“I do not assume it is caught as much as me but — how a lot my life has modified,” says Emma Hardyman, singer of the 2023 Tiny Desk Contest-winning band Little Moon. The Utah-based band just lately wrapped up the Tiny Desk Contest On The Highway tour, headlining eight sold-out reveals throughout the nation. Whereas on the highway, Hardyman caught up with NPR to replicate on the life-changing win and in addition share the story behind Little Moon’s profitable music, “Surprise Eye.”

Hardyman tells NPR the music was written throughout the time her mother-in-law was in hospice care. The melody got here to Hardyman as she and her husband Nathan Hardyman, who can also be a part of Little Moon, drove from Utah to Idaho to go to his mom.

Throughout this tough time, Emma and Nathan Hardyman have been additionally within the means of leaving the Mormon church through which that they had grown up.

“And fairly rapidly, simply due to the circumstances, I noticed that this music, this melody, was about loss of life,” says Emma Hardyman, who wrote the construction of the music earlier than asking Nathan Hardyman to jot down the lyrics.

The couple have been additionally observing the disintegration of most of the constructing blocks their Mormon perception techniques have been constructed on. “I’ve grieved previous variations of myself all through my entire life,” Emma Hardyman shares.

“I actually love the place Mormonism introduced me,” Emma Hardyman says. “It launched me to teachings which might be supposed to like all people, which might be supposed to include all people. [But] it could not comply with me to how a lot I needed to take [those teachings] severely,” she provides, noting that most of the Little Moon band members are queer. She says Mormonism did not align with how she needs to deal with folks ‘with out situations.’

Emma Hardyman additionally shares that she had many self-doubts about herself as an artist when she and Nathan Hardman met — however that he believed in her from their very first date. And in “Surprise Eye,” the 2 even discover peace in not having all of the solutions. Emma sings: “Is there a data that’s discovered not in understanding?” as she’s met with the nice and cozy hums of the band.