MIKE AND THE Moonpies are changing their name. After 16 years of recording and performing under that moniker, singer Mike Harmeier and his barnstorming Texas five-piece are rebranding as “Silverada.”
Harmeier announced the overhaul during an intimate performance moderated by Rolling Stone at Key West’s Mile 0 Festival, a prestige gathering for Red Dirt, country, and Americana artists and fans. On Friday night, the group will publicly retire the Moonpies moniker for good during their main-stage performance, finishing their set and leaving the stage as Silverada. For all five members, the change has been a long time coming.
After watching the Red Dirt and Americana country scene explode over the last few years, with artists like Turnpike Troubadours, Zach Bryan, and Flatland Cavalry garnering national attention, the Moonpies felt their name — started as a joke when Harmeier used to play cover songs — was hindering their progress.
“We have been talking about name change for many, many years,” Harmeier tells Rolling Stone. “The climate for the music that we make is very good right now. This scene that is happening now is a mainstream country scene. When we started out, it wasn’t really that way, and here we are — old hat at it now. It’s like we’ve climbed to the top of a ladder and there’s no escape hatch up there. How do we go to that next level? It seems to me like I need to refresh the idea of what we’re doing to new listeners.”
