Comprising members of agit-punks Fat White Family and synth prog group Eccentronic Research Council, the Moonlandingz began life as a fictional band on the ERC's 2015 album, Johnny Rocket, Narcissist & Music Machine...I'm Your Biggest Fan. A tale of a female fan stalking her favorite singer, Johnny Rocket, of her favorite band, the outer space rockabilly Moonlandingz, the ERC needed someone to play the band, so they brought in Saul Adamczewski and Lias Saoudi of Fat White Family to help out. They recorded an EP to go along with the album and then, buoyed by the experience, everyone involved decided to take it one step further and make the Moonlandingz a real live band. They began working on an album in Sheffield, with the ERC's Adrian Flanagan and Dean Honer writing the music, Flanagan and Saoudi taking care of the lyrics and vocals, and Adamczewski adding guitars. When they had the basics down, they traveled to Sean Lennon's upstate New York studio to expand their sound and add more musicians. First up were live drums from former Fat Truckers and Add (N) to X drummer Ross Orton and bass from Mairead O'Connor, then a wide range of people came in to contribute, including the Slow Club's Rebecca Taylor, the Human League's Phillip Oakey, Randy Jones (aka the Cowboy from the Village People), and Yoko Ono. The resulting album, Interplanetary Class Classics, was released in early 2017 on Chimera Music. They spent the rest of the year tearing up live stages across the U.K. and Europe, then released the This Cities Undone EP late in the year. Their last shows of 2017 were billed as possibly their last ever, as the bandmembers resolved to return to their regular gigs.
