Whether you remember them or not, Luna is back together and it’s a big deal. The four-piece, once described by Rolling Stone as “the best band you’ve never heard of,” emerged following the dissolution of frontman Dean Wareham’s previous project, Galaxie 500. Boasting an intoxicating mix of intricate guitar work and sometimes-sly, sometimes-introspective lyrics, Luna’s dreamy, minimalist sound garnered a passionate following among the college radio crowd and beyond. Over the course of their seven albums, the band never broke the mainstream but enjoyed a consistant word-of-mouth and critical acclaim that kept them in the indie spotlight.

Luna split up in 2005, citing general fatigue rather than any particular incident or animosity. Though Wareham and bassist Britta Phillips (now married) continued playing together as Dean and Britta, a full reunion seemed like a pipe dream until late last year when Wareham, in characteristic matter-of-fact fashion, posted that the band would be playing a short tour in Spain. Following that run earlier in the year, they booked dates in the UK and Australia before returning to America for a nationwide tour. The reunion shows have been met with a wildly positive reception, including a string of sold-out performances.

Luna will be stopping into the Paradise tomorrow night, 10/10, and we took the chance to chat with guitarist Sean Eden before the show. Despite a nasty cold, he was in high spirits, speaking passionately about the new tour and, amusingly, calling himself out for every “band reunion” cliche he made. Eden told us about Luna’s upcoming retrospective boxset, how the experience of touring has changed and why the band reunited for the right reasons.

Allston Pudding: How did the Australian tour go?

Sean Eden: Australia was awesome! We only did five shows, three in Australia and two in New Zealand, but it was super fun. It’s always great going down there, though this was a short trip for traveling so far!

The highlight of it was that Luna’s original bassist, Justin Harwood, came out for both of the New Zealand dates and played onstage with us for, like, six songs. He wasn’t just the original bass player; he wrote the music for quite a few of the songs on the first few records. It was good to do a weird, sort of quasi-reunion show!

AP: That’s incredible! How did that come together?

SE: He lives there! He quit the band in 1999 and moved back to New Zealand with his wife; they have a couple of kids now. We’ve all stayed friends, of course, so when we came to New Zealand we said, “Hey man…. c’mon! You need to get onstage with us for a bit!”

It was great, and I think we’ll probably end up doing it again at some point. Occasionally he comes over to the states for business or whatever, so I wouldn’t be surprised if that happens again!

AP: From what I’ve heard this reunion came together pretty organically, right?

SE: Yeah. Basically, Dean started thinking about this over a year ago. One of the reasons was that he talked to somebody in Spain who said “look, if you guys reunited you could definitely do a proper tour here.” Spain is one of the only countries aside from the US where we’re actually pretty popular. Also we have a vinyl box set coming out. It’s actually supposed to be out already but that’s how those things go. It’s probably not going to be out until early next year. It’s basically a retrospective covering the first five Luna records, with a big booklet and such. The idea was we’d do the tour and there’d be a box set out with vinyl copies of all of our original albums.Also, he figured, it’s been almost ten years and then he called me and I said I’d be into it. 

We’ve been having a great time so far. I think we all thought it was going to be good and that we’d have a good time, but I think it’s better than we expected overall.

AP: I know you’d been played with Dean and Britta a bit before you announced the reunion, but how was the initial experience of having the whole band together practicing as Luna?

SE: Well, I didn’t really play with Dean and Britta. I’d gotten up onstage with them a few times when they played in New York. We did a special benefit show once where we got up and played a bunch of Luna songs. That happened, like, once a year in the past few years.

The first time we rehearsed was last summer. That was Lee (Wall), the drummer’s, suggestion. We knew we weren’t going to do anything until this year but I happened to be out in LA- I live in NY, they all live in LA. Lee said “look, Sean’s out here, why don’t we just get together, get into a rehearsal space and just jam out?” It was good! Of course it was a little weird at first, but it was a lot of fun.

We actually got together. and rehearsed together, early this spring. Of course it took awhile for us to get back into the groove, but when I say awhile I only mean about two or three rehearsals before we started feeling like we were sounding like a band again. A real band that plays in harmony with each other, knows what each other is doing, has it’s own sort of thing.

AP: How has the reception been at the shows so far?

SE: So far the response has been really good! We did a big tour of Spain earlier this year- we were there for about three weeks. Amazing crowds and most of the shows were sold out; a very, very enthusiastic response. That’s the way it’s been everywhere, so it’s good!

We just did Australia, which was great and we basically had one week off and now we’re doing this US tour. It’s been great so far, but we’ve only done two shows so far in Atlanta. It was very exciting to feel the energy. It’s such a cliche, but it’s true! People were really excited. We’d finish the song and people would clap, then they’d start clapping more and cheering!

Overall it’s just been a very positive experience for us. I know I’ve already said that! Though it’s not like we thought it would be a negative experience at all, since we were all totally psyched to do it.

AP:Would you say the experience of touring together is noticeably different than it was during Luna’s previous run?

SE: Yeah, it is different. This is going to sound like a cliche too, but it’s different than the first time around, especially for Dean and I. Lee didn’t join the band until 1996 and Britta didn’t until 1999, but Dean and I have been playing together since mid-1992. There’s been a lot of stuff over the years. We were on a major label (Elektra) for a while, we did tons of tours, we put out seven records. Although we remained friends through all of that, after a while some of it becomes routine. You get a little tired and annoyed sometimes or cranky about being on tour or having to do some unpaid promo or something. By the end of the time, when we broke up in 2005, we were all still friends but it was just that feeling of, “alright, I guess we’re breaking up.” There was definitely a bit of fatigue and a bit of jadedness that set in.

But this time around it’s been really fun. We’re appreciating it more, appreciating it for what it is. We’re having fun and honestly, this is going to sound like the third cliche, but in a way we’re approaching some of the songs differently this since. Maybe a little bit more like the records in some cases, and with a little bit of a departure in others.

We’re playing really well, too. We’re certainly not just like “oh, we’re gonna do the reunion tour and do it by the numbers.” That’s not what’s happening at all. We’re doing it because we really want to do it and really enjoying playing together.

AP: With ten years away from the material, have you found that there are any particular songs you really like to play live?

SE: Well, we did the last tour and for that we actually had a new record out called Rendezvous. We split up soon after the release of that record. We put it out, did a big farewell tour of the US and Europe and Japan and then we quit. That meant that record didn’t really get its gestation period in terms of people being able to appreciate the band playing it live. The lead-off track on that record is called “Malibu Love Nest” and that song, since that album’s release 11 years ago, has become very popular with Luna fans. This tour when we’ve played it it’s gotten a huge reception but the first time around it wasn’t that way because it was a new song. Since we broke up it’s sort of become a favorite tune of Luna’s, so it’s exciting to play it live. It’s like that with a lot of the songs from that record. People really like to hear that stuff because they’re like “we’ve been listening to this shit for the last ten years and some of us never got to see you play it live and the rest only got to see it once!”

We also get a lot of requests to do one of the two songs that I sang on the last record. We’ve been doing it from time to time, though not on this tour so far since my voice is all fucked up!

So those songs are really exciting, but honestly almost all of them are. Obviously the ones that people know like “23 Minutes In Brussels” and stuff like that, we’re having a great time with that. Dean and I, because we’re both lead guitar players and often do similar stuff in the same song, it’s not like we’re trying to outdo each other or anything but we’re playing that stuff well and challenging ourselves and each other a bit because we know the other person is doing the same thing. So that’s fun!

AP: Circling back to the vinyl boxset, being mainly active in a decade when CDs and tapes were the most popular form of media, is it odd to you to see fans interested in listening to your music on that format?

SE: It’s true, when we broke up the whole paradigm was very different than it is now. Obviously most people listen to stuff through streaming now, but there has been this resurgence of enthusiasm for buying vinyl, which I really appreciate. At the end of the day, at least people are buying hard copies of something. As a band- and I’m sure you and everyone else have heard this over and over- streaming is great in that you have access to anything at your finger tips at any time, but the audio quality sucks and the bands don’t get any money from it. The money you get from something on Spotify is tiny. I’ll look at my broadcast stats and I’ll be getting, like, one millionth of one penny every time a song is played, and that’s crazy. It’s great that people like vinyl because it means people actually want to spend money on music.

But beyond that I love vinyl. I grew up that way; I have a lot of records and CDs. I love the way it sounds and you can put larger artwork on it that looks really good. Also, listening to it is a totally different experience! It is true that a lot of times when you put a record on you pay attention to it more.

AP: Is there any chance of new material from Luna?

SE: Everybody’s asking us that. I think it’s a discussion we might revisit in a few months, but the answer right now is no. I think we all have different feelings about it. Obviously we’re not the only band that has reunited over the years; some of them make records and people don’t really care or they make one and people just say “oh, it’s not as good as their old stuff.” It’s not like it’s a minefield, but it’s a big decision and you have to really want to do it. You have to feel really good about new ideas. Right now we haven’t even explored any of that!

Luna will be playing the Paradise Rock Club tomorrow night, 10/10. The show is sold out.