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Standing on a porch on Ostrom Avenue Friday, Anjali Engstrom and Grace Ferguson’s band performed their debut album for the first time at a friend’s house. Returning to their roots, the pair performed on the same thing they started on: a carpet.

“It’s kind of crazy how we do all this together, and yet we don’t really ever get sick of each other,” Engstrom said. “We’ve figured out that perfect balance of working together, living together while also just being genuinely, really good friends.”

Ferguson and Engstrom, now sophomores, met on Facebook the summer before their freshman year and clicked immediately. Around two months into their time at Syracuse University, inspired by artists like Taylor Swift and Phoebe Bridgers whose work feels like a peek into their diary, the duo formed Luna and The Carpets, a folk-rock band. On Oct. 13, the band released their album, “I Wish Venus Had a Moon.”

Ferguson is a music industry major in the College of Visual and Performing Arts while Engstrom is part of the Bandier Program at the Newhouse School of Public Communications. With different classes and projects, they often worked on their own individual music in their dorm room but never planned on forming a band. While in their dorm, Engstrom asked for Ferguson’s help with a piece, and they realized how well they worked together.

Ferguson and Engstrom began to consistently work on music together in October 2022. At the same time, they started releasing videos on Instagram, “The Carpet Series,” which featured the two of them sitting on their titular carpet laughing and making music. Though, at that time they hadn’t yet found their name.

After watching the series, one of their friends suggested they call themselves “The Carpets,” but a band with that name already existed. So, Ferguson and Engstrom decided to incorporate the name Luna, as they had been considering it with other name ideas.

Being best friends, roommates and band partners, Ferguson and Engstrom spend a lot of time together. To make sure their connection stays strong, they compartmentalize the different parts of their relationship and always make their friendship the top priority.

Ferguson said that if their “best friendship” falls apart, the other aspects of their partnership do too. They accommodate each other and keep their friendship stable and fun even through five-hour Sunday night recording sessions.

“It’s just fun doing all these things with (Ferguson),” Engstrom said. “(She’s) the funniest person I know. She always knows how to get a laugh out of me and we always keep it light, keep it friendly while also being professional.”

After a performance they did for a Newhouse film class, Rob Childs, an audio arts graduate student, reached out and offered to produce eight songs for them as part of his capstone project. They decided to take the opportunity and record their first album.

This weekend, to celebrate the album’s release, Ferguson and Engstrom did a show on their friend Giulianna Palucci’s porch. It was their first time doing a full show of entirely their own music, and their first time playing several of the songs off the album.

Palucci played guitar for the album and described the release party as a special night. They decorated the porch with carpets to pay homage to the band’s name and performed in front of a crowd made up of roughly 100 family and friends.

“The music is very personal. It’s about people that we all know,” Engstrom said. “Our friends play in the band and our friends help us write and produce the music.”

Engstrom said the foundation behind their group is their unwavering support for each other, both personally and creatively. Ferguson writes the melodies and Engstrom writes the lyrics for many of their songs, so they fit like puzzle pieces.

“They just both know what the other one is saying without the other one actually saying it,” Palucci said. “They’re just always locked in with each other. They think the same way about the music and they always make it work.”

Engstrom would sit in the Newhouse studio and play songs acoustically for Palucci, who would then create a drum beat to go with the track. She said it was a really fun recording process and she loved being part of the project.

Ferguson said the experience made freshman year more exciting, but gave them a lot more work. However, with both being so passionate about what they do, Ferguson said it was worth it.

Being an all-girl band, they face catcalls and inappropriate comments during shows, Ferguson said. Once, in the middle of a set, a man tried to shove her off of the keyboard and attempt to start to play himself.

Due to the stigma they face as an all-girl duo, they care about female representation in the local music scene. For local house shows, their drummer, guitarist and entire band are made up of women.

Here’s a clip from the day we wrote the song. Special shout-out to @catherine.onorato for being there hehe. It’s crazy to see how far this song has come. In the meantime please Presave it 🙂

A video posted by lunaandthecarpets

“If we can find female musicians that are just as good if not better than their male counterparts, obviously we’re going to use them,” Ferguson said. “We wanted to just try to create more space for female artists.”

Before Luna and The Carpets became a band, Ferguson and Engstrom performed at Maria Nido and her roommate’s acoustic venue, The Recital. Nido, Engstrom’s girlfriend, first worked with them for that performance, and now describes the pair as some of her best friends.

Nido played drums in their album debut concert on Friday. She said it was a cathartic, beautiful experience to play the songs that she watched Ferguson and Engstrom work on all year.

“A good portion of those songs chronicle me and Anjali’s relationship in the beginning,” Nido said. “It’s cool because it’s a time capsule of everything she was feeling outside of our relationship as well.”

Engstrom came over to Nido’s apartment last year to play the album, and Nido helped add its guitar riffs. She said it was special seeing the songs transform from voice memos on Engstrom’s phone to a full-blown album on Spotify.

“They’re just giggly happy girls that love each other, and they bounce off of each other’s energy very seamlessly,” Nido said. “It’s just two girlies having fun. It’s such a great feminine friendship energy.”

The band is based on friendship. Produced by friends and featuring friends, the album involved Ferguson and Engstrom’s community at Syracuse, and now they are celebrating its success.

“I love them so much,” Palucci said. “They created this very beautiful little world, within their album and within their music. People really love them. Not only as musicians, but as people.”

Published on October 18, 2023 at 11:33 pm