Tanner Bliesner — professionally known as Moonbow — and I were once coworkers. I knew he was an EDM DJ in the scene and I figured that since I was going to start trying interviews, why not interview those I already know? I was super stoked when Tanner agreed to do a short interview and some portraits. If you’re a fan of EDM and Country EDM, Moonbow is definitely someone you’ll want to check out. He does shows all over, so definitely hit up his social media pages to see where you can party with him next.

ME: Can you tell me a bit about yourself? Who are you and how did Moonbow come to life? 

TANNER: Okay, my name is Tanner Bliesner and so Moonbow started the summer of ’21 after I added DJ Duo. We broke up and I started to do my own thing. I started producing my own music, and then that’s pretty much it. I started doing a lot of big tours back in 2022. I was doing Shrek Rave, Bikini Bottom Rave, you name it. I performed at local venues like The Rave, Miramar Theater, all the way to the House of Blues Chicago, and all the way to Minneapolis as well.

I am an EDM producer. I now do country EDM, so I specialize in the yee-haw, the EDM, all that. And yeah, that’s who Moonbow is. 

ME: Who are your biggest inspirations in the music scene? 

TANNER: Everybody, like from rock. I mean, I’m talking like Creed, Nickelback, all the way to today, like Morgan Wallen, Luke Combs, Graham Barham, who’s out of Nashville. He’s a great upcoming country singer that I look up to now as well. As far as EDM goes, I mean, Loud Luxury — they’re one of my favorites. Illenium, who does a lot of future-bass stuff. Those are basically all my inspirations, but I would say a lot like old dad rock. That’s where I get a lot of my vibe from. 

ME: Who are some of your biggest inspirations in life? 

TANNER: Oh, I would definitely say my mom, my mom, for sure. She’s always been so supportive ever since I said I wanted to do the whole music thing. She was always one of my biggest fans. Same with my dad. I mean, they were fan number one and fan number two. So I would definitely say either one of them, but probably my mom. 

ME: What is one of your favorite accomplishments you’ve done so far? 

TANNER: Oh, besides playing Summerfest… I mean, it’s always been a bucket list opportunity for me. I would say playing in the House of Blues to a sold out crowd. There were like 2,000 people there, that was my biggest musical accomplishment. 

Besides that, getting on the Spotify playlist, having a song hit 500,000 streams. That was huge. I would say the performance-based stuff is my biggest accomplishment. I never thought I’d be here. 

ME: If you could open for any artist, dead, alive, or fictional, who would it be and why? 

TANNER: Oh, it’s definitely Creed. I could do something like EDM right before. Some like dubstep or something. I would love to open up for Creed. 

ME: What can we expect to see from you this year, or what do you hope to achieve?

TANNER: A lot of shows. We’re really going to be hitting the country of the EDM hard this year. A lot of big shows lined up, a lot of stuff coming soon. A lot of new music as well. A lot of new music. 

ME: What advice would you give to anyone who wants to pursue the music industry? 

TANNER: Just do it. If you don’t think you can do it, you can do it.

I mean, I’m a prime example of it. I never thought I’d be on stage, and I am now here at Summerfest doing the thing. So, I’d say, just do it and be confident in doing it, too. You’re yourself, always be yourself. 

ME: Anything else you want to share? Upcoming shows? Upcoming music?

TANNER: All the shows are, I can’t announce yet, but just know, we’re going to be on Water Street this year. We’re gonna be on Water Street, Milwaukee. We’re gonna be doing some stuff there.