Today, the Belfast-based alt-rock band Lonely Astronauts released their latest single “These Nights.” We caught up with the vocalist and rhythm guitarist, Matthew Toner, to discuss the single, the band’s formation, the origin of the band’s name, and being inspired by Les Misérables.

I’ll start by asking a pretty simple question – maybe it’s a question you’re sick of answering [Laughs] – but I think it’s a good jumping off point. With Lonely Astronauts, how did this band come about?

Yeah, this band, we started in 2018 as a three-piece. It was myself and the lead guitarist, Ruan [McCreedy]. We started jamming one day. Ruan lived in Liverpool, I was back here in Belfast. A friend of mine that I had met at a couple of gigs, we decided to jam, and Ruan joined us, and we were like, “This sounds great. We’re going to be a three-piece.” At the start, we were trying to mirror The Black Keys and things like that. Then, over COVID and stuff, that relationship kind of fell down a wee bit. We weren’t into it as much, we kind of put stuff off to the side, and then, about 2021, we got Niamh [Maguire, their drummer] and Tony [Cooney, their bassist], who are our rhythm section now, and we completely just changed the whole outlook of the band, so we’ve became a more melodic, rock style band now, and I think that’s the best way it’s been. It feels like a new band. [Laughs]

How do you think the personnel change-up, and even going from a three-piece to a four-piece and things like that, how do you think these dynamics actually change the music you’re making? Does it alter your songwriting, or is the songwriting the same?

Yes, so the guys won’t mind me saying this, as well. So, usually, I write the majority of the songs. I think with the old band, I had to style my writing in a certain way. It had to be very guitar riff-oriented or, stylistically, one way, but I think, now, with the four of us, there’s a lot of input. We can write songs that are a bit more on the ballad side or a bit slower tempo, but they have a lot going on musically, rather than just being in-your-face rock, you know? Which I think’s great because it means the four of us have an opinion. As I say, I mostly come in with the song ideas, but the guys do now sort of give me input and say, “Well, maybe instead of that you should do this,” or “Maybe instead of that lyric, you should be singing this.” It feels very org…I hate using that word, but it feels very organic when we write songs now, you know? I feel like we’ve all come to a place where we all know exactly what the band is and what it should sound like.

Yeah, and is that a natural process, getting the input of everyone else? It doesn’t seem calculated, I guess; it just seems – like you said, you hate the word – but it feels organic, I guess? [Laughs]

Yeah, I think as well, we’re all friends in the band now, so we’re not afraid to sort of say to each other…I wouldn’t say hurt each other’s feelings, but it’s very much like if someone doesn’t like something, they’re very quick to say, “No,” you know? “I don’t like that.”

Were you friends with the members before the band started, or did youse get to know each other through the band?

So, Ruan, the lead guitarist, we went to school together, and I started out at probably about eighteen or nineteen doing some solo gigs, and I thought, “Oh, it’d be great if I had a guy to play guitar with me,” so he used to come and do some open mic nights and solo gigs and stuff and sort of be my right-hand man until he went to go to university. Tony, our bass player, I knew him in school. I had never met Niamh in my life. Niamh and Tony are actually in a relationship. I had never met Niamh in my life. We needed a drummer because the drummer had left the band, and she had lent us a kit once, and I was like, “Do you remember that girl that lent us the drum kit? Do you think she’d be open to joining or standing in for a couple of gigs?” Then, immediately, we were just like, “Yeah, she’s the girl.” And that’s how Tony came on board.

Did you find that everyone had similar musical tastes, or did you feel that people were bringing in different things? How did you feel about the overlap in terms of what you were listening to?

Yeah, I would definitely say that the other guys are a bit more into heavier stuff than I would be. If you listen to some of our songs, there’s always these outlandish guitar solos, which kind of make the song for me, to be honest. Ruan, he loves everything from jazz to metal to country, so he’ll take a song that I’ve written and I’ll give him a reference point…For example, with our current single, I wanted a really U2-y guitar part and he made it his own version of that, which I was like, “This is great.” My stuff is very standard, melodic, rock and pop stuff, but them guys listen to some out-there stuff, which does actually help with the influence, I think.

Yeah, absolutely, I think that really helps to elevate the music because I think when you do take stuff that has, let’s say, more wide appeal, like U2 or something like that, and you add some of those weirder elements or more of those niche elements, I think it really does help to elevate and make stuff more distinct. Has that been your feeling, too? Does it make Lonely Astronauts a really distinctive fixture for yourself?

Yeah, I think for us, as well, it’s good, I think, when you’re writing songs…You can stay in your own lane, but also, you have that ability because there’s so much. Originally, when we started out, there was two guitars and drums, there was no bass player, which is odd for a band, but with the four of us now, we’re like, “Alright, so that rhythm section can be doing this, and you can be doing this really cool guitar part,” and that sort of adds to it, you know? And I can play just straight-up rhythm, which I quite like. [Laughs]

[Laughs] When it comes to songwriting, what inspires you? Is it other art? Is it things in your day-to-day life? What inspires you, in terms of going, “I have the need to write,” or is it even conscious?

I don’t think I’m a very conscious songwriter, at all; I think I’m a noodler. Neil Young has a quote where he says he’s waiting by the rabbit hole. Noel Gallagher says he’s going fishing. I kind of think it’s the same thing, you know? Sometimes I’ll just be playing guitar, and I’ll think, “Oh, that sounds interesting.” Then I’ll hear a phrase, and I’m like, “I’m going to get that into a song,” you know? And it’s really weird, sometimes I could be listening to an artist like Phoebe Bridgers and then write a Lonely Astronauts song, which is completely stylistically different, but it’s really inspiring, I think, that sometimes it comes from nowhere. I was doing a thing for a while there, where I set myself a goal to try and write a song a week, to see if I would write anything good. “These Nights,” the single that’s coming out, came out around that time. I actually went to see Les Mis, and I’m getting married next year; I just got engaged…

Congratulations!

Thank you very much. And there’s a lyric,  No empty chairs at empty tables. That’s a song in Les Mis, and my fiancée is a massive musical theatre fan, so that song was kind of inspired by that. Just post-engagement and going to see Les Mis, [Laughs] which is an odd combo, like!

[Laughs] Well, I wait to hear the songs that will be influenced when you finally see Cats!

[Laughs] Oh, yeah! Absolutely!

That’s going to be your first concept album!

Oh, yeah! There will be some strange…[Laughs] It’ll be like Pet Sounds!

When it comes to songwriting, too, one other thing I wanted to ask you, you were mentioning there and it’s something I relate to, too, where a lot of the songs come from noodling, come from accidentally stumbling upon something and then just pulling at that thread a little bit and trying to extrapolate something from it. Do you find, when it comes to the lyrics, you are influenced subconsciously just by what the song’s bringing out in you organically, or is it more finely-crafted, that you have a concept to begin with, and then you try to fit that concept around the melody that you wrote?

Eh, I think I always start with melody, and for me…I don’t know why I’ve always felt like this, because I have friends who are fantastic [at writing] amazing middle eights, amazing verses, things like that. That stuff kind of bores me, in a way. I’m always like, “Chorus.” So, when I’ve written a chorus, I’ll tailor everything around the chorus.

I think I kind of write the same, actually. [Laughs]

Yeah. I think it’s the most important part of the song, you know? For me, because I grew up on that whole blink-182, pop-punk stuff, and then there’s, as I’ve mentioned, U2 and Oasis, all those bands are known for just massive choruses, so it’s always influenced my style of writing. I think the guys have gotten used to that, as well, you know? They’re very like, “Oh, he’s going to come in, dribble something during the verses, then try to be uplifting, or whatever.”

Well, that is, ultimately, what people are going to remember, is the chorus, I think. Does anyone remember the verses to “We Didn’t Start the Fire”? [Laughs]

No, no! [Laughs] There’s an updated version of that, did you hear it? By Fall Out Boy?

I’m sure there is. I didn’t hear it, but I can imagine! [Laughs]

They did an updated version of that song since that song has been released…What’s happened since that song’s been released. It’s even more…[Laughs]

Actually, it is a good song for futureproofing, in a way, where you can adapt it as things go on, you know?

Yeah.

And, unfortunately, there’s no shortage in the world for material. [Laughs]

[Laughs] Oh, yeah! You can almost do a new version of that every year, like.

Yeah! One thing I wanted to ask, just before we get onto your new single, is a little bit about the title [of the band]. One thing I think is interesting… – and maybe I’m being a little bit too nerdy and too particular about this – …but I think it’s interesting because Lonely Astronauts, plural, kind of important, because I can imagine the idea of an astronaut in space; it invokes a sense of isolation, loneliness, being a million miles away from civilisation, but Lonely Astronauts, plural, implies that there is some semblance of community up there. Was that an intentional thing?

I’ve always pointed out that it makes no sense, to be honest! So, I actually ripped that off from…There’s a book by Tom DeLonge from blink-182, called The Lonely Astronaut, and I wrote a piece of music and I called it “The Lonely Astronaut,” and the guys in the band were like, “Well, that’s really a nice name for a band,” and I was like, “Well, you can’t just call it The Lonely Astronaut; you have to pluralise it because there’s more than one of us.” Again, people do come up to us at gigs and be like, “You know, that really doesn’t make much sense because you can’t be lonely; there’s four of yas.” I’m like, “But it sounds cool! And it looks good on text!”

Do people ever say, “Is it The Lonely Astronauts or just Lonely Astronauts?”

Yeah! When you get asked to a gig…So, subtle plug, we supported Aslan there, a couple of months ago.

I saw that, yeah. Nice.

And they were like, “The Lonely Astronauts,” and I was like, “No, no, no! There’s no ‘The’! It’s ‘Lonely Astronauts!’” I think the ‘The’ is alright, but I think you can get too artsy when you add a ‘The.’

As long as it comes up in a Google search, that’s all you really want!

Yeah! Our website, weirdly, we updated it the other day, so it’s now AI-featured, so if you type the phrase “Lonely Astronaut” into Google, it’s like, “Oh, blah, blah, blah…,” and then it’s like, “Also, this band from Belfast,” and it gives you all this AI…you can tell it’s the most ChatGPT thing in the world, talking about our music!

I actually do think it’s funny how you can just kind of tell if something’s a little too AI-y in its writing.

Oh, yeah, yeah! I think it’s great for if you want to respond…I’ve seen people use it for, like, job interviews and things like that now, or, like, applications. It’s just like, “Jesus.”

I think it’s OK as an aid, but you have to edit it.

Oh, a hundred per cent. The language is just ridiculous. I think some people said you can actually ask them, now, to talk like a human.

Oh, really? “Could you be more personable, please?” [Both laugh] I wanted to talk about… – because you mentioned Aslan, there – …for me, as an outsider looking in at the band, it seems like you guys are constantly gigging, constantly getting some good support slots, some good venue slots, and things like that. Is that how it feels to you? Do you think since COVID en… – the COVID pandemic ended; I don’t want to say that COVID, itself, ended – …and people have been able to go to shows and things like that, do you find that the band have been on a constant uptick, or is it more nuanced than that?

Yeah, so what happened was, when we came out of the pandemic and we got a new line-up, I think for myself and my guitar player, Ruan, we intentionally were like, “We’re not going to play at the same venues unless there’s a reason. So, we’re going to start taking the band seriously.” Because we used to play very local venues, and we’d play them every other month, and there’d be the same people there, and you were just playing and maybe getting drunk, and you were being like, “This isn’t really doing anything I wanted it to do.” But, when those guys joined, it was like a creative spark. We were like, “Let’s write music. Let’s just start asking. What’s the harm? The worst someone can say is ‘No.’” So, I just found from doing that, we got the likes of Ocean Colour Scene, Aslan, The Bluetones, loads of bands in The Limelight, especially, which is a venue we all grew up going to and going out to on a Friday night. Even the Belfast Empire, that was always on the bucket list. There’s local gigs that get played in there, and I’m not diminishing them in any way, shape or form, but we were always like, “We want to play there with someone. We want a reason to play there, not just because a local promoter is saying, ‘Here, I’m going to put you on a five-band line-up’,” do you know what I mean?

I get what you’re saying. It’s not that you’re dismissing those opportunities, but it’s like, “Well, it makes it a little less unique or something.” I get what you’re saying.

Yeah. We were like, “We want to stand on our own two feet,” you know? “We want to play gigs that are going to make sense for us.”

Yeah, and that’s totally reasonable, and I think it’s good to have that dictation very early on, because I know certain artists just take whatever gig they can get…

That’s what it was like for the longest time, you know? I think we just became very conscious that if we do this, we’re not going to make a difference in our…I won’t say “Popularity” or things like that, it’s just that we won’t make a difference, people won’t take us as seriously because they’re going to be like, “Oh, they’re gigging every week.”

Do you think since making that mental shift of, “OK, we’re going to be more discerning, and we’re going to be more focused, and reach for things that may seem difficult initially, but it’s worth persisting with,” do you think that’s helped the band in the long run?

Yeah, a hundred per cent. You know, it’s done us a world of good. There are opportunities coming in, left, right and centre, from it, and I think, as well, we’re not just seen as “a local band.” There’s people actually messaging us, being like, “Here, I was at your gig last night. I really liked your music. I really want to keep up with you guys,” you know? Things like that. You started seeing people who, at the start, were our friends, but now you’re starting to see people that, maybe, were at the Aslan gig, and they’ve shown up to a couple of gigs after because they’ve found we were playing, and you’re like, “This is crazy,” and they actually know your songs.

That’s the thing you want, I think, is to actually build that organic fanbase beyond just your friends and family. And I’m not disparaging that, either.

No, no. I think that’s very important, as well, for gigs, don’t get me wrong, but, yeah, it’s awesome to have people be like, “I really like that song. I’m going to come because I like your music.”

And just in terms of where you guys have played, I know you’ve played around Ireland. Have you played outside of Ireland yet at this point, or is that still on the bucket list?

Not yet. I think the goal is maybe to go to the UK, but it’s just getting the logistics. It’s definitely something we’ve talked about. We did a mini-Irish tour last year. We’ve played Dublin a few times now, and I think Dublin is, unanimously, our favourite place to play. We’ve played Whelan’s and we’ve played Fibbers, and both venues have been more than accommodating, and the crowds, nobody knows who you are, but they’re actually like, “Here, these guys are great!”

Were you playing Whelan’s on a bill?

We did a thing there called The Midnight Sessions. So, we just booked it and tried our luck, but we actually got a room full of people, and it was great. And Fibbers, again, it was just a little band night, but we thought, “Oh, well, we haven’t played Dublin yet,” so we tried it, and, again, it opened opportunities for us, as well. And we played Sin É with a local promoter down there, and I think that was actually one of our favourite venues we’ve done, because it’s so small and intimate.

Yeah, the thing about Sin É is that, in the dance area, they have all those tables, so people can’t really…[Laughs]

Yeah, it’s a sweatbox.

It really is! Every time I go there, the artist on stage is always talking about how hot it is, so at least you’re not alone! [Laughs]

We had t-shirts to sell, and I ended up having to put one of the t-shirts on afterwards! But, to answer your question, we definitely want to play outside of Ireland. One hundred per cent.

Would it be festivals first?

It could be. I think that’s something we’re going to look into.

I think they’re a good starting point. If you can get, maybe, a support slot to tour nationwide, that would be great, but if you could get a festival, there’s less pressure on you to bring in a crowd and also expose you to people who probably otherwise wouldn’t have heard you.

Yeah. We’ve applied for a couple of local festivals, as well, so we’re hopeful. You never know; it’s a luck of the draw. I think festival gigs are…They are a great way. A lot of festivals, I’ve seen bands at them that I never thought I would like, and I’ve come away being like, “They were my favourite act of the day,” you know?

Yeah. I still think live music is the best way to discover new bands because when you see an act live, it kind of endears you more, in the sense that you can listen to music on Spotify or wherever, and obviously it can resonate with you and you can really enjoy it, but I just think there’s more of a personal connection when it’s in a live setting.

Oh, yeah! I think the four of us… – that’s the big thing with the four of us – …we tend to go out to a lot of gigs each, separately or together, and we’re kind of like, “Whoa! Those guys were amazing!” And then you kind of find yourself being inspired, as well, when you see how different bands play, or different bands set up, or even just their approach to things, you know?

I think it also goes beyond music, like sometimes even how they banter between songs, or what they do between songs, or even the way they stand, or the way they place things. These are all things you pick up through osmosis, you know?

Yeah. I think that’s something we’ve discussed and we’re constantly trying to develop, is the idea of, “How can you make this a little bit more…” – this is going to sound a bit cheesy! – but, “How can you make it a little more of a show?” There’s bands, like I said, that I grew up loving, like blink-182, and the whole thing about blink-182 is that they tell jokes in between their songs, so sometimes I try and do things like that, just to make it a wee bit more…I deliberately tell crap jokes, so people are like…You know, like dad jokes, so people will laugh at it.

You don’t just incorporate blink-182 jokes into the set? [Laughs]

No, no! God, no! No, no! I don’t want to get myself in trouble! [Laughs] In the world we live in, I don’t think I could get away with a lot of them jokes!

I don’t think they get away with it anymore! [Both laugh] They’re still touring. I didn’t see them the last time they were around, but I wonder what their jokes are like now.

Oh, the jokes are exactly the same! I went to see them last September, and I was just like, “Oh, God!”

Was that at the SSE or Kilmainham?

The SSE. I tried to see them in Kilmainham, as well, but what happened was, I tried to get a ticket at the last minute, and it was just a nightmare. I was just like, “Well, I got to see them!” I’ve seen them a couple of times now, so I’m happy enough! [Laughs]

I want to wrap up by talking about your new song, “These Nights.” I was wondering if you could maybe talk about this single and what the song means to you?

Yeah, so like I said, I sort of got inspired…I was trying to push myself at this stage to see if I could write something memorable. I was trying something, once a week or so, to write a song just to write a song. As I said, I just got engaged a month or so before that, and then I went to see Les Mis, and I liked that song, “Empty Chairs at Empty Tables”; this big, sad ballad. To be honest, I like musicals, but that musical, it didn’t do a whole lot for me because I think you have to be very attentive. It’s just all sung, so you’re like, “What the hell happened there?”, you know what I mean? [Laughs] But I like that phrase, “Empty chairs at empty tables,” so I was like, “I wonder if I can put that into a song.” It sounds very corny, but it felt like I was falling in love again with my partner because I was newly engaged, and I usually don’t like writing songs about love on the spectrum of being in love… – They’re usually very pessimistic. It’s maybe about an old relationship or things like that – …but I was like, “D’you know what? I’m going to lean into the side of I’m in love with someone, and I want to spend nights with them, and I don’t want the nights to come to an end.” That’s basically the message of the song.

See, I think that’s a sign of maturity, though, in a lot of ways, that you want to write songs like that versus break-up songs.

Yeah, yeah. It was very hard for me, as well! When I brought it to practice, the guys were all like, “This is great!”, but “Ehhh…”, you know? I think we have near-enough an album ready to go, in terms of the material we’ve written, and we were like, “Right, we’re going to go into this studio,” and we recorded that because it was catchy and different. We had a song about a year ago, called “Can’t Let Go,” and it’s in a similar vein, I think, of that style of music. We were like, “Well, it’s that similar style, and we seemed to be very successful with that last bit.” Not to…I think you should always push yourself, but we were like, it’s an updated version of that for us, you know? And it’s a good way of showing that there is maturity in the songwriting, too. It’s not just about “My girl left me.” There’s hope for a relationship, and I think that’s a good way, as well. I quite like when writers are hopeful of things rather than being like “Life sucks.”

[Laughs] Well, life is complicated. I think there’s utility to both, I guess!

Yeah, yeah. I get that. Life is…I think it’s very easy to be pessimistic.

Yeah, fair. We’re talking about maturity, but I think cynical edges can be a means, when you’re growing up, of kind of deflecting…Say, for example, if you’re a teenager when you’re writing music with friends of yours, if you add a layer of cynicism, it can kind of be a way of deflecting from true emotion, so you don’t get slagged off.

Yeah, you’re like, “Nobody gets me. I’m going to try to make this my poetry.” I mean, don’t get me wrong, there’s bits of me that’s like, “Wouldn’t it be cool if I could be like Kurt Cobain and write the most cynical thing possible?”, but then I’m also like, “I think I’d be faking it as a thirty-year-old,” you know?

Yeah, but the thing about Kurt’s writing, as cynical as it was, it came from a sincere place…

Yeah, yeah. That dude was very tortured.

Yeah, and that’s an unfortunate thing, but I think for people who aren’t instinctively like that, I don’t think they should necessarily aim to be if it’s not true to themselves. I think sincerity…The reason Nirvana’s music resonates with people, all these years later, is because there’s a sincerity there, I think.

Oh, yeah, yeah. I mentioned Neil Young earlier, as well, who’s somebody whose music I’ve loved since I was a child. That’s a very sincere songwriter I love. You can tell. It’s like Springsteen, as well. You can tell when people are being truthful. Because it’s very easy, as well, for people to phone it in. And I think being a new band for us, as well, I mentioned it was in the same vein as one of our previous songs, I think it’d just be easy for us to be like, “Well, we’re going to keep repeating that,” but now I think it’s good that we’ve found a lane and we were like, “Well, we can expand on this,” you know?

I think that’s totally fair, but at the same time, do you think with the music that you’re writing, you should just let the song be what it is, or do you have external concerns about, for example, “Does this sound too much like our previous one?”, “Do we need to be expanding?”

Yeah, I’m very conscious of that, and I’m very thankful that my bandmates are very quick to be like, “Well, maybe if we change this and do this, it shows a bit of us evolving.” I think, at the core, some of us are at the early age of thirty and some of us are in their late twenties, but we’re still fifteen-year-olds who want to make loud music. So, there’s a big aspect of that, as well. We want to focus on our songs, but we still want to put on a rock show, so we still have those big, rocky songs. So, we thread both lines, I think. I think it’s more myself that’s more like, “Look, guys, maybe we should slow it down a wee bit,” but that always gets overruled, you know?

Since the project’s been going – because it’s been going now for about seven years – and, in that time, has your musical tastes changed and evolved, or is it similar to what it was when the project first started? And, if it has changed, do you notice those changes coming into the way you write songs?

Yeah, so starting out, the point of reference was Nirvana, The Black Keys, things like that. Then I remember I got very into The Gaslight Anthem. I was so influenced by the way that Brian Fallon wrote lyrics along with melody, that that sort of stuck with me, and that’s always been my biggest inspiration, but I’m also like, “How would that sound like in 2025, to me?” I know what The Gaslight Anthem sound like, but my influences have evolved, in terms of I much prefer a lot of singer-songwriters now than heavier music, so I’m kind of like, “What would this sound like if…?” The Frames, for example, as a point of reference, a band from down south, “What would it sound like if they were still going in 2025? How can you balance the rock with the lyrical sensibility?” That’s always my way of looking at it, in terms of influence. I think if I was still writing songs that I was writing when I was twenty-three, when I started the band, if I was still writing songs and lyrics the same way, I don’t think I’d grown much as a person.

That’s totally fair. We’re of a similar age  – I think I’m a year older than you – so it resonates with me!

You starting to get back pains and all now, as well? [Laughs]

Oh, dude, I’ve been getting back pains since I was twenty-five, twenty-six or something!

It’s my knees!

OK, thankfully, I don’t have that! We’re trading aches!

Yeah, I think your influences constantly evolve.

Yeah, and I think with that sense of maturity and growth, you do want to expand on different things as an artist, but also as an adult. Just different things concern you, I think, as you grow older.

Well, the thing as well, I became a dad quite young. I became a dad when I was in university, and I think when I was younger, I was quite immature about being a dad, as well. But now, being a partner, and a father, and growing up a bit, the way I approach music is very different. It makes me think there’s more to life than cynicism. When I write songs, I can be happy now.

I’m glad to hear that. I guess the final thing I’ll ask is, you said you have about an album’s worth of material now. So, I was wondering, when it comes to recording the songs that you guys have, do you record them a single at a time, or do you record them in bulk?

At the moment, it’s been a single at a time, but we are heavy into the discussion of “What is next?” Because a single is great, but it’s a flash in the pan most of the time, when you release a single. It’s great doing what we’re doing now, it’s great talking to yourself, you’re talking about it, you’re promoting the hell out of it, you’ll play a couple of gigs, and remind people to stream it, but it’s like, “Right, that’s one song. Can you back that up with a full body of work?” So, I think the conversation now is, “How are we going to do this? Are we going to rent more time in the studio?” There’s talk of, “Right, we’ll go into the studio and we’ll just do a week of drums, and then we’ll maybe do the guitars on one of our Macs or something like that, on the interface, and we’ll do it as D.I.Y. as possible,” and then there’s also talk of, “Well, is that really a great idea? Should we maybe just save up as much money or look into things like GoFundMe or stuff, and just record an album,” you know? So, there’s all those factors, and just being a band in 2025 is kind of hard as well, because where do you make your money?

Yeah, that’s fair. I guess government subsidises somewhat, but even they’re quite limited. I noticed that some people have been able to get some money off schemes like that, but it’s a competition.

Even off that, it’s not enough to record an album, you know? But that is the goal, I think, because, like I said, you want to do something to show where you’re at as a band. As cheesy as it sounds, it’s art, so you want something cohesive as well, you know?

Lonely Astronauts’ latest single, “These Nights,” is on all streaming platforms from today. You can keep up with the band via Instagram.

Aaron Kavanagh

Aaron Kavanagh is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Post-Burnout. His writing can also be found in the Irish Daily Star, Buzz.ie, Totally Dublin, The GOO, Headstuff, New Noise Magazine, XS Noize, DSCVRD and more.