CONTRIBUTED PHOTO — Marshalltown hardcore band Modern Life Is War — from left to right, guitarist John Eich, bassist Chris Honeck, drummer Luke Rauch, guitarist Bo Becker and vocalist Jeffrey Eaton — released their fifth studio album, “Life on the Moon,” on Sept. 5, and their 18-date tour of the U.S. and Europe begins Saturday night at Gabe’s in Iowa City.

It’s good to be back — again.

Over a decade after reuniting to record “Fever Hunting” in 2013, Modern Life Is War — the seminal Marshalltown-based hardcore punk band perhaps best known for 2005’s “Witness” — has officially released its first full-length album since then and is kicking off a tour of the U.S. and Europe on Saturday night at Gabe’s in Iowa City.

Last week, four members of the five-piece outfit — guitarists John Eich and Bo Becker, bassist Chris Honeck and drummer Luke Rauch — spoke to the T-R about the process behind “Life on the Moon,” a 13-track album clocking in at a brisk 35 minutes, and how the band has grown and evolved throughout its nearly quarter-century history. Of the current quintet, four of them — Becker, Eich, Honeck and vocalist Jeffrey Eaton — hail from Marshalltown, though Honeck now calls Arizona home.

In 2024, MLIW released the 12″ EP/digital album “Tribulation Worksongs,” a collection of singles, and Becker said they were always writing songs for the last several years and eventually reached a point where they knew they wanted to make a new album in 2021.

“It was contingent on if we were gonna continue as a band, which, that was how ‘Fever Hunting’ was as well. We were broken up before ‘Fever Hunting,’ and the contingency of getting back together was if we were gonna make a new album,” Eich said. “We weren’t a band for a long time. We decided (that) if we’re gonna put something out, we need to put something new out, and that’s a good reason to get back together. We never wanted to kind of drag it out as a band that just goes and plays shows. It was always like, we want to have some output going out to the world.”

In the streaming era, gaining traction releasing anything without getting lost in the shuffle is difficult, Eich added, and the band felt that releasing a full-length album would be more impactful. While still primarily steeped in their unmistakable Midwestern hardcore sound, “Life on the Moon” opens with the moody and electronic “Invocation” and features another track, “Empty Shoes,” that sounds similarly atmospheric and spacey.

Eaton, who writes all of the band’s lyrics, wasn’t available for the interview, but other members weighed in on the meaning and real-life inspirations behind “Life on the Moon,” whose title is a tribute to Eich’s late wife Angela Moon Jean Chaplin.

“We lost some people during that time period, and a lot happened in all of our lives during the time period, I think,” Honeck said. “We were writing songs and everything, but then COVID hit during the years that we were writing the record. It was a strange time for all of us in our own unique and different ways, and I think that’s Jeff expressing from his side in lots of ways. And a lot of the things he’s talking about were things that all of us went through together. I think Jeff always writes honest lyrics about how he’s feeling at that time in his life, and I think it’s just a projection of that without being able to speak for him fully.”

Eich added that Eaton lived with him during the pandemic not long after Chaplin’s passing in 2019, and he feels the album is certainly an homage to her memory along with others the band members have lost in recent years. One track, “Johnny Gone,” makes specific mention of the 2018 tornado and 2020 derecho that ravaged Marshalltown.

“I hope that people accept the fact that bands can sort of change their sound a little bit… I feel like we’ve shifted a little bit, but I still feel like it’s us and I hope that people can sort of see that, not only for my sake but for their sake,” Rauch said. “I’m still a fan. I’ve been in the band for 10 years, but I still listen to the older records and I’m just like, God, this is f***ing great. It still hits me as a fan, so I feel like I can see from the outside and the inside a bit. But I hope that people can enjoy it.”

Since “Life on the Moon” was released on Sept. 5, band members have been preparing to embark on an 18-date tour beginning in Iowa City Saturday and concluding across the pond in Leeds, UK on Sunday, Oct. 26.

“Writing music, as this band goes, it’s always been a very democratic process. Everybody brings something to the table. Nobody’s really writing a full song, so it’s a lot of compromise and it’s just challenging. It can be a difficult process to get things to the point where everybody agrees,” Eich said. “But once you get that hard part done, which is also very satisfying, when you finish a song, finish an album, but getting to go and play the stuff live is always just such a more cathartic experience… I’ve always been a very shy person and not super social, but playing has just always come really easy to me. And I can go to a place where I just feel uber confident, and I don’t really like to talk on stage. That’s probably why I never wanted to be a singer, but sometimes I do go on weird rants like right now. But I feel completely comfortable playing guitar. It’s a place where I can just get up there and be weird, and it feels normal to me and it feels like nothing else in life.”

For Rauch, who has both battled cancer and welcomed a son in recent years, “Life on the Moon” is his first full-length album with the band, and he felt it was important to uphold Modern Life Is War’s legacy while also pushing in new directions.

“It’s easy but it’s hard at the same time. Mechanically, it is easy, but arranging things gets harder as the band grows older,” he said. “Musically, we were just trying to write different, interesting songs, basically, and ones that would flow well on a record.”

Because Modern Life Is War is no longer a full-time band, Honeck admitted that getting used to being away from home for an extended period takes more adjustment than it used to, but it’s still something he feels lucky and privileged to be able to do.

“Like John said, when you get up onstage and we’re playing together and having fun, there’s nothing else like it,” he said.

And with all of the members other than Rauch either growing up in Marshalltown or still living here at least part of the year, the band still feels a strong connection to their home community.

“I think when I was younger and living there, there were times I felt more like ‘Oh, I’ve gotta get out of here, this place sucks,’ and now that I have gotten out, I crave to go back and anytime I’m back in town, I’ve gotta hit up these certain restaurants, gotta find these people to hang out with, and it’s always such a good time,” Honeck said. “I always think about constantly moving back to Iowa. I don’t know if it’ll happen or not, but I love Iowa. I love Marshalltown, and I definitely have a strong connection there still.”

Becker, who joined the band in 2018, said he was proud to be from Marshalltown because of Modern Life Is War, and he loves the community’s restaurant scene, good people and a prime location near Des Moines without paying Des Moines prices. Most of Eich’s family is still in the area, and he feels that Marshalltown stands out as a relatively small city in Iowa.

“Jean Seberg was from here, which we have songs about, and Toby Huss is from here. Interesting people have come out of here, so it’s kind of cool to be one of those things,” he said.

“I feel like people that come to Marshalltown that aren’t from Marshalltown, even if it’s just from Des Moines or somewhere like that, I feel like they don’t realize until they come here how cool Marshalltown actually is. It’s pretty cool for a small town,” Becker added.

Eich credited many of the people around his age who have either stayed in town or moved back with making it a cool place to be and praised the Arts + Culture Alliance for its work to promote creativity in the community. The fact that they didn’t grow up in any sort of scene and were far-removed from the epicenters of hardcore punk has always given Modern Life Is War a different perspective — Eich and Honeck grew up as “grunge kids” but also drew inspiration from other bands playing around Marshalltown when they were younger.

As for the album itself, the band members hope it can be therapeutic for listeners and even inspirational by encouraging them to pursue whatever it is they’re passionate about.

“I hope some people get something out of it, whether they just enjoy some of the riffs and enjoy sitting and listening to it or some of Jeff’s lyrics hit home with them, especially if maybe they’re going through a loss of some sort, whatever the case may be,” Honeck said. “Even though I don’t write the lyrics, it’s always very exciting to me when someone gets a hold of me and says ‘Hey, this means so much to me.’ I think especially with ‘Witness,’ we got it a lot of just ‘Hey, I’m from a small town also and not a lot of bands are talking about things like that, so I really identify with where you guys are coming from.'”

To learn more about the band, its discography and upcoming tour dates, visit https://www.modernlifeiswarofficial.com/. “Life on the Moon” is available as a vinyl record or on Spotify, Bandcamp and Apple Music.

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Contact Robert Maharry at 641-753-6611 ext. 255 or

rmaharry@timesrepublican.com.