Walk the Moon’s Kevin Ray Talks VMAs, Social Media and Playing with Taylor Swift

The song of the summer isn’t going anywhere any time soon. Walk the Moon’s now-triple-platinum single “Shut Up and Dance” has taken over airwaves for months and this weekend, the band will be performing their hit to kick off MTV’s Video Music Awards.

The energetic rockers are coming off a whirlwind summer that included performing with Taylor Swift, opening for the Rolling Stones, conquering Lollapalooza and selling out venues all across the country.

Kevin Ray, the band’s bassist, took some time to chat about the past few months, what’s coming up (including headlining the brand-new Lipton Be More Tea Music Festival in North Charleston) and being happiest when on tour.

So how are things right now?

My entire head is covered in foil. Trying to keep the aliens from getting to me. Also, I’m getting my hair dyed purple. I think the aliens appreciate purple better. Big life changes are happening here.

Sounds exciting! First off, congrats on the success of “Shut Up and Dance.”  You guys are basically taking over.

Thanks! It’s great. It’s absolutely more than we could have ever imagined.

And the song is competing for a VMA against some pretty amazing bands.

Yeah, how crazy is that? We visited the VMAs as random guests a few years ago and never thought that we’d actually be walking the red carpet and sitting in the audience as nominees. It evidently hasn’t hit us yet. It’ll hit us, probably right when we show up and get out of the car. And we’ll look like scared little kids. When we were there last time, and they announce you when you arrive at the red carpet, they announced, “Walk the Moon!” One girl in the front was like, “I love you guys!” And we’re like “Yeah!” Right after us was One Direction…and then it was mass hysteria. We had to get out of the way. It put things in perspective.

Maybe that will be you guys this year. And you’re performing in the pre-show.

Yeah! It’s gonna be a trip. With the whole VMA nomination, that’s a huge milestone we’ve never been involved in or had the opportunity to be involved in. We only get there because of the fans and what they’ve given us. How could you not be so grateful for that? Winning or no winning, it truly is, I don’t care how cliche it is, it is an honor to be in the lineup of artists that are nominated. It’s awesome.

Anything you’re particularly looking forward to at the show?

Personally, I’m looking forward to the outfits. I’ve always been a fan of really wild fashion. If there’s any award show where that’s encouraged, it’s the VMAs. I’m really looking forward to whatever ridiculous fashion may be there. I spent a while yesterday looking up the history of the VMA fashion and it was pretty wild. My favorite was Marilyn Manson last year. Scary, yet awesome. Look it up.

Have you officially started on the fall leg of your tour yet?

We’re always on tour. Eventually, we’ll be touring and it will be fall. We have a U.S. fall tour leg starting around October and we’re super excited. We’re playing some festivals, some places we haven’t been in a while, we’re playing some of the biggest venues we’ve ever played, including the Greek in L.A. It’s absolutely crazy. We love being on the road. We like to think the live show is the center of what Walk the Moon is. No matter what’s happening in our lives, put us on the road for a month and we’ll be the happiest four guys you’ve ever met. It’s been nuts. We’ve sold out some crazy places. We sold out Red Rocks. That’s 10,000 people. We never dreamed. Or we did dream. We only dreamed. And now we’ve woken up from that dream.

Can you tell me about the Lipton Be More Tea Festival?

It’s the first-ever Be More Tea Festival which is really cool because a lot of festivals have been around for a long time and you don’t often get to say you were one of the first bands to play a festival. We’re getting to play it with a bunch of our best friends, like Passion Pit, The Roots and St. Lucia. In my opinion, St. Lucia is one of the best live bands I’ve ever seen perform. We couldn’t be more excited to hang out with them for a day.

And fans can win a chance to attend this?

It’s the 125th anniversary of Lipton and you can win through a sweepstakes. It started in May and ends September 19, so you have twenty-something days to get in on that. They’re giving away whole trips. They want to do it right. They want to bring you and, I think, a guest to the festival. How awesome is that?

What are you most looking forward to during the rest of the year?

I’m looking forward to it all. Maybe cliche, but there are so many good things happening. It’s all a bit overwhelming but we’re excited about all of it. I mean we’ve gotten to go to Japan, the Philippines for the first time ever, some of us got to play with Taylor Swift on stage, we got to open for the Rolling Stones, now we’re looking forward to playing a huge festival like this and being at the VMAs, and it’s just crazy. So much to look forward to. Definitely not taking it for granted at all. Japan was so amazing. Amazing! They were so happy to have Walk the Moon in their country. We ate it up. It was so cool. Not only the music side of things, but learning about the culture, the people, the country. It was one of the best trips of all time.

You guys are very active on social media.

I think you’re wasting your time if you don’t take advantage of this amazing technology you have as artists these days. The ability to connect directly to people and know what they’re hoping for, what they’re looking forward to. We get to be as excited as our fans about shows because we can look ahead to each city and see what they’re saying and see how pumped they are. It’s still a very genuine thing. We get to connect with people on a level that’s never been available before. Take advantage of it! Especially for upcoming bands, there’s so much technology out there. Why not use it?

The new single, “Different Colors,” has been playing on radio stations. How’s the response been?

That’s awesome! We’re really excited about that song getting some legs. It’s something we’re very passionate about, a message of empowerment. It’s very important to us. To see it starting to spread on its own, it’s great. Hopefully it’ll be up in the ranks of “Shut Up and Dance” someday.

Has anything happened that has surprised you since “Shut Up and Dance” has become so popular?

Everything. Absolutely everything has been amplified. We couldn’t be more grateful. We’ve had some humongous milestones, like our show at Lollapalooza had like 40,000 people. Going back to play that four years later put a whole lot in perspective, how much time we’ve put into this project and the crazy return we’ve gotten from that hard work. It’s not anything we are taking for granted.

Now it may be too soon to say, but are you making any plans for an upcoming album?

We’re so busy right now. We’re not actively working on anything like that at the moment. But we wrote close to 50 songs for Talking is Hard. We’ve got plenty of ammunition going into the next album. But, you know, we can’t help but write all the time. We’re songwriters. That’s how we express ourselves. We’re always going to be constantly working on music in the back of the bus or hotel rooms so we’re ready for it, but we’re enjoying the ride at the moment. There’s a lot to keep us busy and we’re excited about where we’re going.