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Artist Spotlight
Full Flower Moon Band

Meet Full Flower Moon Band, a Brisbane-based rock powerhouse led by Kate ‘Babyshakes’ Dillon. With three guitars, bass, and drums, their sound is unapologetically rock—no frills, no subgenres, just raw, electrifying energy. Across three full-length albums, they’ve evolved from the gritty, off-the-cuff charm of Diesel Forever to the more expansive, refined production of Megaflower, all while maintaining the intensity that defines their live performances.

Known for their dynamic stage presence and high-voltage energy, the band thrives on pushing boundaries, both sonically and visually. Whether it's through their evolving album aesthetics, fearless songwriting, or a commitment to keeping rock alive and untamed, Full Flower Moon Band has cemented themselves as one of Australia's most compelling live acts.

In our conversation with Babyshakes, we dive into the creative process behind Megaflower, the philosophy behind their ever-evolving sound, and the undeniable thrill of stepping onto the stage. If you haven’t already, throw on Megaflower, turn it up loud, and read on.

Please introduce the band and let us know how you would define Full Flower Moon Band’s music in your own words.

 

Hi, I’m Babyshakes - lead singer and guitarist of Full Flower Moon Band. We’re a rock band out of Brisbane with 3 guitars, drums and bass. I’m pretty passionate about defining the band as simply rock because I feel like the definition of the genre has started to shrink a bit lately, and it’s what we do.

 

You released your third full-length album Megaflower in 2024. What was the creative process like for this, and how did it compare with your 2022 album Diesel Forever?

Diesel Forever was recorded quite quickly, I spent more time editing it in post-production than time in the studio. It wasn’t recorded to a click track, and most of it was live in the room together. I think this all really became part of the sound of the album. It took me a while to understand why people were gravitating to it, but now I can hear how all of these production choices became a part of the pallet, so I’m glad we did it that way. It reflects where we were at as a band in an endearing way I think.

On Megaflower, I wanted to see what would happen when we gave ourselves way more choices in the studio. This started by committing to a click track, multitracking, and adding a wider range of instruments. That might sound pretty basic, but the band had been touring Diesel Forever live for two years, so finding a sound for songs that featured piano and slide guitar and tracking everything separately felt new to us. I am still very close to that album so it’s hard to comment on the result, but I remember the process clearly and am really happy we pushed the sound like that.



As the primary songwriter for the band, where do you draw inspiration for your lyrics from? Do you write songs together, or do you write the songs and bring them to the band? Has this changed over time?

 

I love writing and I make sure to thoroughly get down any ideas that come to me naturally. Like everyone else I know, I’m just mumbling things into Voice Memos or typing in notes app anywhere, anytime. From there, I write and demo the songs alone, and really love that time to make peace with the work. The only thing that has changed is my control over the recording process. I used to lead the charge on recording and producing and not really let anyone else in - however I’ve learnt to trust the band now and really enjoy having feedback from them in the studio. The band has shared so much time playing together now that we have good shorthand - which is good growth because it’s quicker to work together and a much more social way to spend your life.

 

Your live shows are energetic (I’m fortunate enough to bear witness to this at the Lansdowne in Sydney), and you’re known to be a bit of a character on stage. How does this transformation happen? Do you need to work up to it? How do you cool down and come back to real life after the show?

The idea of a warm up or cool down routine would be pretty luxurious to be honest. There are certainly some shows where we would have the space and time for that, but if I needed a routine, I don’t think I would survive playing some of these venues ha. Greenrooms can be anything from a storage cupboard to a whole floor of a building. I think my warm up that night at the Lansdowne was watching the support acts. There is such a natural adrenaline rush after a show that cooling down is not really on anyone’s mind. Even if we are all exhausted, we usually end up staying out for a few hours just because of the high.

 

Is there something in particular that you hope audiences take away from your live performances?

A good front of house mix hopefully, haha. I’ve noticed that a fair amount of our audience are musician’s themselves, and I get comments that they feel inspired to do their own work after seeing us. I know a lot of people feel hot and sexy after the show which we love to hear. You can’t foresee or control how the industry or audiences will interpret you, so it’s been good to learn what people get from the band as we go. But, I mean if I can blow their minds that would be ideal.

What has been the biggest challenge you’ve faced as a band, and have you managed to overcome this?

Everyone committing to making Megaflower was pretty big. The band was already working hard touring, and as the songwriter, I felt like I needed to pitch them this idea, sell them on moving to something different. I’m so glad they trusted me and we could try this as a much bigger exercise, even though the stakes felt high and the road was pretty unknown.

 

In your song Enemy you sing: “You can’t make green tea from green tea leaves / You can’t make spices from other ingredients / But I can make an enemy out of anything”. Who or what is your biggest enemy?

The song Enemy is a contemplation on how everything is beholden to physics, except your imagination. Your mind can shape so much of your reality, but you can’t change the natural physical world. I do not know my biggest enemy yet, because it will be the thing that kills me. Surely that would be everyone’s biggest enemy.

You’ve recently tried Personalized Sound on the Denon PerL Pro earbuds. What was the first song you listened to on the PerL Pros and what was your experience like?

 

I first tried the Denon PerL Pro earbuds while on the plane to a show in Tasmania. I quickly downloaded the Denon app in the airport before boarding and set up my profile. First song listened to was Dire Straits, Money For Nothing. The whole band took turns playing with the PerLs. It’s fun that the technology exists to play with EQ and personalised settings. I don’t think people realise how noisy a plane is until they have noise cancelling headphones, so these were a lifesaver.

 

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Your first album CHINATOWN has an accompanying short film that you directed and starred in. Going from this almost concept album, to the grittiness of Diesel Forever, to the more polished and refined Megaflower has been quite a bit of change musically. What do you feel has driven this change? Age? Experience?

I move through concepts and themes for each album because a lot of my favourite artists have done that (Bowie, Arctic Monkeys). I also feel like being three albums deep is pretty early in a career, so I guess we’re restless too. It comes naturally to take a different swing after one project is released - because you almost want to recalibrate and try to right any wrongs or things you missed within the previous attempt.

Your artwork has developed over the years also, with the album cover for Megaflower featuring yourself in the desert in front of a 2001: Space Odyssey-esq monolith. Can you go into detail on what this means related to the album?

 

Well the visual references for Megaflower were always going to be softer than previous albums. Just like the music being recorded more methodically, we got our friends who are creative directors at Yeah Rad to collaborate on the art elements. So, the bands logo was redesigned to be more ambiguous, to reflect the album being more expansive sonically. I had collected a lot of references drawing from surrealism, so the guys drew up some graphics to start getting symbolism in there, I figured that an album that spans a pretty broad range of sounds and themes should have an expansive and ambiguous looking cover. As someone who really enjoys writing concept albums, this concept was something along the lines of - what if everything felt like it had meaning but it was just art.

 

There is so much visual art that is required for an album release; single art, multiple merch collections, vinyl, CD front, back & insert, tour posters, album ads - I’m really glad that we found some artfulness to put into such a noisy space. 

What advice would you give to emerging bands and artists who are trying to find their own path in the music industry?

The creative processes you have now are probably going to stick with you, so I’d try to develop good habits in recording and production. Make sure you finish and release things. If you delay that part, you’re robbing yourself of the hardest part of writing music. These skills just get more essential as you go. There are so many steps between the beginning and an end of a song, a rehearsal room and a sold-out show. It’s all worth practicing.



What is next for Full Flower Moon Band?

We are back into the studio, and the calendar for shows and tours is already pretty blocked out. So I guess we’re all learning to move at a quicker pace - practicing what I preach in terms of good art making habits, and releasing things.

 

You can find Full Flower Moon band on Instagram, Facebook and YouTube.

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