Q&A: Overnight Celebrity Is Redefining What a Vegas Band Can Be
INTERVIEW
INTERVIEW
☆ BY JOY VILLANUEVA ☆
IN A CITY BEST KNOWN FOR ITS LOUD STAGES — and the intense energy of Las Vegas hardcore (LVHC), Overnight Celebrity is doing something completely different. The six-piece group—Tiana Thomas (vocals), Shane Bonds (saxophone), Paris Estrada (drums), Keyon Kelp (keyboard), Ruben Padilla (guitar), and Matthew Nishimura (bass)—pulls from alt-R&B, jazz, soul, and indie to create a sound that doesn’t fit into any boxes.
Before Overnight Celebrity officially came together, the members were already connected through mutual friends and years of jam sessions, eventually forming an early version of the band called Sugarcoast. What started as friends hanging out and making music turned into something more—and it’s now one of the most exciting new acts in a scene that doesn’t usually make space for full bands like this.
With their silky debut single “Got Me (Like That)” already out and their second track “Language” dropping July 30, Overnight Celebrity is leaning into their sound and ready to share more.
Read below for LUNA’s interview with the band about how they make music together, how their friendship shows up in their songs, and what’s coming next.
LUNA: You all came from different musical backgrounds and collectives—The Rabbit Hole, Jonetsu, etc. How has collaborating as Overnight Celebrity changed the way you approach your personal projects or musicianship as individuals?
OVERNIGHT CELEBRITY: Writing and creating together has 1000% influenced all of us. We all learn from each other so much and the influences that each one brings to the table—Ruben got Shane into learning Latin music, and Paris, having more technical music theory knowledge, often helps us all learn the music theory behind what we are playing. We feel like playing and writing with each other ultimately helps all of us see new possibilities, new sounds, and helps us grow as musicians which we then take to our personal projects and writings.
LUNA: You’ve called your sound “genre-less,” intertwining alt-R&B, soul, jazz, and more. When you’re creating something new, how do you navigate all those influences without it becoming too chaotic?
OVERNIGHT CELEBRITY: It can get chaotic with everyone coming from different musical backgrounds and having such an interest in a variety of genres. Tiana acts as the glue to the band, ultimately. We may sometimes get carried away with our instrumental writing, but we begin to give the songs shape and pull back on the chaos by shaping the songs to fit and serve Tiana’s vocals and the style she brings to the table. Ultimately, it’s about what serves the song. However, we’re fortunate that she’s able to hop on a lot of the things we like to write as a band, and we all love that we can explore different inspirations and sounds together.
LUNA: Your covers of Daft Punk and The Internet gained traction early on—what drew you to those specific songs, and how did they help shape the foundation of Overnight Celebrity’s identity?
OVERNIGHT CELEBRITY: We just love Daft Punk and The Internet, both have been big influences on us as musicians and people. Daft Punk is iconic and we thought it’d be fun to do a little tribute to them. For our The Internet cover, we had so many people instantly compare us to them when we first formed, that we decided to lean into that comparison a little bit by doing a cover— “Hold On” is a favorite for all of us.
LUNA: Six creative minds in one band sounds like a blessing—and maybe sometimes a little chaos. How do you keep the collaborative process smooth when everyone brings something different to the table?
OVERNIGHT CELEBRITY: It’s for sure not always a smooth process. Sometimes we really collide on the direction we may want to take a song, or how things should go. We really re-center to serving Tiana and the song itself. The process is a lot of us checking ourselves to better serve the song by learning how to play to each other’s strengths, learning when to take a backseat in parts of the songs, and trusting each other’s opinions and decisions on our respective instruments.
LUNA: “Got Me (Like That)” has an undeniably unique sound. What was the vibe in the room when you were writing and recording it? Did the final product come out the way you imagined it?
OVERNIGHT CELEBRITY: “Got Me” was a song that was originally started by Tiana and Keyon, and then brought to the band to help finish. Before we started this band, we would often help each other write and record each other’s personal projects. Our writing process still usually goes like that, where a couple of us begin to write a song idea and then bring it to the band to further evolve it into a full idea. In the process of writing “Got Me” together, we ended up feeling like we should make it the debut for this project—because of this, the writing process was a laid-back, free-form vibe. We like to play around and have fun with song ideas until we start to find things that work, and slowly shape the song to what it becomes in the end.
LUNA: The Las Vegas music scene is growing and shifting—what’s been the biggest challenge or surprise about trying to break through as a local act right now?
OVERNIGHT CELEBRITY: It often feels like the R&B/Neo-soul scene in Vegas isn’t very big at the local level, especially us being a full band, it has felt like we occupy a very niche pocket in the local music scene. There are some very talented musicians in this scene, and it’s ever-growing though, which we love to see. Another big challenge as a local act is often trying to expand to bigger venues since bigger venues, especially anything on the Strip, may not be interested in local acts like us.
LUNA: There’s something special about bands that feel like a group of friends first. How does that closeness show up in your music, both on and off stage?
OVERNIGHT CELEBRITY: We for sure are a band that are friends at our core! At this point, we really feel like family to each other. We’ve known each other for years now, and have been with each other through the good, and the bad, and the really bad. We got a lot of love for each other. In our writing process, it’s always been just friends jamming and having fun playing music with each other. The origin of this band is rooted in a lot of jam seshes that we would have with each other just to get away from our problems for a bit—now, it’s just a group of friends continuing to pursue music and learning how to approach all the other stuff that comes with it. When we play live, it’s really just us going back to our roots and being homies that are having fun on stage, sharing music we believe in.
LUNA: Your new single “Language” drops today—what can listeners expect from this release, and how do you feel it builds on or shifts from what you introduced with “Got Me (Like That)”?
OVERNIGHT CELEBRITY: We went down a more poppy road for “Language,” compared to “Got Me,” which is a more mellow vibe. It’s more fun and upbeat, but still has these sounds that we love to play around with and hope people will enjoy—it feels like a touch of psychedelic to us too.
LUNA: With “Language” out now and momentum building, what’s next for Overnight Celebrity? Are you working toward a full project, more singles, or hitting the stage more often?
OVERNIGHT CELEBRITY: The next thing we’re looking towards is the release of the music video for “Language,” which will drop in a couple weeks following the release! We are also working on recording a project right now and putting together an EP. We have so many demos that we are currently working on recording, or deciding the way to present them, and we’re so excited to share with everyone, as well as songs that we have been playing live but have never recorded, so we feel excited to bring them to life in a streaming capacity! With the song released, we’re also looking to get back into playing some shows, hopefully getting to perform in new cities like Los Angeles—it’d be amazing to present our work to new scenes.
LUNA: Is there anything else you’d like to share with Luna?
OVERNIGHT CELEBRITY: Look out for the music video soon after the release! We have a playlist of a collection of our previous work on our Spotify page for anyone interested as well. Thank you for your interest and for hearing us out. Much love!
