Meet D.J. Gonzalez | Mid-Day Moon

We had the good fortune of connecting with D.J. Gonzalez and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi D.J., what do you think makes you most happy? Why?
We find happiness in the impact our music has on people. Hearing people sing our songs at shows and seeing them dance along to our music brings out a feeling very few other things can match. All 4 of us remember the first time we played a show and fans started singing one of our songs with us. It was at Churchils Pub for a Halloween show in 2017. As time has gone on that definitely happens more frequently and with larger crowds but every single time is special. Performing in general and sharing the stage with our brothers and our best friends makes us about as happy as we could ever be and we hope to continue that forever.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
One thing that is unique about us, is that we’re a band that consists of 2 sets of brothers. Brothers D.J. Gonzalez (guitarist) and Di’Angelo Gonzalez (drummer) are originally from Los Angeles, California. Brothers Alex Gil (guitarist) and Andy Gil (bass / lead vocals) grew up in Miami, Florida. There were a couple of different bands that existed before Mid-Day Moon and after those bands didn’t work out we sorta combined members from both of them to give us what is now Mid-Day Moon. All four of us sing in the band to some extent (both live and in studio recordings), whether thats lead vocals, backing vocals, or harmonies. A fun fact about our latest song “Ages” is that its the first song that our singer Andy isn’t lead on. Our drummer Di’Angelo actually takes lead so its a fun change up.

We’re most proud of our newest song “Ages” that just released on June 24th. With this song our sound feels like it is evolving and shifting from previous releases while still keeping that same Mid-Day Moon vibe to it. We had a lot of fun in the studio with this one and are really excited to have the song and music video finally out now. We hope everyone reading will check it out!

Another proud accomplishment of ours is one of our favorite songs “Hey Wait”. “Hey Wait” is our biggest song and has brought us so many new fans on Spotify. Recently it just hit 1 million streams and it is our first (of hopefully many songs in the future) to do so.

We’ve made it this far professionally through a lot of hard work and dedication towards what we love doing. We’re constantly looking to write new music and play new venues. When you’re first starting off, it’s hard to book venues who don’t know you yet. There have been many in the local scene who have helped give us opportunities to play shows and reach new crowds when we hadn’t earned any type of reputation to that point. We definitely appreciate everyone who looked out for us and continues to look out for us in that way. Backroom Sessions has definitely been one of the biggest helps to us in getting shows, especially early in our career so we want to include an extra shout out to them too.

Reaching a new audience is always challenging but Spotify has helped us do that a lot with discover weekly playlists and daily mixes. Another challenge has been making the money needed to fund everything we aspire to do with the band. Playing more shows definitely helps and so does the money from our music, but making and selling merch has helped a ton as well. We sell shirts at all our shows that our Guitarist D.J. screen prints and pins that he’s made, as well as some CDs, keychains and stickers. We also have an online merch store with some exclusives through the link in our bio on all our social media pages. The extra income from merch definitely helps a ton so we appreciate everyone who has ever bought from us in the past!

We’re going to keep trying to share our music with a wider audience for the rest of our lives so we hope more people will continue to listen and share with their friends!

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Easy. It’s a week long trip right? First we stock up on powerade and hot cheetos!
Of course we’d take them to places that mean a lot to us personally… like the real life “Rock Band” venues here In the Miami local scene. Gotta show them some of the great artists around here¡ After we’d probably hit up our favorite food truck before calling it a night. Might hit up Night Owl Cookies too.

Might throw in a karaoke bar and a trip to the beach too, but honestly we all very much go with the flow a lot of times. The less planned the better. We like to see where the wind takes us ya know? Di’Angelo’s life motto is “It’s not about the destination, but the journey” and we’re all pretty much on that vibe too.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
We want to shout out our parents who have been our biggest supporters throughout our journey since day 1. Our band consists of 2 sets of brothers and we’ve practiced at the Gonzalez parents house every week since wee started. The Gonzalez and Gil parents have always supported whether it be by giving a practice space, food, a car to take our equipment to shows, coming to shows or helping out when we’ve needed extra money, we’ve been able to count on our parents every step of the way.

Website: https://linktr.ee/middaymoon_

Instagram: https://instagram.com/middaymoon_?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

Twitter: https://twitter.com/middaymoon_?t=h7bZt6j9ZfNljkxYdc_0CA&s=09

Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/1622462358060558/

Youtube: https://youtube.com/c/MidDayMoon

Other: Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/73El2BvsQIpszykfp4wesu?si=33aM6etFRhGSHI8DTJPHMw&utm_source=copy-link Merch Store: https://mid-day-moon-merch.creator-spring.com/

Image Credits
Alex Anderz Lui Vigo Matt F. Matthias