News
We are very excited to premiere the video for ‘The Better Man,’ the new single by So Cal punks Moonraker. ‘The Better Man’ is the latest song to be taken off the band’s upcoming album, ‘The Forest’, out May 13 on Tiny Dragon Music, Bearded Punk Records, Bypolar Records and No Time Records (pre-order).
“I was thinking about picture frames and how they usually come with a picture already in them. Something you take out and replace with an actual picture, an actual memory,” says drummer/vocalist David Green. “I was thinking about this while I was at an event I felt uncomfortable being at with people I felt uncomfortable being with and it made me feel like I was the stock photo. Like I was only there because the frame I was in was needed. Just waiting to be covered up by something more important. But yeah, this is one of my favorite ones from the record. Adam Thomas did such a great job directing it and Aaron Wimmer straight up killed it acting in it. And a big shout out to my brother for letting us use his office.”
Moonraker - who jokingly call themselves “The Michael Jordan of Baseball of Punk Rock” - is a punk band from Santa Clarita, California which formed in 2011. The band features best friends Nick Schambra (bass) and David Green (drums, vocals), along with guitarist Matt. Following the tradition of Alkaline Trio, The Lawrence Arms, etc, Moonraker strikes the right balance of melody self-depreciation and humor, all the while introspectively tackling the woes of everyday life.
The band has worked hard on their upcoming album and it nearly broke them. "When we got back from tour in 2019 I was falling apart. Physically, mentally, personally, you name it. I wasn’t sure about my place in the people I cared about’s eyes, in the punk scene, in anything,” continues Green. “I wasn’t sure exactly how to start working on new material, but we tried to nevertheless. Then all of a sudden we were stranded in Mexico after our vehicle and all of our gear was stolen. I was already holding together by a thread and in an instant, the one thing that sort of made me feel ok was gone.”
“So we stopped writing songs for a while so we could slowly figure out how to get new instruments. Then once we did and were finally feeling good enough to start working on it again, a funny thing happened: the world shut down. We got laid off from our jobs, our families were at high risk, and once again we were kinda stuck in limbo. We again paused working on new songs (or anything) for a few months.”
“Eventually, me and Nick started meeting up a couple times a week in my backyard, him on one side of the yard with an acoustic, me on the other side with a practice pad, and we finally started working on these new songs. We re-wrote most of what we had already, we wrote and re-wrote new ones.
Matt, who had recently joined the band in the middle of all of this, started joining us in these backyard practices. We started quarantining together and taking multiple tests a week so we could finally be in a room together to finish up for real and record them.”
Even though - or because - the 12 songs that make up the album document what has been the darkest part of Green’s life so far, ‘The Forest’ contains the best songs Moonraker has written and recorded to date.
