On Thursday, April 9, Moon Walker performed at The Bottleneck in nearby Lawrence, Kan. This was their 16th show of the year and marked their journey back east to where the artist is based. Harry Springer, better known as Moon Walker, grew up in a suburb just south of Denver. Springer was involved with music from an early age and originally just played the guitar, with John Lennon being one of his biggest idols. His high school band played at many venues and decided to relocate to Los Angeles right before COVID-19 hit.
COVID-19 hit, and similar to all of us, Springer found his world completely changed. Without the ability to hold recording sessions or perform at live venues, Harry had to transition to something new to support himself. During this time, Springer decided to start making music for sound libraries. Sound libraries are online libraries that film producers access to find music that fits their project.
Creating music for these sound libraries made Springer move out of his comfort zone creatively and try new things. One form of music he would make was writing EPs in the style of another artist. Springer stumbled across Jack White and made an EP based on his music and after he finished he decided that, “this is sick, like there’s no chance I’m just throwing this into a pile and forgetting about it.”
Making music for the sound libraries introduced another aspect to Springer that he had previously been uncomfortable with: vocals.
“I always really cared about songwriting, and I wished I could sing them, but I just couldn’t.”
Springer struggled with vocals for a long time and said it was “a very, very slow process.” He was a gifted guitarist and writer but singing was something that he had to start from zero with and learn from the ground up. COVID-19 gave him another avenue of work which was pitch correcting. He would pitch correct other singers and YouTube shows and he developed a real talent for it. Springer decided that if he could make these shows and other singers sound good then he could surely make himself sound good enough to sing vocals on his own songs.
The combination of creating songs for sound libraries, learning new studio/recording skills, and becoming comfortable with his own vocals led to the creation of Moon Walker.
Moon Walker has intense, raw vocals that he thinks sound best for his music, “I am probably twice as close to the microphone as your average engineer would tell you that you should be,” he said. With the political commentary that he provides in his songwriting, he finds it fitting that the vocals sound angry and distorted.
“You don’t just hear a scream, you hear clipping, you hear that I’m actually maxing out the input on the microphone. I just want it to sound the way I want it to sound so that there’s no one who can mess it up, you know, so that when it gets mixed, when it gets mastered, when it’s there, it’s the way I wanted it to be.”
Moon Walker has become accustomed to other people remixing and using his music for their own creations. With over one million followers across social media his songs have become a hit on short form video platforms. His song “You’re Next” has become a top choice for anti-ICE sentiment. He really enjoys when a video or a song of his does well but his main goal is to create something that other people have a relationship with.
“When other people get inspired to make something creative with it, or apply it in some way, or use it to either to be politically engaged [or] politically active, that means a lot to me.”
Social media has vastly impacted Moon Walker’s success as an artist but his relationship with it is complicated.
Moon Walker says for outreach it’s the most important tool he has, even though he was extremely hesitant to use it in the beginning, “I am very happy to be an artist in this generation, and not a previous generation, even though it’s an extra step, I’m happy to do it.” Now artists have the ability to cut out the middle man of promotion companies and different agencies to help with outreach, which can be incredibly expensive.
For Moon Walker there is a delicate dance to balance out the use of social media, and keeping it separate from the art he creates, “the trick is trying to make it not influence what you make, or how you make it, or even really how you release it, or anything like that.” He describes using social media as the only real work for himself, “I can make music all day long and not really experience any kind of burnout or anything, social media is not that way.”
Although he has Walker in his stage name Springer is no slouch. The Bottleneck was his fifth concert in a week and Kansas was the fourth state that he played in. He is lucky to spend more than one night in a town before hitting the road again early, to get to the next venue in time for the sound check. Moon Walker said his view on the places he performs in is extremely distorted because “the entire perception of a place comes down to, like, was the show good? Was the food good? Was the coffee good? Was the Airbnb good? And then, like, that’s it.”
He says that most of the country looks very similar but two of his favorite places he has performed in have been New Orleans and Indianapolis. However Denver is his favorite place to play, “I just know Denver better than anything. That’s where I grew up playing, I know all the venues there, most of the same people who booked me as a kid still book me out when we go there.”
Although Kansas neighbors his home state he had never played here prior to his show at The Bottleneck. He enjoyed the green room there, saying it looked like something he would visit in a dream, the private bathroom was a bonus as well.
Moon Walker’s set began after the two opening bands, Sarah and the Safe Word and Demi the Daredevil, finished their acts. Moon Walker played his new single “You’re Next” along with other songs from his discography. He even covered some rock ‘n’ roll classics like Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs” and Nirvana’s “Heart-Shaped Box.” Moon Walker conveyed passion and emotion as he performed, jumping around and falling to his knees several times throughout the performance.
The Wasteland Country tour has just begun and his new album “Wasteland Country,” along with his film, is set to debut on April 30. For his film he wanted to combine all of his music videos into one continuous and connected piece that would accompany the album similar to Pink Floyd’s film “The Wall.”
Moon Walker can be found on all social media and information on his tour can be found on his website.
“The point of making music is because music is sick,” Springer said.
