Before the Show with Mike Moody | In Conversation

I am at Pop’s Nightclub nestled between two cabarets on the outskirts of Illinois with Detroit’s hottest band… and the night has just begun. It felt like a moment straight out of a film— a venue perfectly placed in the middle of nowhere, the stars twinkling against the dark sky and the anticipation for the night swirling through the line of eager fans like a soft breeze. Inside the expansive venue, it's dim save for the colorful lights that seemed to dance around the room in tune with the 80s pop that quickly became background noise to the excited chitter chatter of the now bustling room. Perched above it all, I am behind an abandoned bar top in the far corner of the upstairs balcony standing face to face with the one and only Mike Moody of Mac Saturn.

Following the release of their Until The Money Runs Out EP just last year, Mac Saturn began embarking on their first-ever headlining tour this January. Now on the second leg of the three-month spanning tour, I have attended a handful of shows and had the opportunity to sit down and dig deeper with the man wielding the ‘lead machine’. With a total of six musicians, their live performances pack a powerful punch and are punctuated by Moody’s virtuoso guitar abilities. Plucking inspiration from the behemoths of classic rock and roll mixed with a taste of funk, the blues and his very own modern touch; there’s no current guitarist quite like him. Moody shows his heart on stage each night, almost as if passion is flowing out of him along with the music. Time and time again, I leave each show in awe of the raw power and expressiveness so carefully weaved into each performance— yet also speculating when he came into this path… or if he was just born doing it.

KITTY QUINN: I’m going to start with a basic question— so, is there a particular moment that made you realize you wanted to pursue music? and if so, what was that moment for you?

MIKE MOODY: There were a couple of moments where I wanted to kind of take this thing to the next level. This is kind of funny, when I was in middle school I did that career counseling thing where they said, “Okay, you’d be good at this…”. All my friends got really cool ones like doctors and engineers, I got a travel agent and concrete mason [laughs]. And this is right around the time I started playing guitar, too— I knew I wanted to travel and play in all sorts of cities and had aspirations for that. I knew right from then I was a little bit different. I always treated the guitar as an escape. It was so personal in the beginning because I started when my parents got divorced, so that was my home away from home. Wherever I was at I had my guitar with me and I would get lost in that. I think when I was around 17 or 18 I realized I could actually do this because I liked the way it made people feel. When I was singing and performing, I think everyone was starting to buzz. They would react well and I got kind of addicted to that feeling of making my mom– or at Christmas– making my family smile, having a guitar during bonfires and being able to get those reactions. I was always chasing that feeling. I knew I could do it because I got into playing at private events, like restaurants and bars early on. I was making money from it so I knew I could sustain myself doing it, and then I had this idea that if I was making money off of music then I wouldn’t ever have to work for anybody. That gave me the reassurance that I could do it for real. At the end of the day, I’m always chasing that feeling of serving the people that are listening.

QUINN: It seems like you started making music at a really pivotal time in your life. High school– especially towards the end– is such a big turning point in people’s lives, so did you have particular inspirations, specific things or people, that inspired you to actually move towards music aside from that passion for performing and seeing how that made others feel?

MOODY: Absolutely. A huge inspiration for me was the community around it. Me and Angelo [Coppola] were in this class in high school called “music seminar”. Monday through Thursday you spend that hour through class learning a song or writing a song by yourself or with other people and then on Friday you would perform it in front of the entire class. It gave me an opportunity to play with everyone in the class at a certain point, or try to write a song with someone I’ve never written with or work on something myself. I took that really seriously, and same with the other guys I surrounded myself with. A lot of my high school friends just had this scene, they had this community. We’d play at this little bowling alley down the street, Premiere Lanes— I think they call it Diesel Concert Lounge now, but back in the day it was so much fun, it was all of the friends! It was so inspiring to be around everyone and be in that scene; the community of it all and being around all of the people that listen to different music than everyone else, dress however we wanted to dress and talk about cool movies. Also, we were crazy. We were actually crazy. Probably one of the craziest things– you can put this in– was every time it was someone’s birthday, we would go and try to get whoever it was to eat a birthday candle. And until they ate the birthday candle, they were our target I guess. [Laughs]

QUINN: You guys sound like menaces!

MOODY: Yeah, we were out of our minds! You know, having nerf wars and just being kids. But also, it was that same community that could get really serious and have those deep conversations about art and what art is and makes us feel. At the same time, we were just teenagers that couldn’t give a fuck, you know?

It’s always interesting to hear a musician’s origins and inspirations, and with Moody, it’s no different. I could almost feel the love for the experiences of his youth pouring out of him as he reminisced on their times in music class and the mischief they got up to. I like that instead of naming a famous musician or person, he found inspiration right where he was. It's a reminder that you don’t always have to look in big places in order to be inspired, but to just look around and what you need will always find you.

QUINN: In your musical career, you made those connections through that class and your friend group, but did you ever find yourself connecting with another band as you do with Mac Saturn? And what has set this experience apart for you from others?

MOODY: You learn something new from every single group that you play with. You learn something fresh that carries on to the next, kind of like relationships. You learn something in that relationship and you bring it onto the next one and the next one to ultimately be the best lover or best bandmate; best person you can be. I’ve been in a few bands and they’ve all meant the world to me. When I was in it, It was so intense the amount of love I felt with every single group I’ve been in. The thing with Mac Saturn that I feel is so special is that I just know these guys so well. We lived together, and we talked about that a lot. Really what that meant to us was that I know what these guys do the moment they wake up, know how they put themselves to bed at night and I know what these guys eat, how they live and pick up after themselves— honestly they were my brothers, they were my siblings. We were eating tacos the other night and talking about how cool it is that we get to make this music. What’s more important to me is that I have these 9 people that I consider my best friends, and we get to go all over the world and experience that together. It’s cool that music is the vehicle to be able to do that, but isn’t that everyone’s goal, to find the right group of people to see new things with? All of our eyes were the size of the moon throughout this whole thing… so that's one thing that I feel is really special about Mac. We’re all really best friends doing this thing. It’s not like I wasn’t best friends with the other bands, but this is really different.

It’s a special thing to see a band that not only knows each other well musically but also on such a deeply personal level. They’re all so incredibly in tune and it’s glaringly clear during each solo, a shared glance and within the aura of sheer star power that emanates from them each night. It’s truly something to behold and I feel very lucky to have experienced it over a dozen times— and hopefully over a dozen more.

QUINN: I know you guys went on your first tour with Dirty Honey last year and now you’re on your very first headlining tour. How has this experience been for you? Every night is different, but are there any shows that have really stuck out to you?

MOODY: I feel like we’re a lot better band than we were last August when we went on that first tour. That first tour honestly kicked our ass in the best way. We had so much fun but we learned so much, and you caught some of those shows. We were just chasing that feeling of every single night, “we’re going to be the best band in the whole world”. Every single night. That mentality has really gotten us to this point. Me and Nick [Barone] would take notes for every gig and go, “this is how this gig worked out, this is what I liked about my guitar this night, this is what I liked about the audience this night…”. It’s our job to put an atmosphere into these rooms and a lot of the time our fans do a good job of being able to set the tone for the room. Those kinds of nights where we have a lot of positive energy coming at us, it’s pretty easy for us to give it right back. Last tour when we were playing, we had some electric nights with the Dirty Honey guys where it honestly felt like the complete package— a complete rock and roll night. We would put on a 45-minute set and then they’d go on and absolutely crush it too. There’s all these different clubs. If I could remember, Vancouver at the Shaw Theatre– which was an old kung fu theater back in the 70s. Some random ones too, even in Minneapolis, it was so fun because of the audience and energy coming at the people and the people were coming at us. It felt like this perfect combination of wild and crazy and love and heartbreak— all of the colors. I feel like this tour is different because we have a different responsibility and approach. We’re taking our songs that are three minutes long and stretching them out. A huge one for me is that “Ain't Like You” part. I haven’t played the same thing twice, I’m doing a different thing every night. I feel like that's my way of really challenging myself and getting in tune with the room. We play it fourth or fifth in the set, and at that moment I really get to sync in with what this room, city, people and energy of the whole night is throwing at me and interpret that. Every night’s different though. I think last night I did some Jimi Hendrix but I didn’t even think of that until the moment of.

QUINN: I wanted to tell you, I really loved when you played that Jimi Hendrix bit. I recognized it right away and went, “oh my god!”. It was great! Usually, I noticed you do sort of a Zeppelin-ish thing, so that was cool! You had the headband and everything, it was Jimi full send!

MOODY: I got a new wah pedal so I’ve been messing with that a lot. That inspired some Hendrix stuff. But yeah, I feel like our responsibility is to make sure whether we’re playing for 10 people or 300 people or Saint Andrew Hall— we want to give everyone the same love and attitude. You guys deserve it. You guys are in St. Louis. If we just half-assed tonight, I think none of us would be able to sleep. It means a lot to us that we’re even out here doing this; you guys coming all this way and taking the time to do it and spending your hard-earned money to go out and do this. We gotta make it worth everyone's while.

Much like the close attention to detail put into each audience receiving the same love and care, Moody employed that thoughtfulness when crafting his response to this next question. This is one of my favorite things to ask anyone because there have never been any answers quite the same, and it can say so much about a person. After laying it down, Moody let me know that he’d have to think about his response more and he surely did not disappoint.

QUINN: It’s definitely been you guys at your best. It’s been great. Every night has brought on a new feeling but entirely in the best way. With that being said, I have one more question for you. This is a question I like asking everyone. If you could choose a book, album or film that is defining to you as a person, what would that be and why?

MOODY: It took me a while to think of this, but hands down it’s the album Grace by Jeff Buckley. That album has been with me through everything; every heartbreak, every love, every good feeling, every bad feeling, every time I’ve felt weak and every time I’ve felt strong. That album is so complimentary to so many of my emotions. It's not only the lyrics but it’s the strings, it's the guitar, it's the shake in his voice that honestly feels like a companion. A piece of art that is a good friend like that will not only last forever, but it's something you will be able to love and come back to. As you keep on living, it keeps on growing with you because you continually redefine different meanings for it.

Appropriately enough, it seems like the entire being of Mike Moody is made up of grace. From the way he carries himself onstage to how he approaches any conversation, there is an air of sincerity that follows him everywhere he goes. Whether it be thinking of what album has encapsulated his life’s experiences or having a simple conversation, there’s an obvious level of care put into everything he does. Furthermore, this aspect showed itself more in our conversation following the interview when he was showing me his brand new guitar picks that happen to feature illustrations done by his girlfriend; or when he stuck around to dance and sing along to the opening bands with me and my friends. It’s subtle things like that that really go to show Moody’s down-to-earth quality that somehow aids in the caliber of his musical talent— it’s also a reminder that not only the art can be a good friend, but also the artist too.