

46:56 little luna No, I can't think of like I, you know,

46:59 Luke F. Walton Totally.

46:59 little luna I was like, I've played one live show, but damn it, I'm going to be there and I'm going to give it my all. And so I'm really glad that I played that show on the east side in the random venue because it gave me that one practice for being in like a legit venue with legit sound system and the bands that I opened for and played with at that very first show. they were all legit you know it's

47:22 little luna yeah just the going from if I would have played no shows to playing on the Palladium stage it's just like I would have said yes and figured it out but I mean I'm glad I got to have that first one

47:33 little luna what does rehearsal look like like obviously that's pretty high stress situations you want to be rehearsed how do you go about it how do you structure it were you playing with a band like what that look like

47:42 little luna you know it's so funny Yeah. it is all my music videos and my rehearsals for shows when i can remember i make everyone like take a breath together and like let's have everything like set up like cameras set up for music video or rehearsal space all the gear is set up i make everyone like breathe together and ground down because it's like this is a beautiful gift that that's what we get to do with our day and and hopefully as careers and it is

48:07 little luna is serious and it's also not that serious at the same time and so there's just no need to be stressed the fuck out and upset with each other and like yelling and none of that there's just no need for it in my perspective so rehearsals look like me hiring an MD it's usually Antoine Fadavi he does an incredible job and has kind of worked with me from the beginning him and Carter Vaughn both of them

48:33 little luna did my very first show at Office Space and then helped me prep for the Five Sauce shows and they never made me feel like I was just a girl that didn't know what I was doing and I was a hundred percent a girl who did not know what she was doing and they never made me feel that way and they they knew that I would have creative vision coming in and then they just helped me bring it to life which I kind of think is the marker of a great MD not to be biased on my own but I would rent out

49:00 little luna like a space in in Burbank and we go in you know all the gear gets set up and we normally will start with just like breaking down and going through some of the songs and then as soon as everyone roughly has the songs then we're just running the whole set and we're doing laps in the whole set I think anytime that you're on stage and you have a microphone it's important to be intentional with whatever you say in between the songs I think it's so cool that some artists like just I don't know do whatever with that time I'm like that's just so

49:34 little luna just so cool of you I am not that I'm like this is I this is like such an honor to have people's attention especially if I'm the opener they're not here for me for the most part so I am going to make sure whatever I say in between those songs it is whatever message I would like to bring to the world like I see it as like these are my very few minutes to get to tell people who I am and give them a chance to decide if they like my music

49:59 little luna sick or not and so for me I like at rehearsals I do like running the full set so that I kind of have my bearings of like when we have the you know the breaks and when I'll have an opportunity to be like chatting or not so I like to do I really just like to like get the reps in

50:15 little luna And that's super smart because I know a lot of people don't do that and they get really surprised when the gig happens that

50:24 little luna This changeover between those two songs is really long or somebody needs to fix their guitar pedals to go from this song to that song so there's this huge gap and

50:34 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

50:35 little luna that can be very uncomfortable for the audience but mostly for the performer who's having to like kill time or figure out what to do or doesn't have that planned and that can mess up the next song can throw off your vibe and yeah running that

50:48 little luna unless through is huge you also been to a wonderful concert where there's really minimal to no talking in between but then they're playing the song and the parts in between don't feel awkward like someone should be talking like they're they're intentionally maybe you know just a little

51:02 little luna just a little like a little bass line going or a little hi-hat or it's a it's a there's no music but it's intentional and I think every artist expresses themselves differently so I

51:12 little luna yeah am by no means being like that's not the way to do it but to not think about it I think is just a missed opportunity it's like you're on stage with a mic my dog like make something out of it

51:24 little luna yeah yeah exactly we're all giving you our attention You are the master of ceremonies and take us somewhere.

51:32 little luna you're right and I don't know if that's also like teaching yoga for the last decade but like I walk in to a heated room with some people who have taken my class before some people that are just doing hot yoga for the first time some people maybe who have taken it but have never taken my class and it is my job as the guide to take people through 60 minutes and try to have them

51:53 little luna the best time as possible the music should slap the flow should be awesome and we all leave feeling better so I think the live show is just very similar to how I teach my yoga classes where you know not everyone's going to like it and not everyone's going to come back but I am going to to try to guide us through this collective experience together

52:14 Luke F. Walton Do you do multiple classes a day when you teach?

52:18 little luna No, not anymore. I just have two a week at this point.

52:21 Luke F. Walton Okay.

52:21 little luna And it's really just because I love it so much. Yeah. And I

52:25 Luke F. Walton Cool.

52:25 little luna think I'll teach forever, even when, you know, one day I'm on tour full time,

52:31 little luna Yes. like I still see myself, you know. holding little class with the crew backstage or wherever we could sneak it in or doing pop-ups for fans in different cities I've lost ideas down the road of how I'd like to tie in yoga and meditation when I can no longer be in one city long enough to teach at that studio that's that's fine that sounds like a win to me but in some way shape or form I will teach until the day that I die and take class myself

53:00 little luna Well, what a cool thing for a fan to to be brought into your world It's like a pre-show VIP kind of thing and we're all gonna

53:07 little luna you're on my antenna so that's it I have a very specific what I want Be to do beautiful.

53:12 little luna one if there are like VIP tickets to be sold is yeah like we can get a picture together we can do the whole thing that's fine but I want to take everyone through a guided meditation before the show and then if it is a festival setting I feel like that's where more a yoga class could live because your average concert going goer going to somewhere in Cleveland like they're just not gonna

53:33 little luna be in yoga clothes and in that to take a class to get sweaty and then be at this I mean maybe some people will be down I don't know but for me I feel like guiding a yoga class will be tied into playing festivals and

53:44 little luna Yeah. having it be like earlier in the day at a different place on the ground on the festival grounds and then for concerts that are like in a building or non-festival I really see the VIP experience being you know taking the photo signing whatever and then doing a photo signing whatever and then doing a doing a group meditation together. That's what I want to do.

54:03 Luke F. Walton Hey, they do yoga at Red Rocks during the day. You could always lead that during the day, play the show at night.

54:10 little luna It's one of my favorite venues of all time.

54:12 Luke F. Walton Me too. It's incredible. Incredible. So Little Luna,

54:16 Luke F. Walton this show is called Love Music More and the segment is called Love Music Why.

54:21 Luke F. Walton I have one simple question for you.

54:23 little luna Okay.

54:23 Luke F. Walton Why do you love music?

54:25 little luna It's my everything, even if I don't make it, even if that changes or something, why I love music is because music is how I live life. It is ingrained in any activity, moment or soul like AIM profile like music is life but like it just is like music is life.

54:47 Luke F. Walton So well said.

54:48 Luke F. Walton So where can people get in touch? Where can they hear your music if they haven't already?

54:52 little luna Yes so my name is Little Luna some places you can type in Little Luna music to get you more directly to me but Instagram is just Little Luna Spotify Apple Music, Deezer, Pandora, all the places. And then I direct mostly all the music videos myself and they're all on YouTube. So YouTube, you can really go down a rabbit hole of the visuals of kind of what we've talked about today.

55:16 little luna Beautiful. Well, thank you so much for this conversation. I really enjoyed it. I do too. I'm so glad I finally got to meet you. So thank you for having me on.

55:23 little luna Likewise. Likewise. Until next time. Bye.