The word“ muna” means a few different things. It’ s a female given name in Arabic. It’ s the Filipino word for“ first” or“ beforehand.” In Icelandic, it means“ to remember.” In Los Angeles, it’ s a trio of musicians who met in college three years ago and have been making self-described“ dark pop” ever since.
Twenty-three-year-old Katie Gavin, MUNA’ s lead singer and producer, recalls meeting rhythm guitarist Naomi McPherson, also twenty-three, and lead guitarist Josette Maskin, twenty-two, at USC in the way only someone who was recently in college can.“ I met Josette [ one ] fall semester, and then I met Naomi [ in ] spring semester of that [ school ] year,” Gavin says,“ and then the following fall semester we started playing together.” Every time they jammed, they ended up with a new song. Five of those songs made it onto a selfreleased 2014 EP, More Perfect, which the band has since scrubbed from the Internet. Still, while it was up, the EP got a bit of traction from UK blogs.
That was when MUNA realized the attention they could command if they got even more serious about music. Fortuitously, they all got internships in New York, and they spent a summer in the city working, playing shows, and writing the songs that appear on their current EP, The Loudspeaker, which is out now on RCA.
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