To its bandleaders, the release of MoonShroom's debut album "Take a Trip" was overdue.
Bands usually get together, record, and then tour. But the Lawrence, Kansas, band MoonShroom — formed by partners Jake Keegan and Lily B. Moonflower out of previous projects — immediately gained traction performing at festivals and venues across the country.
"We both had these existing fan bases and this existing network of promoters and festivals and venues that you know wanted us to come play," Keegan told KCUR's Up To Date. "Then we'd been touring for over a year, year and a half, almost two years, when we were finally like, we need some recorded music out there."
"Take a Trip," recorded at a Kansas City studio and released June 27, captures the live energy of MoonShroom's quintessential "grassadelic" sound — a blend of twangy Americana, rock and jam music.
Songs like "Take a Trip" and "Drivin' Through the Night" reflect Keegan and Moonflower's wanderlust that inspires their summer-long tours across the country.
But the record also includes an ode the pair's home state of Kansas, in the lead track "Sunflower State of Mind."
"It's like, we romanticize the coast and we romanticize mountains, but we also romanticize Kansas because they're all so beautiful in their own way," Moonflower told KCUR's Up To Date.
MoonShroom will play at Briarfest X in Riverside on Aug. 16, 2025.
- Jake Keegan, musician
- Lily B. Moonflower, musician
