Walk The Moon
courtesy of TIFFANY DAWN NICHOLSON (TDNphoto)

Walk the Moon, a new wave quartet from Cincinnati, Ohio, comes to headline a sold-out show at the Black Cat this Friday, June 22, after passing through DC a couple of times already in the past year. They arrive on the heels of their debut album, Walk the Moon, available today. We Love DC caught up with Eli Maiman, the band’s guitarist, to talk about mostly other awesome bands like the Talking Heads and The Police, as it turns out, but also about appreciating dedicated fans and getting big fast.

Mickey McCarter: The first time I ever heard of you guys, I was here in Washington, DC, and I was hanging out at the Black Cat. And the band played a sold-out show at the backstage room at the Black Cat. All of your fans were going in there and I saw all of these young girls in the warpaint and the feathers. I was like, wow! That visual really left an impression on me and I didn’t even know who you guys were yet.

How did that come about? How did the warpaint get started?

Eli Maiman: The very idea of the facepaint occurred when we were working on the idea for the “Anna Sun” video. Our director, Patrick Meier, wanted to include some reference to The Lost Boys. The facepaint was his idea. And it became the central theme in the “Anna Sun” video. At our video release party, we had a facepaint station and people really took to it. They really enjoyed it, so much so that people started showing up at other shows in facepaint.

It’s evolved from there where people will come in facepaint and we will provide facepaint at shows. We’ll wear the paint ourselves on stage. It has really become this unifying element of the live show. It’s a visual expression of the community that we have and this group experience we all have together.

Continue reading →