WAM Festival Artist Profile: Joni In The Moon

Answered by: Joni Hogan, lead songwriter, vocalist

Short description of your band and music: We're an experimental electro-pop band and we make music about things like asylum seekers and Western media saturation and nature and spiders.

Best WAM-related story? Um... vaguely related? I used to be in a band with Greg Sanders but I'm not really keen on having any of the more interesting stories from that time published! In general, the best story about WAM is that it exists, and everyone whom I've dealt with through WAM have always been super supportive and wanted to help us out.

What do you think separates the WA music scene apart from the rest of the country? Although I am sure thriving music communities exist elsewhere in the country, the community I experience here is so mutually supportive and kind, with so many willing to share knowledge and help one another out. Love the collaborative spirit happening at the moment in Perth too!

What WA bands are you vibing on right and why? I absolutely love Mathas, he has such a strong sense of purpose behind his lyrics/poetry and talks about all the things I feel deeply about too... he's an awesome and quirky performer too, so authentically doing his own thang. Abbe May is a fierce songwriter and is one of the most down-to-earth women I've come across in the industry so far. Her new material just gets me in the guts and she's taken me under her wing a bit lately, giving me much needed guidance and help. I sing backing vocals for her when I can and since I've been a fan of hers since The Fuzz days that's a pretty freaking great feeling. There are so many more!! Kučka, Odette Mercy, Lucy Peach, (Rachel) Claudio, too many to list!

Why should people come and see you from amongst the many cool bands at WAM? Well, we're kinda lucky that the WA Music Award goers will be forced to watch us as we're playing in the middle of the awards night! It's a real honour to be able to play at the awards and we've got a few nominations, alongside a whole swagger of our good friends and other amazing musos so it's going to be wonderful getting everyone together in the same room and having a good time. 

What's on the horizon for you? We're running a Pozible crowdfund at the moment to finish our album which we hope to release April next year, the campaign ends on 6 Nov! We're releasing our next single, Tarantella, at the end of November, with a really freaky animated music video alongside it too. We're also looking forward to playing Disconnect Festival before the year is out, but then it's heads down bums up in the studio for a while.

WAM Festival performance: 5 Nov, Jack Rabbit Slim's