Interview: Night Moves share inspiration and growth behind 'Double Life'
by Diane
July 16, 2025
Minneapolis psychedelic rockers Night Moves’ fourth album, Double Life, was born out of many trying circumstances. For lead vocalist and songwriter John Pelant, it meant quitting his day job, grappling with death in the family, and coping with a toxic neighbor. The genesis of the group’s first full-length record in six years also involved teaming up with high-profile producers who didn’t click with the band’s musical conceptualization, and coming to grips with other life events.
Pelant’s songwriting process involves lengthy experimentation — one that he attributes to “a lifelong compulsion to create.” In just three months, the artist was able to generate an entire album by hashing out lyrics while cycling through musically explorative tropes and soundscapes on an endless loop. Naturally, the music is deeply personal. For the first time, Night Moves took full creative control and self-produced Double Life.
Finalized by co-producer/mixer Jarvis Taveniere (Woods, Waxahatchee, David Berman), Double Life is a culmination of their vast influences — from John Lennon to Gram Parsons, and Shenandoah to T-Rex. It features an imaginative palette of vintage sounds paired with modern-day technological output and all-natural swagger. The album arrives on Friday, July 25, accompanied by a headlining show at First Avenue on July 26.
Night Moves, The Local Show’s July Artist of the Month, shared details about of the new record, performing live, and their musical growth in this exclusive interview with The Current.
Transcript edited for clarity and length.
This is Diane, host of The Local Show, sitting across from Night Moves — all four members in the studio with me today. How's it going today?
Everyone: It's great. Thank you for having us.
Our Artist of the Month for July is Night Moves, and we are especially promoting that they have a brand-new record out (on July 25). In fact, it's going to be their first full-length record in six years. Wow.
John Pelant: Yeah, I don't know how that happened. I think it was a little bit of COVID, and we put out an EP that was supposed to be a full-length and that never materialized. And so I guess, yeah, it is six years. But we have put out stuff since then, or in between then.
Yep. "Vulnerable Hours," Fallacy Actually" –
JP: Yes!
"Feel Another Day." I've been spinning all of them on my show.
JP: Thank you.
Big fan here sitting in the hot seat ... I had the privilege of being able to listen to the (new) record in advance, and it is exquisite. Give me your crash course on a little backstory on this new record.
JP: It seemed like it was written two years ago — summer of ‘23. I had been working this job as a wine and liquor delivery guy. I wasn't really making any music, and I was too tired at the end of the day. I was thinking every day about writing the songs, and what the next record is gonna sound like. And I essentially was like, “I've gotta quit this job,” and then the record kind of just spilled out within like three months of writing after having quit.
I'm especially drawn to the production. This is the type of record you need to listen to with headphones on. I love that the word “impressionistic” is used to describe it. It seemed to be given life through the environment in which it was created, which partially was a tiny rehearsal space.
JP: Yeah, which we just came from. So it was mostly written there. It got to the point with my now-wife, living at home. You can hear everything I'm doing. And you'll play a loop for hours and hours and hours trying to get it right, and just singing mindless lyrics. And all that was just bumming her out. And she was reading too much into things I didn't even know I was saying. But also just it's maddening to hear things on an endless loop, which is what you have to do in my mind, to perfect the songs. So I was going to our rehearsal space every day and treating it like an office, and being like, “Well, I'm gonna just go here. I don't have anything in mind.” I just kind of tinker around for eight hours and things materialize if you stick with it.
One of the most profound times I saw y'all perform was at Turf Club. This band Tabah was opening, and they were amazing. And then y'all came on, and the best words I can use to describe experience are absorbing and transcendent. What's it like getting in that head space and being in front of an audience performing this music?
JP: It's been a while since we've done it, so I forget what it's like … You just rehearse as much as you can, so you're on autopilot. That's the big thing for me. We got to rehearse as much as we can. And then just when you get up there, you can't be swayed by anything, anybody, the crowd. Or maybe the vibes [are] not there when you take the stage and you just go, “Well, I know what I have to do. I know all my pedal moves.” ... Wo it's kind of like — fly by the seat of your pants. It's very rehearsed, I guess.
Mark Hanson: Surgical.
JP: It's sort of surgical. So getting in the headspace is a couple glasses of red wine — that'll take you there. I like to have the set list planned out. That's a big thing. And then I think we've just known each other for so long. I think everyone knows their role well, too. The biggest thing is the songwriting. So it's like, get that down, get the rehearsals down, and then you can take any stage or any room, and if people dig it, they're gonna dig it. And if they don't, well, it's not our fault.
There's so many different words you can use to describe the genre of your music — psychedelia, rock ‘n’ roll. I hear a lot of '70s influence. One thing that stood out to me was that you, in this record, got some '90s country inspiration, which I can especially hear on the track "White Liquor." I'm curious to inquire about that piece of it.
JP: Oh yeah, I was just talking about this band Shenandoah. That had never been anything that really spoke to me before, but I think I just found it at the right time. And I was like, I'm gonna see if I can just steal something from this and inject it into the music, because it's definitely a different tone and change of pace for us. But I think if someone did hear this, they'd be like, “I do not get that reference at all.” And I was talking with someone a couple days ago, and they were like, "How does your music (come from) all these influences?" And I was just like, you could probably listen to the record and not hear any of these influences. You don't want to be overly referential in one sort of way. You want to put it in a blender, mix it up, and just distill something new from it.
Charles Murlowski: Unless it's something kind of like — we use the reference '90s John Lennon.
‘90s John Lennon?
CM: Things like that. [Laughs] Let's make this sound like '90s Lennon.
I can hear that.
CM: Leave it up to the imagination a little bit.
JP: I think with the genre thing, it's funny, because I think mostly that's just a marketing tool, like an elevator pitch. When someone's like, "Oh, what are you guys doing in this hotel?" And we're like, oh, we played tonight. And they're like, "What do you do?" And it's, oh, I'm a band, and they're like, "What does it sound like?" And then that's the only time that it would be, for me, applicable. Or in a bar, someone's like, "What does it sound like?" And I'm kind of like, “I don't really want to talk about this right now.”
MH: No, you have a go-to answer.
JP: Yeah, well I say “cosmic twang-rock pop sludge.” Mix those words around in any sort of thing, but if it's enough for someone to go to the link to listen to it, I think that's all its function is. But it's tough for me to say what it is, what it sounds like. I don't know.
The lead single of this new record is "Hold On to Tonight," which is described as "a kaleidoscopic soul tune that was inspired by death in the family. And it's a snapshot from a boozy night alone when you stumble into the realization that the only thing you're holding on to is fading memories." Can you introduce this song?
JP: What's funny about this one is I had the chorus line, “hold on to tonight.” I was like, “This sounds very, very poppy — maybe too poppy.” But with everything, it's first chords and melody and stuff, and then at the end, you gotta write lyrics. And so I was coming up with something that maybe had more meaning. And my now father-in-law, who wasn't my father-in-law at the time, had passed away. And I was cleaning up his house because he had a heart attack. When someone dies, they don't clean up the scene. They were trying to revive him and everything. And there was blood from them trying to get an IV started ... And I was right in the throes of having started to write this record. And I was like, “This is crazy” … I was just trying to draw on some memories and some significance that could maybe play into to hold on to tonight and let the booze flow. And then you kind of just come up with something.
And your voice is wow. That's another big part of this band. Your singing voice is so captivating.
JP: Thank you.
And I'm thinking about Colored Emotions. That record was huge for y'all. You got signed to Domino Records, and I heard that you were going to release it, and then you had it repurposed ...
JP: Right. We had to re-mix it. And they were like, “Well, if you do sign with us, we want to remix it, remaster it, and then we also just added a couple songs.” Give it a face lift, I guess.
Yeah. I was listening a lot back to that record. Now, listening to this record —
JP: Seems like it's changed a lot.
Yeah, well, especially your voice is becoming more pronounced.
JP: Yeah, it's funny, because in those early days, I was definitely heavy on the reverb, and I don't even remember how I was exercising my voice ... I think I was really into T. Rex at that time. I think when I listen back to it, I'm like, okay, yep, T. Rex. You can hear that influence. And then I feel like we put out that record and I remember getting this Four Tops tape and this Credence Clearwater tape, because I had a tape deck in my car at the time, this Toyota Camry. And I remember just being like, “If I could sing out loud like these guys.” And that sounds stupid, but I remember trying that, and it took a long time to maybe have it become a little stronger and more throaty. But I think something happened right before the Pennied Days record where I was like, “I should probably try.”
And I'll give John Agnello credit for a lot of this, because he really pumped me up. And he was like, "You're just a young singer, and you're afraid of your voice," because I'm always trying to turn my voice down in the mix. And he was like, "No, you have a great voice." And I was like, “No, I don't.” So I really give him credit for kind of making me feel — because the next record, Pennied Days is when it came into its new thing, I think. And so he just was like, "You can't be afraid. And it doesn't sound confident when you bury it." And then, you know, with each record, it just kind of became a thing of being like, “Well, you're putting out music for a reason, for people to hear it, so don't try and take away something that would make it characteristic and unique.”
CM: Yeah, you sang really well on this album. I gotta compliment you. It's the best yet.
JP: I appreciate that. I recorded all the names myself. That was a new thing. And I finally — what's funny is, because all the records have been very Night Moves-y and the term that it's our sound. But we never have gotten a production credit. But this was the first one where we actually got production credit.
