With talent beyond their young 20-something years and immense passion for their craft, it feels as though this Atlanta-based five-piece band will soon reach a level of fame that few musicians attain. A listen to their most recent releases, “Out Tonight” and “Flowers (Carry Me Home)” shows their skill as songwriters, singers (the band features two lead vocalists, as well as tight harmonies from other band members), instrumentalists, and performers. They call their sound “stanky funky junk,” but you can hear elements of soul, jazz, and smooth 70s vibes in their music.
Penelope Road was recently signed to Warner Records, a major coup at any age. I had a Zoom call with co-lead singer and acoustic guitarist Max Moore, and also with electric guitarist Koan Roy-Mieghoo, as they were traveling through Texas in a newly acquired Sprinter van, making their way across the country. You can catch this rising band at Silver Moon Brewing on Tuesday, July 22, their only stop in Oregon.
the Source: You guys are such great musicians, how did you find each other?
Max Moore: So, actually Koan and I and the bassist [James Kopp] went to high school together. There was a program at school that put us together in a band. Then I met Charles Eastman, the other lead singer [and keyboardist] through All-State Chorus. Then we met Anthony [Smith], our drummer, recording around.
Koan Roy-Mieghoo: Yeah, there were, like, a bunch of different iterations of bands that only a few of us were a part of at a time… but about two years ago, the five of us got together as a band.
tS: I love that some of you met at All-State Chorus, because you really are such good singers.
MM: Thank you so much.
tS: Penelope Road is an interesting band name. How did you guys choose that name?
MM: James, our bassist and I, the first house we ever rented was on Penelope Road, in the West End of Atlanta.
tS: Is that an iconic road in Atlanta?
MM: [Laughing] No, I’d say quite the opposite, actually. But that’s just where we started everything.
KRM: Hopefully we’ll make it iconic.
tS: Is this tour you are on the biggest one your band has done so far?
KRM: Yeah, this will be our longest stretch to date. We were up along the Northeast coast last month doing a tour that was just a week or so shorter, but yes, this is our first real summer tour and it feels great to be driving across the whole country and playing shows all the time. It’s really exciting.
tS: Have you been to Oregon before?
KRM: The band hasn’t. I drove through it on the way to Washington before.
tS: I see on your tour dates that you will be in San Francisco and then you are coming here, so are you going to get to spend some time doing fun stuff in Oregon?
KRM: Yeah, the plan is on our drive days, to camp some days or just kind of hang out at some great National Parks. It’s so gorgeous up in that part of the country.
tS: It really is. Your band recently signed with Warner Records, so I assumed you would be in a huge tour bus with a bunch of roadies, but it looks like you are currently riding in a car?
KRM: We’re in a Sprinter van. So, it’s not so bad. We used to be in this, like fifteen-passenger GMC Savana from, like, 2005, and it was just a nightmare. But we have upgraded recently. And we have two crew people, soon to be three, to help with tour management, front of house and all that. So, we are slowly building our crew.
tS: What’s it like to have a major record company give you that support after, I imagine, being kind of a starving musician for a few years?
MM: Yeah, it’s just been huge. The possibilities for recording and the quality of our music went from zero to one hundred really, really quick. We’ve been super lucky and we got to record our last two tracks at Blackbird in Nashville, which is just like one of the most beautiful studios in the country. We are just so happy with the quality of everything, and that is due to them helping us out with getting into studios and stuff like that.
KRM: It feels like stepping into a dream world, because our EP that we released on our own, we recorded in a tiny studio in GSU [Georgia State University], where our bassist was doing his degree at the time. And now, we are in, like, the top studio in Nashville with an excellent producer. It’s so cool.
tS: How old are you guys?
MM: We are between twenty and twenty-four.
tS: Oh my gosh…
KRM: No, we’re all over twenty-one now!
MM: Oh yeah! Twenty-one to twenty-four. We’re getting there. We’re all adults now!
tS: I see that you guys are going to be opening for Lake Street Dive, which is my daughter’s favorite band, later this summer. Are they the biggest band you will have opened for?
MM: I think numbers-wise, they might be the biggest band we are opening for, but we are also opening for Goose, which is going to be another huge event for us.
KRM: Some of the first covers we learned when I joined the band were some Lake Street Dive songs, so it’s pretty full-circle to be opening for them.
tS: That’s so cool. So, I’m a music teacher and I want to know if you kept in touch with your high school choir teacher, and if so, are they just so proud of you?
MM: We actually do. She invites us to their chorus concerts and stuff. She was like my favorite teacher in the whole school. She was the best. She was the reason I came to school every day.
tS: Wouldn’t it be cool if you could open for your high school choir concert?
KRM: We’ve talked about it, because we also had a School of Rock program that we did in high school too, and how awesome it would be to just show up again and play that. Yeah, it would be very fun.
At this point there was sudden laughter as they explained that they just spilled a bunch of sausages all over the van. It’s going to be a memorable summer for these sweet and extremely likable young guys on their first big summer tour.
Penelope Road
July 22 at 8pm
Silver Moon Brewing
24 NW Greenwood Ave., Bend
$22
This article appears in Source Weekly July 17, 2025.
MAKE LOCAL JOURNALISM HAPPEN
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
