When Montreal post-punk outfit Mundy’s Bay dropped their stellar debut LP, Lonesome Valley, on March 13, they had no idea that a pandemic was about to upend their lives as musicians.
Videos by American Songwriter
“Honestly it felt kind of odd to try to promote the record as the world was going through something unprecedented like that,” guitarist Vic Beaudoin recently told American Songwriter over email. “Hopefully our next record doesn’t come out at the same time as a global pandemic!”
Mundy’s Bay is rounded out by vocalist / keyboardist Esther Mulders, guitarist John Donnelly, and bassist Willy Love. Today the band premieres a new video for “Sleep Away The Summer”—one of the standout tracks on Lonesome Valley—below.
“We all agreed on wanting something different than what we usually do… band rocking out, as well as something that expressed the lyrics and mood,” says Donnelly, “which I think the director [Anthony Jamie Bucciacchio] captured perfectly.”
The video depicts a young woman (Marshall Hoang) running through a sunny suburban neighborhood toward her partner’s house. It’s a blissful, frolicking flick that befits the song: “Sunlight kisses your eyelids / I feel your warmth all around me,” sings Mulders in the track.
We caught up with Mundy’s Bay about their socially-distanced “Sleep Away The Summer” video and their experience writing and recording Lonesome Valley. Check out the full interview below.
American Songwriter: What’s the story or message behind “Sleep Away The Summer”? Was there a certain vibe or mood you wanted to achieve with this song?
Vic Beaudoin: A few weeks before we were supposed to get in the studio I got myself a new tremolo pedal and was really into the idea of using that effect to create a repetitive atmosphere. I was thinking of bands like LOOP, Spacemen 3 or My Bloody Valentine and how they use effects to give an extra layer of trippiness to their songs. That’s how we kind of got around the intro and then the song sorta wrote itself and was recorded two weeks later!
How’d the music video come together? What was your vision for it, and who did you work with to help create it?
Will Love: “Sleep Away The Summer” is one of the songs on Lonesome Valley that we really wanted a music video for. We like to give the directors of our videos a lot of space to do what they feel is right for the song. We decided to choose a few key words that reminded us of the song and that would be important to take into consideration. We also knew that we wanted someone running! It was special to make a video during a pandemic. With social distancing we couldn’t be there for the filming, so it was very exciting to see this video unfold starting from a few key words.
John Donnelly: We all agreed on wanting something different than what we usually do… band rocking out, as well as something that expressed the lyrics and mood. Which I think the director captured perfectly.
What did it feel like to release the album right before COVID-19 started ramping up? Did you have a chance to celebrate the release before everything shut down?
Vic: Honestly it felt kind of odd to try to promote the record as the world was going through something unprecedented like that. Hopefully our next record doesn’t come out at the same time as a global pandemic! We got to play two shows the week before everything shut down and it was one of the best times we had on the road, thanks to our good friends in Blooming Season who we were sharing the stage and the van with!
Can you tell us a little bit about Lonesome Valley?
Vic: We pretty much took a year of touring to do that record. Since we didn’t have a booking agent at the time, touring was taking a lot more time to plan and get going so we decided to play very little and focus on the songwriting. We were lucky enough to work with Kurt [Ballou] and Zach [Weeks] at GodCity and that was the perfect environment to craft the record. I like to think it paid off! For me it was great to be fully immersed in the recording by living upstairs from the studio for two weeks, I think that’s why it sounds pretty cohesive, at least to me!
John: I am very proud of Lonesome Valley, by far the best record I’ve put out. It’s Mundy’s Bay’s first LP so there are songs that were fresh and songs that were three years old but it ended up sounding very consistent.
What have the last few months looked like for each of you? Have you been working on any new music or playing any virtual gigs? And what’s next for Mundy’s Bay?
Vic: I think we’ve all been keeping busy. I’ve been cutting tape loops and recording weird sounds on my Tascam 4-track, just experimenting and trying to make the best out of this free time!
We haven’t played any virtual gigs because it didn’t feel natural for us to do so. We felt like it would not represent the live aspect of the band well and opted to wait until we can work something out that serves our music the best. Hopefully we’ll come up with something soon because I don’t think shows are coming back for a while!
Will: Like Victor said we’ve all been busy and experimenting with music and visual arts and I think it’s exciting for the band that we’ve all been trying new stuff out, but we’re not rushing things for the writing. We want to make something that feels right for us and the current time.
John: I’ve been using the down time to write new music—it’s helped getting my mind off things. Just trying to create new stuff as much as I can. Also working on fitness. Looking forward to COVID being over!
Lonesome Valley is out now via Pure Noise.
