Parenting in the Music Industry with Moonfruits

[00:00:00] Rosalyn: Hello and welcome to Refocus. Our guests today are the folk duo, Moonfruit, Moonfruit craft contemporary folk that addresses our collective humanity with heart, wit, and wonder led by partners Alex Mall and Caitlin Milroy Moonfruit Penong in both French and English, reflecting their bilingual lived experience in their hometown of Ottawa.

Moon fruits have gone from serenading market goers buskers in Ontario and Europe to connecting with audiences in prestigious listening rooms and festivals. They've gardened multiple awards and toured their transport of live show across Canada, the us, French Belgium, and Germany. Moon Fruits Sophomore album Salt released in October, 2022 is a lushly orchestrated 12 song suite that explores what it means to the band to live, dream, and raise a child in an era of climate.

And deeply socioeconomic equality. Hello, moon fruits.

[00:00:51] Kaitlin: Hello? Hello, Ross.

[00:00:53] Rosalyn: So glad to get to talk to you today. Thank you for taking the time.

I know that time Isn't easy to come by. And we're gonna get to that in a little bit when we talk a bit about parenting. But let's, take a little rewind before some of these big life changes.

Can you tell me about how you met and how, how Moon Foods was formed?

[00:01:10] Alex: well, we actually met at an open mic. there was a very cool open mic at the old jailhouse turned hostel, jailhouse hostel here in town. And there's one night where I saw Kate singing acapella on stage, at open mic. And I thought, well, that's a brave lady also.

She's pretty, and we wound up jamming in the parking lot that night. And that's kind of how both spend then relationship kind of

[00:01:38] Kaitlin: started. Yeah. Yeah, that's fair to say. we had some friend circles that overlapped in a few ways, so we'd like. . We'd probably met before, but I think that was the moment where I was like, oh, this guy's cool.

And then we ended up, that summer, we played a lot of music in the park. I was working at a cafe and often, like after shift, we close at like 11 o'clock, so we'd have these weird, very late night. Like it sounds very salacious, but it was just like late nights in the park jamming cuz we didn't wanna wake up our neighbors or, or in laundromats when it got cold or in laundromats when it got cold.

Yeah. There's a suds and deads, which I don't know if it still exists in Sandy Hill. Anyway, we, we sang in there a bit. it was fun.

[00:02:11] Rosalyn: when did you make that switch into performing on stages,

[00:02:16] Kaitlin: it was rapid. I would say that Alex was really keen. He'd, been in and led like a number of bands already at that point, whereas this was the first band beyond like a band I was in, in high school that I'd ever been in. And so, we were at very different places I think in terms of our sense of.

What our professional goals were with music, but I don't know. There was an excitement and like an energy that was palpable I've always been this way. I was just kind of game. So Alex was spearheading, he was booking the shows and things were happening and I, I was way outside of my comfort zone for a long time.

At the beginning it probably showed I was pretty stiff on stage, but, still having a lot of fun. Like, that moment where you're like, I know this could be so cool if I just kind of like can lean into it and learn and let myself grow. and. , we did a lot and, and the busking was a huge part of that.

Alex was a big proponent of just playing anywhere, anytime and learning how to break the ice with music. so we did a lot of that at the beginning. And as anywhere, like you said, when did we move from the laundromat to the stage? Like anywhere could be a stage at the beginning. we weren't very discriminating. It was just more about having fun and making music.

[00:03:18] Rosalyn: Were you writing songs together in that early stage?

[00:03:22] Kaitlin: No, I would say mostly Alex was a songwriter and we would arrange them together, so we'd work out the vocal harmonies and the structure of the song. The shape of it. Pretty much that was the, the input. Sometimes I'd have little lyric suggestions, but for the most part, we were arranging songs that Alex had already written at the beginning, and we would rework some trad songs too.

Mm-hmm. .

[00:03:41] Alex: But I, I don't know that there was like a thing where, in working really in depth on a tune with anybody. I feel like you kind of changed the d n of the tune to a certain degree, like, like happily so, where you're kind of like braiding both of your influences together. And I, I, I really did feel that e even the tunes that quote I wrote Th there was kind of a, nascent identity forming there that was more than the sum of its parts,

[00:04:09] Rosalyn: what and what were some of those influences for you?

[00:04:11] Alex: Well, it's funny. I had studied classical guitar for a long time, like in university, I. , but then I also had rock bands on the side. I was like the weirdo in classical guitar that also played rock. And I was really sick of school, like really, really, really sick of school. And I, I hadn't actually owned an acoustic guitar in like a while, and so I, I, I bought my little Parlo guitar, the one that.

if you see me on stage, has a rather sizable secondary hole. And I, it sort of bee lined it for Europe just to sort of play in the street. And so I, I feel like the influences were as much from say, like Radiohead Chiros, like that sort of world of rock and a bunch of classical stuff. And then, A summer job that I had playing on a steam train where we had to learn a whole bunch of folk and tra tunes.

And so I feel like all of those streams kind of ran into what would become the band kind

[00:05:09] Kaitlin: of thing.

For me it was like definitely two things. My musical background up to that point was primarily Coral. So I had joined a community choir when I was in grade two and stayed there for 10 years until grade 12. And we, really dug into some fairly challenging children's choir music, which I enjoyed a lot.

And I was part of all of the choirs, the chamber choir was like a 12 person choir, I think more or less by the end that did a lot of sort. New compositions and I remember one of my favorite pieces we did cuz we, traveled as well, we would tour, we went to the world choir games in Germany, we had this commissioned piece by composer who was from Oakville, which is where I'm from, called John Godi, and it was the witches chant from McBeth set to music and it was super wacky and.

I loved it and I got to be one of the witches and like sort of, you had this speaking role at the beginning and we wore these cloaks that we turned into a cauldron and it was very theatrical and it really kind of, opened that up inside of me. Plus it, it developed my like harmonic sensibility or whatever you wanna call it.

And so I think the coral. For me, it brought blend. Blend was a huge part of what I brought to the band. A desire to kind of make one sound with two voices, and also a love of like building harmonies that are themselves two melodies intertwined. , I sang a lot of soprano two and alto one parts, which is like , e, e f, , F d e,

And so like, which is great. I also love static harmony. That's another part of me, but I really like making fun harmonic parts. and then the other thing was that I started taking some voice lessons. Shortly before I met Alex, in fact, that was one of the reasons why I was on stage one of my voice teachers.

Her name's Roxanne Goodman. She's a voice teacher here in town and one of her other students. Who sang before me had like this incredible and giant voice. Lucila. El Omar. And I admired this person's voice like every week cuz I would come and my, my lesson would be after and eventually got up the courage to ask them if they wanted to jam.

And so anyway, Laci came over. . We jammed, I think once or twice, and that's how I ended up with the open mic is we were singing some stuff acapella together. And definitely working with a voice teacher in that way. Cause I'd done some classical voice stuff on my own before, but it was more of about developing my own voice and like actually learning how to fight, find out what your voice sounds like and more body work, more emotional work and some technique and that.

Really fun. And I think I'm a really emotional person in relation to music. That's my theory kind of sucks and my relationship to music is mostly emotional. And but that definitely is, something that I think got cultivated through working with Roxanne and the vocalist that I admire or like Roberta Flack among a long list, but she's pretty close to the top.

[00:07:55] Rosalyn: where was moon fruits at then? Pre pandemic? Where did you find yourselves before that big life change?

[00:08:04] Kaitlin: Yeah, right before the lockdown we were on tour in the us our sort of first like like our first sort of full on, we'd done a few, we'd been to the Philly Folk Festival and done a few dates the fall prior, and then we'd gone down with our Pez and Dez was playing cello. So we were at Trio for this tour, which was exciting.

We were starting to explore being a bigger band and like we would move from one seat to the next and the state we just left had like closed down for emergency lockdown. And anyway, it became clear that things were shutting down and we should go home. And so we did that. We like, but we had a, an Epic Drive

We had a concert in Volition New York, I think on like the 14th. Yeah. And then we drove, or maybe the 13th we drove down to Philadelphia to pick up our car cuz it was at our pal's place. And then we. Into New York City to Brooklyn to record direct to vinyl. Like 36 takes. We did that on March 15th, . Now, now thinking back on it was probably not a wise decision, but at the time we didn't really know.

Right. So

[00:09:08] Rosalyn: We didn't

[00:09:09] Kaitlin: we did

[00:09:09] Alex: it. Yeah. And, and then all

[00:09:11] 02. Moonfruits - Moonfruits Interview: the

[00:09:11] Kaitlin: way back home and all the way back home when we cross the border at like 2:00 AM and I remember. after being grilled by the, oh, we were really grilled on our 10 CDs that he wanted us to have a special license for him. We were like, man, it's 2:00 AM and there's a global pandemic.

Can we please go home? And it's 10 CDs, , . Anyway, we crossed and we got home and, and then we were kinda like, okay, wow. Uh, We don't have a job anymore. we're a touring artist. And sudden, It became clear that that that was gonna be on pause for a long time.

[00:09:40] Rosalyn: how did that feel? How did you react to that?

[00:09:42] Alex: It was a real grab bag of emotions because, Between, so we're self managed and now we're working with an agent, but at the time, we definitely weren't. And so we're, self booked and self-managed. And so just the endless amount of booking, promoting those bookings , just, just computer work, like, like I'd say like easily at that time, 95% of our job was nothing to do with having a guitar in your hands or singing in a note, And so there was, like a certain. Portion of relief just cuz the pace was untenable. It was it was really, really difficult and I'm sure you probably haven't had this experience rosalin, but like there is no worse feeling in my mind than being on tour. and not getting to appreciate any of the fun parts of it, like eating new fun food and like, like seeing the sites and that kind of thing, because you're booking another tour at the same time.

that's the frigging worst. so th there was a real kind of like collective breath. We played a lot of boggle, like a lot, a lot, a lot of boggle. and I think it was a, a good moment to kind of recenter figure out what we wanted to do and how we wanted to do it.

The idea of slow touring really became very appealing to us. And I'm, I'm noticing like more and more artists and, and even folks in theater talking specifically about this, where it's like The very kind of eighties, nineties models of, send you on tour for 300 dates a year, and once you're burned out, it's like, oh, well again, at least you made some money onto the next artist, to chew up and spit out.

Like I, as a self-managed band, why would you do that to yourself? Right? Like , that's, that, that was, that was imposed from the top to extract wealth from those. So I think it gave us a lot of good pause. And it also, throughout the pandemic, it really showed who was the winner and who was the loser when everything shuts down, the giant corporations made such a steal and so many small businesses closed.

So that, that was a real tragedy to, deal with on a, on a like almost daily basis. Right.

[00:12:00] Rosalyn: I'm, I'm gonna challenge something that you said because I feel like timeline wise, I, I wish we could go back to eighties and nineties touring because you could still sell CDs

[00:12:12] Alex: Um,

[00:12:13] Rosalyn: I think that. Burnout for live reforming artists really hit its peak when we could no longer sell our recordings and make money off of recorded music and all of that, pressure if you wanted to make a living as an artist, a lot folks basically had live performance as their, their main income

[00:12:35] Kaitlin: Yeah. I mean, we really came into this world after that change had already occurred, right. To a certain extent. I mean, we've been looking at our own numbers. We can see some change over the years with growth in streaming versus um, merchandise sales. But I also think we find ourselves in a.

Particular niche where the kind of person who's already interested in getting to know and supporting like an indie folk act is also interested in buying their merch to a certain extent. So, our sense of reality is probably a bit skewed compared to industry wide averages. And also our goals in terms of what we want to do professionally, but also what we expect to earn to make a living we're not modest. We're not big scale here. So, they're, they're pretty modest dreams, I think. And, and that makes a difference too, being, you know, if you're not having to, I've heard others who've had really, really big teams, like, and that's not to knock having support, it's just that it's more mouths to feed, in a sense.

And so that can sometimes I think, be a source of pressure for a lot of performing.

[00:13:32] Rosalyn: That's an interesting point about the folk audience. Do you feel like the folk audiences maybe? I don't wanna say more supportive. They're certainly very supportive audiences across genre. What do you think differentiates the folk artists in terms of their, their support for artists?

[00:13:46] Kaitlin: there's a love of physical things. Hmm. I think that's part of the culture. and I, I define folk pretty broadly. I was actually on the FMO website and looked at your definition of that. I like it. And, music by people, for people, generally speaking, I there's so many incredible folk traditions and there's such an interweaving and a stealing and a borrowing and the story of colonization many times over is embedded in that as well.

And like, you can see how music has traveled with people. . And it's a rich and complex history that's global. And I think the thing that is common throughout for people who like music that often gets described as folk music is that they have a love of experiences and also tangible things they can hold.

And I think that that's why people are still buying merchandise and CDs to a large extent. But I say that not having anything to compare it to. Right. I don't know what it was like before, so I could be talking at me tree, shoe, ear, I don't know what the expression is, . Anyway, I could be, I could be wrong for sure.

[00:14:46] Rosalyn: Yes, it's a family show. So let's

[00:14:48] Kaitlin: Yeah.

[00:14:49] Rosalyn: so the. Other big change that happened during the pandemic, other than being off the road all of a sudden and the whole world crashing down, is that uh, you made a, big personal life change and had a baby.

Tell us a little bit about that experience, which I'm sure during the pandemic was different than most people's experience.

[00:15:09] Kaitlin: Yeah, speaking for myself, I think the timing, which of course as people the world over know whether you've had kids or adopted kids, or whether you're a parent or not. Like kids come when they come. , even people who like to plan, have to. To a certain extent really with control, with, with respect to that.

But the timing for us just was interesting in that I think during my pregnancy there was definitely a lot of restrictions still in place. So I was doing some things alone at the beginning and we sort of had like, a circle of both the, like a work circle and a family circle that we're kind of tight-knit and we were able to visit to some extent, so we weren't totally isolated.

Which I think was really special because I had friends who'd gone through the very same thing like a few months ahead of me, and their experience was very different. Mm-hmm. . And we were able to, like, I gave birth at the birthing center here in Ottawa and. it was really awesome to be able to go and do that.

But it was, kind of curious. Then all of a sudden you're a parent and then you're thinking about all these things that you haven't thought about in those ways before. And, kids and germs, you know, like it's, it's such a big, thing and such a big part of life, and so navigating that now and thinking.

a hundred times more than we did about these things before is it's definitely a shift not only for our own sake, but just managing other people's expectations and comfort levels and then our own desire to be well enough to work. Like it's just a whole hodgepodge.

[00:16:38] Rosalyn: You know, on one side you're thinking about, oh no, I don't want my kid who's fresh into this world without their immune system buildup, to get sick germ wise. And then, but on the flip side, it's like, oh, I have to sing and to oh, use my voice, which is my instrument.

And, and

[00:16:56] Kaitlin: it.

[00:16:56] Rosalyn: sick, it's a bit of a different, scene than being sick before where you just powered through it and

[00:17:01] Kaitlin: And that's it. Well, this is the thing, the number of times that we sang while sick or like, I would like have lost a voice on tour and still be trying to go and, or just like even have a fe like people were billeting us while we were like, in various obviously Ger . Yeah. And, and I'm saying this not by any, in any kind of judgment, just that you.

We just handled things very differently between us, but also our own expectations for ourselves for working. While sick were definitely like there was, as self-employed people, there's no safety net. So if you don't work, you don't get paid. And if you're physically able to do it and you're not like really endangering yourself more than a little bit, like, we would just power through, like you said.

And that's, that's not entirely possible to do anymore. And I think there's probably some good in that. , it's good to respect your body's limits and give yourself time to recover and heal. But it is a risk that we really worry about because there's not really protection for that.

At our level of. Like how we're Yeah. Operating. If we don't perform, we don't

[00:18:00] Alex: get paid. So some countries do have protections for self-employed folks like that. You, you have sick days that you can call on and I'm like, wow,

France has Umk thing where you have to play like x amount of shows a year, but then you, you, you have the same thing like, like just like a, a living wage kind of

[00:18:18] Kaitlin: thing. Yeah. I mean the experience with the C E R P definitely For a lot of us in the arts and culture sector, I think it was kind of like, oh, oh, this is important now.

Okay. Oh, but now that the special circumstances over dignity is no longer required and please pay back and please pay. And not to mention like, were people who were already on supports, important supports for things like disability. compensation thresholds were lower than the minimum established for these emergency benefits.

Mm-hmm. , and they were not topped up, and they still are below that threshold now. I mean, it's just, it boggles the mind, if we can agree people, deserve. Basic things like housing and food safety, shelter, and like just vital neighborhoods in which to like live an outdoor space to like take your kids.

Like these are things that we can agree on that are just pretty core things that people need. it's so strange to me that you can do the mental gymnastics to say they're needed now, but a few months later. Mm. Sorry.

[00:19:22] Rosalyn: do you think that the experience of becoming parents do you find yourself able to kind of go with the flow a bit more, in, in life in general now?

[00:19:30] Kaitlin: Oh yeah, for sure. I think. Surrender is a huge part of it, , because especially in those early days with a, with a newborn, like sometimes everything and nothing would happen. And it was just like, I spent long days, I sometimes spent 18 hour days like alone with Ben. Because there was a point where Alex was working like three or four jobs and it was incredible to be so much with this person, but that part was actually quite isolating. There were times when I was just like, Kind of staring at the wall, staring at Ben, going like, who are you? What are we doing today? What are we doing here in the world?

Like, yeah, it started to go a little bit loopy. But I have to say, like it's not all like, it's, no, it's beautiful as well. Yeah. Truly. And we. Such incredible support from our family, from our friends, from our neighbors, and this is the piece that actually I thought would be interesting to talk about with you, Roz, cuz like, if we think about, you know how things might change.

I mean, care is so obviously a community project. . And I think where people feel really stuck is when they feel compelled either by a dent of circumstance or by social pressure to manage care for kids, for elders, for people in their family that need care for friends, like on their own or by paying for service.

That those are the only two ways you can do it. I think that's unfair because.

It just care is necessarily a communal thing. And it just becomes so obvious because it, it's not just about getting food in people's bellies and making sure that no one like smacks their face on the corner of the table. It's like all this emotional work too. And to do that alone is utterly exhausting and very isolating.

And I think even doing all the regular things with just one other adult in the room for a couple of hours. , it changes everything. At least it did for me. I'm speaking here from my own experience. I don't know. It's, it's suddenly fun and. , you're laughing and I, I don't know.

Mm-hmm. , I think, I mean, I laugh with Ben too, alone. I don't mean to suggest that we're all like quite the opposite, but I don't know. It's just different when another person is there with you and sees you and you can spend time together and you can, go to playgroups and hang out with neighbors and just kind of share that work and, uh, we found some, flow and some kind of fun workarounds.

Have open worlds up to us, truly.

[00:21:51] Alex: but you do kind of see that, like the, the system as it stands is kind of meant for a nine to five job it's like a lot of daycares, you have a contract for 11 months, a year for the daycare. So like, like, it's like everybody is gonna take vacation at the same time.

Everybody's gonna, be present at the same time. And and what we might find like, like a flexible option. At some point, but we, but we haven't yet. And, and, and an affordable option at some point, but, but we haven't yet,

[00:22:17] Rosalyn: it's a really weird situation to be in when your world of work has such wildly different hours than the nine to five. And I mean, we've talked about this before, kind of leading up. F M O and the, and our conference, cuz you know, it was an issue we wanted to address and, and tackle and try to affect some change.

But then the reality was, oh, you know, it's not like we can have like a, corral of babies that you can just go drop them off and don't go do your showcase because you're playing at. or 1:00 AM and it's, a lot of times you're gigging after, bedtime. So it's not like you can take your kid to the daycare center and drop them off and go to work and come back and pick them up.

[00:23:00] Kaitlin: Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. . Yeah. I know that actually is an interesting thing. it's making me think of two things. The first is that at this caregiver affinity group at Folk Alliance that we were invited to facilitate there was a presenter that came who themselves was a parent, and he. Was talking about how he would love to see a panel at one of these future conferences on how to be a family friendly presenter, both not just in the programming that you offer, but in the then how your space is organized, what times your shows are, and how to be a presenter that cultivates an intergenerational audience on the one hand, but then also.

easy for musicians who are also parents to work with on a touring schedule. Mm-hmm. , that they could have childcare available for you there on site while you do your show. And accommodations that work for having a kid in tow or many kids in tow. So I thought that was really cool to hear and I'm excited to hear how, like-minded folks wanna build that into the touring circuit.

That would be incredible. Mm-hmm. .

[00:24:00] Rosalyn: I mean, I feel like if it's possible anywhere, it's possible in the folk community,

[00:24:04] Kaitlin: I totally agree. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Mm-hmm. ,there's such a desire to, buck the, status quo and try something new and exciting that's community oriented, and I think it's a really great fit. I mean, I'm not saying those feelings don't exist elsewhere, I just don't know.

Other industries is the truth of it, but I do think there's a, there's an appetite for

[00:24:20] Alex: it here. It's like, if a green room E, even if all it has is like blackout curtains, a nightlight, a travel crib, and access to one person who has past childcare experience and who's, worthy of confidence.

That, that kind of thing. , that's, that's huge. . That's enormous.

[00:24:41] Rosalyn: Mm.

[00:24:42] Alex: Oh yeah. It wouldn't take

[00:24:43] Kaitlin: much. There's nothing that really wakes a baby up more than overhead fluorescent lights that also

[00:24:48] Rosalyn: Yeah,

[00:24:50] Kaitlin: just like, there's only one switch we cannot have anyway. But the other thing that it made me think of is is just how our cities function.

and just the notion of having, like when we think about how a city runs, we often, like when we look at transit, for example or when public washrooms are open to consider all the times of day at which people are working. So something that would be very interesting would be to imagine like citywide.

or community infrastructure that would support people doing work at different times of the day. Mm-hmm. . And one of those components could be childcare that's available. I mean, obviously it's an ideal to be moving your kid in the middle of their sleeping schedule, but. Absent of other options, that could be something that's really useful for folks.

because surely it's not only musicians who are working at odd hours, you also have anyone doing shift work. Right. And for single parents doing shift work

[00:25:37] Alex: I feel like that this kind of stuff would go under the umbrella of like, what a nightmare.

Well, that's what I was thinking of. Yeah. Which, yeah, which some, some towns

[00:25:45] Kaitlin: have, right? Mm-hmm. , there's a daytime mayor and a nighttime mayor, and the nighttime mayor's responsibilities is to think about how the city runs at night and all the things that it needs. It's kind of cool.

[00:25:53] Rosalyn: That's very cool. I wonder if you can tell me a little bit about what your touring and, and performing life is like now and, and some of the things that you've done to navigate working in this new reality.

[00:26:07] Alex: Yeah. So, we were invited, for example, to the route 11 festival in pi. This was last summer. And so we decided to, to, to do it kind of like as a. trial run for, how we would travel with an infant. And so PI is pretty far from Ottawa, and so we decided to break it up so that we were driving over three days as opposed to maybe two or , maybe one year.

Like super break neck, kinda, touring schedule style cuz we, we kind of found that like five hours a day in the car was like kind of the max, and we'd break that up with like a long lunch and we'd play and like break out like a soccer ball and like that, that kind of thing.

I'm just. We, we quickly kind of found out in, in going out to pi, playing the show and coming back that actually an infant's schedule. Like, like what is comfortable for them. Like the point where they're like, I'm tired of being strapped down of this seat or whatever is actually probably pretty close to what everybody else's bodies are saying, but we just choose to ignore our bodies and just power through with the touring schedule, so, going. Playing the show, having this was a festival that had childcare set up for us specifically for our performances and the thing, the sound checks. Yeah, the sound checks and that kind of thing, which is amazing. Just, just really, really lovely. and food was available and for us and for him and, and all that.

But it, it felt hopeful. Like it felt like, okay, like yes, this is a less, Monetized version of, of touring. But ultimately, if we wanna be doing this till we're like, 80, I, I think, I think the, the slow burn is, is not a bad thing at all. It, it felt really kind of, good.

Mm-hmm. in uh, mind, body and soul to, to, travel a little bit slower. And so we're planning quite a lot of touring for this year, but you know, it's gonna be mostly with a caregiver. so it's figuring out what vehicle to use and are using a trailer or a tule or whatever. And so, so the, the, the logistical aspect has definitely increased.

Dramatically. but it's also, bringing your little one on, tour, like, it's so fun. Like, it's really you, you can tell that like you're, you're seeing the world through their eyes and everything is, everything is Wow. All the time. You're like, I guess this is a pretty cool dingy motel.

Oh

[00:28:43] Kaitlin: yeah. That was one of my favorite memories of that tour. We ended up at kinda like a truck stop motel, which let's just say that the as advertised photos online and the reality in the room were, were not the same. They had showed the very best that they had to offer in the photos. And that was it.

It was just this one wood-paneled wall that was real nice and everything else was kind of like house of illusions. But Ben was having a blast. Yeah. Whoa, I'm somewhere new and I'm bouncing on this bed and it's 10:00 PM and like, he'd slept in the car, he'd gone to bed at his usual time and he'd woken up and it was like an, an illicit late night hang for a few minutes there.

And so we've like read some stories and he was just, anyway, he was having a ball. And yeah, I think like it's just, it's a, it's a privilege to be in the presence of someone who's experiencing the world like that because then it also forces you to. Yeah, yeah. yeah. Okay. But this is actually fun.

Like, we're here with people. We were, we traveled with our friend. Mm-hmm. and double bases, Toby. Which was also wonderful to have a another person, just like another set of hands. And if ever we hit our limit of dealing with a situation like Toby was such a great help and just sense of humor and diffuser and just all round.

Great person has a ton of experience with kids anyways. So just like also seeing Toby and Ben interact. Mm-hmm. in these situations was beautiful for us and it brought like the whole experience to another level. and it just made us wanna do it more. truly.

[00:30:06] Rosalyn: Amazing. before we wrap up, I'm so excited that we get to premiere a recording that we did of Moonfruit at the Folk Music Ontario Conference. It was filmed and recorded by Tim O'Reilly sound Still Productions, who did an incredible job of making that empty hotel ballroom look . Real, real magical,

[00:30:29] Alex: after getting kicked out of the pool where we were originally gonna be shooting

[00:30:36] Rosalyn: Can you tell me a little bit about, the song that, that we're going to hear and, and why you chose it?

[00:30:40] Alex: So Salt is the title track of our, of our new album. The original title was Salt of the Earth, and, and it was a, a hardy nod to my mi and kind of the story goes, I, I was 17 or something like that, and we were having tea together and I asked her what her thoughts were, because obviously I was thinking about it around reincarnation, At that time too, I had had a couple of students that I thought, Hmm, this is not your first time here, . You're teaching somebody and you, and you can tell that like they're a very old soul and um, , , and what, what would you like to be reincarnated as grandma? And, and her answer was actually uh, yeah, heaven is good enough for me.

I was like, right,

[00:31:28] Rosalyn: Cool

[00:31:29] Alex: and then she turned the question on me. And there was like a big awkward silence that followed. And I basically said, I don't know. I thought maybe a drop of water or something would be a cool, cool answer. And, and a true one. . But a few days later I, I sort of sat down and, and wrote the, the poetry to salt. And then many moons after that met Kate and we put the tune together. This is a special tune for us because it actually featured as like, bonus track sort of on our first ever cd and, and it was a live recording? A live recording, yeah. On the

[00:31:59] Kaitlin: second printing of our

[00:32:00] Alex: first scene. That's right.

The second printing .

[00:32:02] Kaitlin: The first one. I think we've burned on our on our own computer.

[00:32:06] Alex: and so it's, Pretty special tune for us. It's it repeats. It's a bit, a bit like sort of a gospel formula, you know, where you're just, it's almost like a mantra that, that repeats and repeats and, and we got to collaborate on this one with just a bunch of really fine musicians flying in their parts through the pandemic.

And some of us got to be in studio together and all of it was put together with a little studio magic at the end, but,

[00:32:31] Kaitlin: but recording it live as a seven. , which is what we did and what you're describing. Roz was so fun and we'd just done our official showcase performance. So I think it was like we hit a beautiful, sweet spot of being amped and like, rehearsed and ready, but like just.

Relaxed and ready to have some fun. So it features Toby Nissan double bass. Mm-hmm. live, Ola on pedal organ and voice. Braden failing on voice. Maddie Reagan and Sam Clark on fiddle. And then Alex and I. Mm-hmm. . It's fun.

[00:33:05] Rosalyn: Well, I can't wait for everyone to hear it. And you can see the video on we'll link it in the show notes. It'll be up on our website. You can see the beautiful video. But for now please enjoy salt.

You just heard salt by moon fruits, Caitlin and Alex. what's coming up next for you folks?

[00:33:26] 02. Moonfruits - Moonfruits Interview: We are gonna be going on tour, this summer and fall. You can find those tour dates on our website, unf fruits.ca,

[00:33:33] Kaitlin: and

[00:33:33] 02. Moonfruits - Moonfruits Interview: you can follow us at Moonfruit music on all the things, all the things.

[00:33:38] Rosalyn: And we'll, uh, link to your website as well as, uh, to your social media if people wanna follow along online. And, uh, you'll be able to see the, uh, the video for salt, uh, up on our website at uh, folk music ontario.org/refocus. R E F O L K U s. we'll have all the, the show notes up there as well. Caitlin and Alex, thank you so much for being here.

[00:34:04] 02. Moonfruits - Moonfruits Interview: Thank you, Ross. It was our pleasure. Really, really thanks for having us. Appreciate it.