{"id":42198,"date":"2025-04-24T10:15:00","date_gmt":"2025-04-24T14:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cultureaddicts.com\/?p=42198"},"modified":"2025-04-22T19:17:39","modified_gmt":"2025-04-22T23:17:39","slug":"the-moonlandingz-are-back-with-no-rocket-required-and-theyre-bringing-iggy-pop-with-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/cultureaddicts.com\/?p=42198","title":{"rendered":"The Moonlandingz are back with \u2018No Rocket Required\u2019 \u2013 and they’re bringing Iggy Pop with them"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

After seven long, weird, Moonlandingz-less years, the gloriously unhinged gang\u2014Adrian Flanagan, Dean Honer, and Lias Saoudi\u2014are back this Friday, April 25, with a brand new album, \u2018No Rocket Required,\u2019 via Transgressive Records. Yes, it\u2019s been a minute. Yes, we missed them. And yes, they\u2019ve returned exactly when we needed them most.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You might\u2019ve already caught early tasters like The Sign of A Man<\/em> and the shapeshifting Nadine Shah feature Roustabout<\/a><\/em>, but they\u2019ve just dropped one more teaser before the full album lands. Say hello to It\u2019s Where I\u2019m From<\/em>, a track with a story that\u2019s almost too wild to believe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This song was born 15 years ago, after Flanagan shattered both arms in a nasty bike crash. Told he might never regain full use of them, he grabbed a handful of Morphine and crawled into his home studio, where\u2014armed with just a mellotron, a MIDI keyboard, a drum machine, one finger and a thumb\u2014he began writing music again. Defiant, raw, and dreamlike.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was the first song I wrote after my accident,\u201d<\/em> says Flanagan. \u201cIt\u2019s like Johnny Cash doing \u2018Hurt\u2019 while channeling Scott Walker\u2019s Scott 2. It just grounds you.\u201d<\/em> Lost in time, the demo ended up buried at the back of a cupboard. But during the final days of \u2018No Rocket Required\u2019 recording, he unearthed the CD again\u2014full of forgotten, beautiful songs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cue resurrection. Flanagan brought in Oliver Harrap on drums, Alex White on sax and flute, and laid down a fresh vocal. But he had one voice in mind to fully bring it to life: Iggy Pop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not just a legend, but the<\/em> voice to sing about mortality and loss. \u201cNo sweaty young upstart could make you believe this song,\u201d<\/em> Flanagan says. \u201cIt had to be Iggy. And by some psychic twist of fate, he said yes.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Proof that even the most painful moments\u2014stuffed in dusty boxes, nearly forgotten\u2014can rise again and become something legendary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The music video, crafted by longtime collaborator Jeanie Crystal, is the third piece in a trilogy exploring masculinity, sexuality, ego, and the messy, absurd effort to understand what it means to be \u201ca man.\u201d It\u2019s moody, surreal, and beautifully bonkers\u2014just like The Moonlandingz themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n