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Andy Kiel, Jim Wittmann, and Andrew Hertzberg aren’t homeless or begging for money to waste on wretched addictions. Instead they’ve been performing on the streets, at festivals, radio stations, and venues under the stellar moniker Moon Furies for an important cause. On May 17th, the trio commenced their mission to raise money and perform 100 shows in 100 days for cancer research, specifically to support Andrew’s mother after she was diagnosed with throat cancer. Their musical output is a blend of starry-eyed synths and celestial harmonies, but while playing in the streets, the band is forced to strip back to acoustics and impromptu verses. With one LP under their belt, the trio intends to name each album after our solar system’s planetary arrangement (They really dig space). You can grab their debut Mercury here.

Veoba hung out with Moon Furies during day 35 of their charitable venture. We talked over some local Mexican food about their current project, the hoppin’ street spots, and their lunar dreams that’ll hopefully be funded by Virgin’s Richard Branson. Despite the shithole that Memories provided, Moon Furies put on a momentous electronic performance, and apparently their acoustic street appearances draw a crowd of natives, toursits, kids and dancing pets alike. Check out the our conversation below and stay tuned for the band’s first music video in the coming month.

Give us a brief explanation of the current project.

Jim: It’s kinda like this salsa. It’s very spicy and there’s a lot of different things in it.

Andy: We decided to go ahead and do 100 shows in 100 days. Andrew’s mom was diagnosed with throat cancer so we decided to have all the proceeds go to throat cancer and we’re really trying to help her out and support her with everything she’s going through.

Jim: The money is going to the doctor that is treating Andrew’s mother. It’s going directly towards his research to help further it.

Andrew: At first we thought to just donate to the Kellog Cancer Research center in North Shore, then they directed us specifically to him. So it’s not really a general thing.

And how’s it going so far?

Andy: It’s been a lot of fun. It’s crazy.

Jim: We’ve seen a lot of stuff. We’ve seen people puke in front of us, cops have caught us and been pissed. We played a party where people were so drunk they were destroying our instruments and we had to stop.

How did you all meet?

Jim: (Andy) and I met when we were 4 years old. In preschool we were playing with this blue and silver airplane. It was seriously the best toy we had in preschool. No joke. Until we both brought in crash dummy toys. We had a love for them and that’s how we started bonding. Ever since, we’ve been best friends and roommates and bandmates.

Andrew: I met them through college. We went to Columbia together.

Andy: I was looking for some jazz music one night for a radio short. Andrew’s roommate told me he had some really cheesy stuff, so he hooked me up.

Andrew: That was 5 years ago. After we graduated we kept running into each other at bars or concerts and after a couple drinks I’d be like “hey, we should jam tomorrow!” Then finally after 4 or 5 times we actually did it.

Andy: Can I tell you a secret? When I was a freshman or sophomore I already knew that you played drums. I had you on my drummer list. I kept track of drummers. You don’t find many cool ones, a lot of them are total douchebags.

Andrew: And some just hide their douchebag well.

Jim: Anyways, now were the 3 musketeers and we all love each other and we see each other every single day and we don’t hate each other. Which is surprising.

How does playing in the streets compare to playing in a venue or bar atmosphere?

Andy: We had never played in the streets. It’s a totally different experience. We’re doing a lot of street shows because we want to make sure that we can pace out venue shows and promote them and get adequate draw. But we don’t do a lot of heavy promotion. We do it with more with the expectation to just meet people in the streets and interact with them. It’s interesting because you’re going out to an environment that they’re not there to watch you, they’re not asking for you. You’re just going there and giving yourself. There’s not a sound man making sure you can hear everything okay, there’s not somebody else projecting it. It’s such a raw state. Like there’s a street pole here, this is gonna be my drum for the day or I see this person walking by, I’m gonna change my verse to something they’re doing. We really like bringing people together; it’s one of our goals to help unite people in some sense.

What determines the location for street performances?

Andrew: We usually try to anticipate a place with the most foot traffic. The obvious one is Michigan Avenue but that sort of sucks because people are doing their own thing, they’re all shopping or whatever and there are so many other musicians around; it’s oversaturated in a way. But playing along Milwaukee and Wicker Park or Logan Square, anywhere between California or the Damen blue line stop, you can find people that are pretty interested. We played on the street in Pilsen once. The more artistic areas, I think, respond better.

Andy: The areas where there is a sense of community seem to respond better. Whereas we played in Lincoln Park and it was my least favorite show. Nobody did anything. We had zero interaction.

Andrew: Except for the homeless people who were just like “play George Harrison all day long.”

Andy: People wouldn’t even look at us. Another interesting thing, other than the sense of community, is that the people who react to us are either people who’ve recently moved to the city or tourists or people with kids, because the kids like being involved.

Jim: Or dogs. Dogs love us. We played at the Sears Tower once and that was pretty bad. Basically, anywhere where there’s a lot of business people and, I’m gonna go ahead and say it, white people, they tend to just ignore you. They just perceive you as part of the noise and don’t care.

So far what day is the most memorable/why?

Jim: Probably either the first show at Subterranean or the show at Debonair was a lot of fun. Debonair has its own reputation for what it is, but it was a lot of fun playing a show there. It was seriously a huge party.

Andrew: I sort of hate to admit it, but I really like the Debonair show.

Andy: We had everything pent up inside from playing on the streets and all of a sudden we had a chance to go play electronically.

Jim: I remember when we were playing our first song I literally went crazy. It starts off sorta slow with Andy singing, we did some harmonies and then I just felt this energy. And for the first time ever in Moon Furies I just lost myself and went crazy and had a complete blast. People were dancing and interacting. It was unbelievable.

Andrew: Not to mention we were the only band playing and there was an awesome turnout. It was a good crowd and interesting setup. We played 2 half hour sets.

So you guys are on day 35. What are the plans for the next 65 days?

Jim: To chew bubblegum and kick ass. But we’re all out of bubble gum.

Andy: We’re gonna do a little tour through Wisconsin towards the end of July. The last day is August 24th and we’re talking about some special magical shows for that, but we can’t quite say for sure cus it’s not official yet.

Andrew: I think we should just play in my living room.

Jim: It could be really crazy. It could be the craziest show ever. We may play in a port-o-potty and we may play in Millennium Park.

What about after it’s all over?

Andy: My goal is to be the first musician to play on the moon. But we’ve gotta get in touch with Richard Branson. He’s gonna have to fund us I think.

Jim: Richard hit us up! NASA hit us up! The only thing I’m worried about with space travel is that thing that spins in circles. That’s something I’m really dreading, and the space food.

Andrew: Dried ice cream is awesome. I loved getting that stuff at the Planetarium.

Andy: What’s the point of playing shows on the streets? We’re playing in every environment possible except for the moon.

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