[V] I’m Virginia, I’m 19, my pronouns are she/her. I do keyboard and I sing occasionally.

 

[J] I’m Jack, my pronouns are he/him and I am also 19. I play guitar. 

 

[N] My name is Neal. I am 22 and my pronouns are they/them. I play guitar and sing. 

 

[R] My name is Rob, I’m 18 and I use he/him pronouns. Bass. 

 

[N] Elliot is 21, he/him and he plays drums. 

 

[V] You could tell me he was 14 and I would believe you…

 

[N] He looks like the guy from ratatouille. 

 

[V] He’s not here so he gets to get roasted.    

 

So how long have you all been in Kalamazoo?

 

[N] I’m a Portage person but I started hanging out in Kalamazoo like four years ago. 

 

Are you all from Portage?

 

[V] No. I’ve been in Kalamazoo my whole life. 

 

[V] We just forget that they’re from Portage. They’re Kalamazoo at heart. 

 

[N] I’m like Kalamazoo cultured. 

 

So how did you stumble upon the Kalamazoo music scene? 

 

[N] I remember this one guy that I used to play music with. He saw a Facebook post, it was Nothing New at Mute City, so we just attended. Right before my freshman year of college so that’s when I started getting into it. 

 

[J] I didn’t play a house show in the scene until Neil asked me to be in their backing band. 

 

[V] Yeah I think to me, house shows were just kind of a concept for a while. I think I just really didn’t realize how rich the Kalamazoo scene is until they started playing house shows, so I never been to one before I went to see you guys play

 

[N] Really, I didn’t know that! 

 

[J] Yeah I hadn’t been to one until I played one. 

 

[N] What no! For real?

 

[J] I was way too scared to go to them.

 

[V] Yeah I was also sketched out. 

 

[N] That is so understandable. 

 

[R] I went to one or two before we played so I just got roped into it through them. 

 

[V] I did see Jimbo play,that was Xanadu I think. That was a frightening show. There was blood. He cut his finger open and then he kept playing and I was like can I get you a band-aid? 

 

[J] He was slamming his body into the wall.

 

[J] He was scamming into the floor

 

[J]  but he was wearing a mask the whole time so it made it funnier because it was super muffled. 

 

Was he playing with Via Ferata?

 

[V] It was just him, it was a solo performance. 

 

[J] It was him and Persian Rugg. They were doing a split set, it was Jimbo’s Via Ferata set first and then they flipped instruments and then did the Persian Rugg set. 

[V] There was someone playing a little caterpillar piano. It was a little caterpillar keyboard that you could barely hear. Just like this children's keyboard, but yeah, he cut himself, his hair was everywhere and I was like oh my god. 

 

[N] He’s a rocker that kid. 

 

So did that kind of excite you to join the scene or?

 

[V] I think I’ve definitely gotten more used to it. The first couple I went to were definitely a little bit scary. 

 

[N] You just gotta be on your toes. 

 

[V] You know, you’re crowded in a house with a bunch of strangers. I feel like as I’ve gone to more shows I’ve learned to navigate the houses better and be like stick with your group of people 

 

[N] Bring a big group of friends. There are also some newer venues.

 

So you got to experience it pre-covid, post-covid?

 

[N] A little bit but I got into it the semester of 2019-2020 so it was right when everything shut down too but I went to 15 shows before and it was way different, it was crazy. After Covid everything reset. 

 

[V] There was more of a solid set of people that would more so attend these things 

 

[N] Yeah. There was a consistent group of people that would play shows and host shows. Half the bands that are playing nowadays there’s like a new one every five minutes. 

 

[V] Who are you?

 

[N] But there was like 6 or 7 bands that were local that would always play and I think there was like 4 or 5 house show venues. 

 

[V] I feel like it’s kind of died and rebirthed. 

 

[N] There’s like a whole new set of people running them nowadays and a whole new set of people attending now. I feel like they are more accessible I was in a band for like three years before I knew about the house show scene. Rob was in a band that I played with in Portage, we were like the two bands in Portage.

 

So when did you start performing with this band?

 

[J] September of 2021. 

 

[N] Yeah so about a year and some change. 

 

[V] I joined about October though I’m a new edition. 

 

[N] Of 2022.

 

[V] Yeah I was a roadie and now I’m part of it. 

 

So when I look up Frogs and Toads on Spotify, I see it under Neal Truitt so it’s listed as an album… 

 

[V] Well The Frogs and Toads started as a backing band for Neal’s personal music. 

 

[J] We originally only played Neals songs until February or March of 2022. 

 

[N] I think it was March. Yeah, I was looking for a backing band because I broke away from this band I was playing with and I wanted to do solo work. This was during 2020 and 2021, I had nothing to do so I started self producing and I had more ambition than the guys I was operating with before so I had to separate myself and just start doing my own thing and then I was like well I need a new band now, so I asked Elliot who I was in the band before I started doing solo stuff with and then Rob who I’ve jammed out with before. Then I asked Jack last minute. I new Jack, we were friends online, and I knew he had been playing guitar for like ten years and we would keep on running into each other. 

 

[J] I saw Neal walking down the hall in Sangren Hall and I ran up and tapped him on the shoulder and was like hello. Then we started talking and I think we decided to make a playlist for each other. 

 

[N] You sent me one…

 

[J] I think maybe less than a week later I get a text on Sunday and Neal’s like hey I need a guitarist for my backing band our first practice is today, here’s 14 songs you need to learn, and I was like okay. I showed up and I didn’t know anybody, I didn’t know Rob or Elliot and I barely knew Neal and it was very uncomfortable but then I got used to it. Also the other part, Neal was like 14 songs, also we have a gig in two weeks. 

 

[N] High pressure makes diamonds or whatever the saying is, and here we are today. 

 

[R] So yeah the Frogs and Toads don’t have stuff on Spotify, we were just featured on Neal’s songs. 

 

[N] That’s the era that they were still my backing band. 

 

[V] There’s been a rebranding. 

 

[N] It’s so difficult, people still book us as Niel Truitt and the Frogs and Toads. 

 

[V] But you’re not the leader anymore. 

 

[N] I’m not! I never ever wanted to be a solo artist, I hate being up there by myself. Being in a band takes so much pressure off you. As like as soon as I was like Jack let’s learn one of your songs and once it was like, okay that worked out were just the frogs and toads now. Now that we got you in here! You’re like Ill take up some managerial…

 

[V] I’m like the momager right now

 

[N] Which we needed, some structure, thank god. 

 

[N] I think March 2022 we started being the Frogs and Toads without my name attached. 

 

So it sounds like before they were just learning your songs, and now you make songs together, what does that process look like?

 

[J] The process so far has been like, someone brings in a song and then shows the chords and then everyone just kind of starts. 

 

[N] The person bringing the song has an idea or just lets the other people figure out their parts, but structure wise we usually have it pretty structured out. We have written songs, like Rob has come up with a riff before but that song hasn’t currently gone anywhere just yet. 

 

[V] What about Meg? You guys wrote a song. 

 

[N] I just came up with a riff and then we started saying Meg. 

 

[J] It’s about Elliot’s girlfriend. 

 

[V] Does Meg knows that this song exists?

 

[N] No but we’ll make it known. I mean it’s on our EP. 

 

[V] They’re the main two songwriters [Motioning towards Jack and Niel], so they will just be like hey I have a demo for the song, here’s the chords, here’s the structure and we just kind of chunk through it together until it smooths out and we make our decisions about things. 

 

[N] In a lot of instances you at least have to have an idea. I’m sure we will take off collaboratively in the future like I have no problem with that. Everyone I’m working with I respect their music taste. 

 

That’s important.

 

[N] That is important that’s why Jack’s in the band. 

I’m curious to know what are some of your guys favorite influences. 

 

[N] It changes all the time

 

[V] The Velvet Underground probably. 

 

[J] I think collectively The Velvet Underground, but we all have separate stuff. 

 

[N] The Velvet Underground, when we started listening to it, at least Jack and I, it was at a very influential time in our lives. I started listening to them in late high school and that’s when I was developing my music taste. They helped establish my idea of how I write a song, like it doesn’t have to be a specific way, but we all like different types of music. 

 

[V] [To Jack] What would you say your personal influences for your songwriting has been. The Clash?

 

[J] The Clash?

 

[V] I’m just thinking about the one that sounds like your most recent one…

 

[J] Yeah I did write a song that copies a Clash song…

 

[N] No fucking way…

 

[V] You didn’t realize that!

 

[N] Wait you did? Can we learn that one next?

 

[V] We did!

 

[N] We did?

 

[V] King Kong!

 

[N] That’s King Kong? What song!

 

[J] Brand New Cadillac!

 

[N] That’s crazy that’s awesome. 

 

[V] Do you feel like maybe Elliot Smith, Alex G like all those singer-songwriters that you like?

 

[J] Yeah I was a sucker for Elliot Smith in high school, I was one of those kids. But also, like she showed me Fiona Apple so I like that too and other stuff like Nick Drake a lot, because a lot of the stuff I write on my own it’s more of like finger style stuff until I bring it to a band. But there’s also heavier stuff I like too so it just depends on the song. 

 

Are you wearing a deftones shirt?

 

[J] I am wearing a Deftones shirt. 

 

[V] I’m wearing a Pavement shirt. 

 

Nice. 

 

[J] The screaming that I do comes from that. We did start out as a country band. 

 

[N] Yes we did. I feel like I had to address the elephant in the room. I’m a country lover. 

 

[V] I was not part of that. 

 

[N] That was a hard sell, I was like yeah we're going to be playing country music. 

 

[J] I remember telling people I was in a country band and they were like what. 

 

[N] We had a double bass Robert played. 

 

[V] Robert!

 

[N] That came from the depths, I never called you Robert before. Sorry Rob. Yeah like we were a country band. I play country music, the good country music nothing post 911. 

 

[V] That’s such a good point though that is true, it’s very different.

 

[N] A lot of my stuff is inspired from alternative country, Neil Young and Buffalo Springfield. 

 

[R] I like folkier country. 

 

[N] Right, right, more Americana than fucking like… wait are we allowed to swear. 

 

Yeah…

 

[V] This isn’t NPR!

 

[N] I shouldn’t go on NPR, but yeah so I like country and we will probably go country another time but I also have a deep love for 60s garage rock, Jack and I share that. 

 

[V] I think we might be a bit more rockabilly now. 

 

[J] I’m not super well-versed in 60s garage rock. 

 

[N] You like Love, you knew love.

 

[J] I knew two songs by love… um I like the Velvet Underground but I was also into Ty Seagull in high school. 

 

[V] I know one song by him but I like him, and it’s a cover. 

 

[N] What song?

 

[V] Everyone’s a winner, which I would love to cover that song. 

 

[N] I like his music. 

 

[V] I write songs sometimes but nothing recently.Strong influence, Fiona Apple, love her she is my all time favorite artist, I love her so much, but I think when I think about influences I especially think about them performing, singing and stuff like that I think about the strong female presences in media in music because I think in the house show scene it’s important because there’s just really not that many women in the scene. I think trying to be a power front woman and having emotion and being confident on stage it’s really important to be somewhat of a role model to other people 

 

[N] Back in the day, we would get a lot of touring bands and there was a decent amount of female presence but 

 

[V] Yeah locally there’s just really not much. 

 

I’m a fan of Fiona Apple too. Her lyricism is…

 

[V] She’s a poet. 

 

Every Single Night, that song is so good. 

 

[V] Her entire discography does not have a single bad song. There’s not one. I love her. I remember the first time I listened to When the Pawn. I was cleaning the bathroom in my house or something, I finished the album, I teared up, and I restarted it, and I immediately texted every person I knew and was like listen to this album right fucking now, it is literally the best thing I’ve heard, right now. I would do anything to listen to that album for the first time again, it was like a religious experience while I was cleaning the toilet. 

 

I think it’s cool that that album, the title of it, is actually like a paragraph. Her record company would not let her release it like that.

 

[N] Isn’t it included on her album art? 

 

[J] Yeah it’s a poem, and so is one of her other albums. The Idler wheel is wiser than the driver of the screw and whipping chords will serve you more than ropes will ever do. 

 

[V] Yes that’s it. 

 

[J] I had a lot of freetime on my hands in high school.

 

So do you remember the first song you guys kind of collectively came together and learned?

 

[J] Was it everybody got to live, or maybe tit for tat. 

 

[N] No it was everybody’s gotta live I think. Everybodys Got to Live is a cover and it's like three songs the entire song. 

 

A Love cover right?

 

[N] Yeah, yeah

 

I saw your cover set at the runoff. 

 

[N] Oh for real?

 

I was pumped that someone was covering the Velvet Underground. I thought that was really cool. I hadn’t heard of you guys before then. 

 

[J] Before that, because that was October 29th, we hadn’t played a house show since New Years Eve of 2021. So it had been a while. 

 

[V] I know we were all a little bit worried about how the crowd was going to respond to us at the runoff because every other band was pretty heavy and were just in the middle like we’re just gonna do some cute-sy little songs. 

 

[N] We leaned towards the more mellow Velvet Underground 

 

[V] Yeah, I wasn’t expecting people to like After Hours that much, but the whole crowd was singing around. I was like I hope they don’t hate this because it’s so slow. 

 

One of you guys set the tone in the beginning of the set, and just said, ‘Imagine you're in the basement of a venue in New York.’

 

[N] I was doing my Lou Reed impression, dude it’s Halloween! That was the first time I dressed up on Halloween in like forever. 

 

Weren’t you wearing a banana suit?

 

[J] I was wearing a banana suit!

 

[V] He was the Andy Worhol banana. 

 

[N] I look at that picture so often, I just like looking at it. 

 

[J] I hated wearing that suit, it kept slipping down my head and and it would come up over my guitar. 

 

[V] I handpainted that banana suit. And then I peeled the banana and I got many cheers. We did a little banana strip tease. 

 

[J] That was the most I ever talked at a show. 

 

[V] Yeah, I was like, can I peel you? Because I figured I should ask first and you were like yeah.

 

Maybe it can be a couple or just one but what would you say were the most memorable shows that you’ve played together? 

 

[J] Definitely the one we were just talking about.  We just played the Hellhole the other week so that one was pretty memorable. Also the one we played at WIDR, that set was really tight.

 

You did a basement show there?

 

[J] Yeah, we did.

 

I think it’s really cool they do that, they live broadcast your set. Did they give you guys a demo as well?

 

[J] No we didn’t ask. 

 

[V] I wish we had gotten the demo, because you sang some Doja Cat lyrics in your song. 

 

[J] I did. I said I got that juicy juicy I eat that lunch, in my song the Grass, which was like not the right song to sing it on. 

 

[V] I’d say my most memorable show so far was probably the Hellhole show.  

 

[N] That was really fun, we were really tight that night and there was a lot of people.

 

[V] And we did Blister in the Sun which I sang which was really fun and I got to make the crowd participate. Beforehand I was like okay, were gonna do a little thing because I didn’t just want to spring it on them suddenly and I was like okay there’s this part in the song that it gets really quiet and we're all gonna crouch down to the ground and then we're gonna all pop up and it's going to be really fun, and everybody did it! Like I was expecting maybe part of the crowd or just some people or no one at all but everybody was down and we couldn’t get the microphone out of the stand like the guy came up and was like this is my mic I should know how to do this and could not get the microphone out of the stand so I’m like okay I guess I'm just going to have to take the whole mic stand with me as I’m crouching down and it worked and I didn’t fall over. There’s a time, there's a video of it and Neal gets down and then they pop up early and then they go back down. 

 

[N] Also I was in high heel boots and it was not the most comfortable. 

 

[J] There were some people laughing at me in the crowd because I was like crouched down and I had my guitar on my lap because I didn’t know what to do and then I think I was trying to turn up my pedals so it would be really fuzzy when we came back in, and I tried to hit it with my hand and everybody jumped up and it didn’t work. 

[V] It was so fun, just to have the crowd listen to me. 

 

[N] Rob, Elliot, Jack and I went to Detroit one time and we played this bowling arena, bowling alley! That one was fun but I just remember the ride home was like from hell. It was like three hours and we were cramped into my moms car and we had our amps on our laps or something. 

 

[J] So we like get in the car and you’re like oh Rob you’ve driven on the highway a bunch right? And Rob was like yeah, I drove on the highway last week. And we were like okay, and then we get in the car and were going down the street in Royal Oak and the car starts like bucking and we’re like Rob what are you doing? Pull over! And we pull over and Rob realized he has the car in all-terrain mode so we switched that and then we go to Taco Bell and we had to wait like twenty minutes and nothing happened

 

[R] No it was longer than that, it was like a two hour wait. 

 

[J] It was not a two-hour wait. We didn’t get any food. Then we realized Rob didn’t have his lights on and it was nighttime. 

 

[V] Why did you guys have him drive?

 

[N] Because I was intoxicated. That one was really fun because I hated my life while I was there. 

 

[J] It was the driest set ever. We were like playing it and the crowd was just kind of like…

 

[N] We were playing to a bunch of people who were just trying to get drunk and then my friend's band…

 

[J] Just comes up there and kills it. The whole place was a vape cloud though people were vaping like crazy in the bar. I saw a lady take 6 hits in a row off of her vape. 

 

[N] I think it was mostly like Lee Cleveland fans. So that one was very memorable for better or for worse, but I like to think of it fondly. It was a bonding moment. 

[J] We got paid!

 

[N] That was like the most we got paid so that was worth it too. 

 

[V] The Mulligans show I attended the show, I wasn’t;t a part of the band at this time but there was not very many people in the crowd, big bar. 

 

[N] There was like one, not including the bands. 

 

[V] A man walks in wearing nothing but a leather thong, basically it was up his wrinkly butt. He was like 50 something. 

 

I’ve seen this guy. 

 

[V] With like boots with pockets on them. 

 

[J] Yeah and he had a pitcher of PBR. 

 

[V] I was looking at him and was like is this real? I’m like what is happening, oh yeah it had spikes coming off of it like off the crotch. 

 

[J] My mom was there for that set. 

 

[N] Then he left for our set. 

 

[J] Yeah our last show at Mulligans, we played there twice but our last one we got off and we were like I wanted that to end after the first song. 

 

[R] I started playing the first song in the wrong key. I figured it out but. 

 

[V] They also paid the bands in two pitchers of beer, and half of this band couldn't drink at the time. 

 

[N] Yeah and I got super drunk and scared. I was like being drunk is supposed to make your inhibitions go away and I’m like I don’t even wanna play up here anymore. 

[V] The bartenders gave me soda for free though, and I kept trying to pay and they were like no it’s okay. 

 

[N] Pepsi on the house. That’s why we do this thang. 

 

[V] The vending machine gave me like twenty dollars worth of quarters in change because I didn’t realize that it only gave out quarters in change and it just kept giving out quarters until I ran the entire machine out and I don’t even think I got all my change back because I only had a twenty and I just wanted some peanuts or something. It was so old. 

 

[N] You could get twenty peanuts. 

 

[V] What does that mean?

 

[N] I don’t know, like twenty packages. 

 

[V] I see, yeah. 

 

I’m curious about your guy’s own individual backgrounds in music. 

 

[V] I started playing piano in second grade, like it was classical Suzuki training because I was at the stage when my older brother did something I also wanted to do it. I was with Laura Smalls, she was a great woman. She used little finger puppets to make sure we had our mouse holes with our hands for playing. She would stick them in there. I got sick of that around middle school because I just didn’t like playing classical music anymore.I know music theory somewhat, And then I joined KAR, I think the summer after 8th grade. Which is Kalamazoo Academy of Rock. It’s just a local group where they take children 8-18 are welcome. There are varsity bands and workshop bands based on your skill level, usually people audition and then get put in a workshop band. It was really cool because you’re a little kid and you get to feel like a rock star because you’re playing at these bars. I got to play at Ribfest which was really fun. I got to play at the state theater for my final show. It was a really good experience, I’m really thankful that I was able to do that and my parents paid for me to be able to do that. Really talented people there, and then eventually these people were like hey wanna play a halloween show with us and I was like oh boy would I, please. I have not done anything in years, and then they asked me to join permanently and now I’m here. 

 

[J] My dad plays guitar and he always had an acoustic laying around so I started messing around with it, and then he said, you wanna learn bar chords and then I stopped playing.

 

[V] I also stopped at bar chords. 

 

[J] He taught me Seven Nation Army and Smoke on the Water, then he got me a bass and a little amp and he taught me Stand By Me riff on the bass. The idea was that I was going to play bass and then I didn’t play bass, then I think in 3rd grade I came back to guitar and started learning it. I didn’t play in a band until late elementary school or early middle school. I was in a cover band, we played the Maple street talent show, Kalamazoo farmers market, Satellite records. 

 

[V] I thought you guys were so cool at the farmers market. I saw you guys play and I was like oh my god that’s sick. 

 

[J] We played Iron man and they kept cutting us off. 

 

[N] What! Mid song?

 

[J] Yeah we had to do three separate talent shows for each grade because our gym was under construction and the first time they were trying to get us to wrap it up because we were the last act and we went too long and so the next one they were over on the side like STOP STOP STOP, and the last one they cut us off before the last part of the song. 

 

[N] That’s so annoying. 

 

[J] We also had this dude, he was one of the people in the band’s guitar teacher. He went to Western, his name is Max Brown. He’s now in a successful band, he lives in Nashville and he’s a session musician too, which was crazy, but he was teaching us how to be in a band and stuff and we learned a bunch of covers with him. I was kind of in bands throughout high school, I never played anywhere though. I was also in jazz band in high school which I half-assed my way through because I didn’t want to learn how to read music for guitar, and then this kind of sparked it up. 

 

Do you feel like this was your first real band experience?

 

[J] Yeah just with original songs and stuff because I never got to play any original songs live in my other band. I was doing like Black Sabbath covers, and David Bowe covers which was cool. I remember doing an Iron Maiden cover one time, so it was a lot of different stuff. We did a Prince cover. It was a weird line up of songs. This lady got mad at us at the farmers market because we played War Pigs by Black Sabbath and was talking about like I can’t believe they’re playing Black Sabbath at a farmer’s market when it’s literally an anti-war song. 

 

[N] What was her stance on it, was she like pro-war or anti war?

 

[J] I have no idea! This dude came up and heard her ranting and was like there’s a lady here who’s not happy about what you played and then she made a post on Facebook about it. 

 

And how old were you when you were playing that. 

 

[J] Like 11 or 12. My dad is also a gear nerd, so he kind of passed that onto me so now I’m stuck with fiending over guitar gear and instrument stuff and wasting all my money. 

 

Like pedals and stuff?

 

[J] Yeah. 

 

[N] He’s like what those gear memes on instagram are targeted for. Rob how bout you. 

 

[R] I started playing violin in 6th grade in orchestra and then we had probably like 60 kids in our orchestra and we didn’t have a bass player, so my teacher said to me you kinda got fat fingers why don’t you play bass? So I stopped learning violin and I picked up upright and then in 8th or 9th grade I got an electric yeah freshman year of high school my older brothers formed a band which also had Elliot in it. 

 

[N] I expressed that I wanted to play guitar in like 2016 or something. I begged my parents to get me one because I didn’t have money and my uncle who he like plays in a lot of bands, he made me one. He’s a gear nerd too, it’s that black one over there but I started playing a little bit but I don’t know if I was lazy or I just didn’t like it so I stopped for a year. Then I got really into Bob Dylan and I was like this seems like something I can do, instead of trying to shred like day one so I started doing that, then a couple years later I got in my first band. Mostly I learned most of my stuff just by being in bands.

 

I think you said your kind of collective influence was the velvet underground, what elements kind of shine through in your music that is synonymous with The Velvet Underground?

 

[J] We kind of started indulging in the Velvet Underground as a group when we had our New Years Eve show. It was weird because we didn’t have a drummer for it because Elliot was out of town so it was just me, Neil and Rob and Rob was playing upright bass and we covered the song Sister Ray which is usually 18 minutes, we played it for about 10, and I think what I got from it was I like making people uncomfortable with noises. 

 

[V] As someone in the crowd… oh my god. 

 

[N] Didn’t your brother come up to you and say you know you played that song for ten minutes?

 

[V] The owner of the venue got up onstage, I would say pretty intoxicated and they gave him a cowbell and you could see him getting so tired up there. 

 

[N] He played the cowbell for ten minutes!

 

[V] He did! The whole song. The thing the Velvet Underground does is that when they play a song live they never play it the same twice, and I know we try and follow that and make things a little different, change up the dynamics, and just like have it be a fresh experience every time, which I think helps us not get sick of the songs. 

 

[R] Pretty fluid parts… 

 

[V] As long as it’s in the right key. 

 

[J] A lot of the songs I don’t know all the chords to because I've just been playing riffs over it the whole time. 

 

Have you had a moment where like one of your band members is just wilding out and you’re like what’s going on? this has never sounded like this before ever. 

 

[V] I mean sometimes your solos with your pedals kind of scare me.He’s got this one pedal that sounds like it’s underwater like a rocket ship or something and I’ll just turn over rand be like what is happening?

 

[J] I do it to weird people out at shows. 

 

[V] It weirds me out. If they weren’t paying attention, they are now. 

 

[J] It's a delay pedal, I don’t even use it for that. I just use it for the other setting because I think it’s funny. 

 

[N] The most outrageous I get is I do funny voices into the mic.

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[J] I did that for like two shows. When we were on WIDR we were making a ton of noises. 

 

[V] You were barking.

 

[J] Oh yeah we did!

 

[V] I was listening to it live. 

 

[J] We used to bark at practice a lot. 

 

[N] Oh yeah, like bababbo. Yeah

 

[V] What was that?

 

[J] It’s also Elliot. 

 

[M] Oh yeah true Elliot would bark. 

 

[J] Elliot barked at us outside of practice one time. We thought it was a dog

 

That’s funny because the only time I saw Elliot was at that runoff show and I remember thinking this person seems very reserved. 

 

[V] Yes! He seems so stoic like I know when I first joined he was definitely a bit more reserved and now that he’s more comfortable with me he just says the wildest shit sometimes and I’m like where did that come from?

 

So what were some of your previous bands you were a part of?

 

[N] Known Orbit, which was like my high school band. While I was in Known Orbit, Rob and I were in this very short-lived band where we were going to take classic punk riffs, and then we were just going to make joke songs. 

 

[R] The shticks. 

 

[N] The shticks. We could not get anything done but we had a song called suck my juul and then another song about plastic straws like killing turtles. 

 

[V] Be honest how much was smoked during these practices?

 

[R] I don’t think any weed was smoked.

 

[N] We were stone cold sober. 

 

[R] Does that make it better or worse? 

 

[V] I don’t know. 

 

[N] We were toking on some juuls, that influenced me. That’s kind of embarrassing now but umm yeah so just like Known Orbit which I was in for like 6 years and then the shticks which I was in for like two weeks. Then this. 

 

What is your favorite song that you perform? 

 

[V] Our new one King Kong is really fun because it’s a lot more high energy. It's like a surf, heavy rock song and there’s screaming and it’s fun. I also really like doing after hours because it's’ cutesy and I get to sing it and people always know it. We played it at Louis and like a lot of the older couples know it too so it’s kind of just like this transcendent song that is very recognizable. It's kind of a love song for a lot of people so I think it’s just one of those feel good things. 

 

[J] There’s a song called ten days, that we usually open our set with. It’s about Niels sex life. It’s really fun though. 

 

[N] My boyfriend got covid and I missed him for ten days. 

 

[V] I didn’t know that was what that song was about for such a long time. 

 

[N] Well everyone has their own interpretation and that’s fine. 

 

[J] There’s a song that Neil released called Hypnotize that I really enjoy and also a song that we played a lot earlier on, which Niels didn’t like playing which is fine is called untitled/for you blue heart, which I always enjoyed playing that song. 

 

[N] That was also a very vulnerable song. That one was fun, I just always messed it up. Sometimes I’m a perfectionist and sometimes I’m not, and I was a perfectionist on that one and also was just vulnerable for me and I didn’t want to sing it for a bunch of crowds. I really like playing King Kong. I also like playing Funeral Pirate, because I lifted this punk riff that I really like, you know, it’s fun to play. 

 

For the untitled one was it vulnerable for the lyric content?

 

[N] Yeah. I was grappling with problems or something and I just laid my heart on the line and that was back before I had personal development in the emotional field or something that’s like how I would express myself and now I would say that I’m a little more reserved, because I’m singing these songs for people I’m like do they really need to know this or know that.  

 

[R] I like Oh Valentine. 

 

[N] I forgot about that one. That one is probably above Funeral Pirate for me. 

 

[V] I like 2006 Suzuki a lot. 

 

[N] I like that one because I feel like I’m in the band T Rex, like I’m just playing that cool riff. 

 

[V] I just like songs I get to play crunchy organ on, it makes my brain happy. 

 

[J] The Great potato harvest is a classic. 

 

[N] Oh yeah we should play that one again. 

 

So I know you said you tend to have a song fragment or somewhat of a structure then you come and bring it, I’m kind of curious just how that tends to start just on your own?

 

[N] For me it varies. For like 10 days for example, I had this riff that I lifted from this one band that I expanded on a bit. I had it in my head for like two or three years. The band I was with at the time I was like they are not going to be able to pull this off, so I was holding it in the back of my head then probably months ago, I started actually writing a song to it. I’m an avid music listener, so I hear songs and I’m like rather than playing a cover of this song, I want to write my own song kind of like this. Like the one or two things I like about the song you know just take those ideas and take it towards something else and expand on it elsewhere. I find myself getting ideas from other artists often, like a lyric, or a riff, or a structure of a song. 

 

[J] With all my songs, it’s just interesting because for all of them I recorded demos of them and I’ve written all the parts so it’s interesting to come in and see how it changes. Also with lyrics, for all the songs we’ve played in the band, I haven’t tried very hard. I kind of just put down lyrics when I write the song and then I just never change them. There’s a lot of repeated verses and choruses. 

 

[N] I’m like that too sometimes, I’m just trying to get the feel of the song, above everything, but some songs I have specific things I want to say so it depends on what we’re trying to achieve. 

 

Just how big of a part do lyrics play in your guys’ songs? 

 

[V] I think sometimes it's more about the energy, about the vibes, because I know a lot of the time when you’re playing live music, people aren’t really going to know what the lyrics are if they don’t know your songs.

 

[N] They just want something fun to dance to. 

 

[V] Yeah, the Oh valentine one I think the lyrics are important because it's based off a movie. 

 

[N] The lyrics on that one’s really good. It tells a story. 

 

[V] It’s about the kiss of the spider woman. Usually our slower songs are a little bit more important about the lyrics in them. 

 

[N] I’ve been on a big punk kick. I just like music that moves me. I have songs that are super vulnerable and some songs I have a story I want to tell then some songs I just want to have a 60s garage rock song and then the lyrics are an afterthought.

 

[V] My own music, I love Fiona Apple. I love lyricism like that. I just think it’s super interesting so I know for my own stuff lyrics were definitely the most important part for me because also I mostly just know piano and so a lot of the time I would just kind of get my chords down and then do the lyrics and then that’s kind of the song. I like storytelling in songs and stuff like that. That’s what I really find interesting about songwriting 

 

[J] Double entendres are always fun.

 

[N] What’s that?

 

[J] Like dual meaning. 

 

[N] Oh yeah. 

 

Do you guys still experience some stage anxiety?

 

[J] Every show. Every single show. 

 

[N] Mhmm, when you’re heart starts beating and you’re like I don’t want to be here. 

 

[J] Especially bars. Bars are the worst for me, I’m always more anxious in bars for shows. 

 

[V] I’m less, because people are paying less attention so I feel less judged. 

 

[J] That’s why I’m nervous because it’s just like we’re the background and I feel weird about it. 

 

[V] House shows though it’s like you are the entertainment you are the main thing. 

 

[N] People come for that. 

 

[V] Everybody’s staring at you. I feel like I always don’t feel nervous until I start singing, but even talking to the crowd I don’t feel that nervous. It's just the singing part that’s always the part that gets me. I also think that female singers are a lot more criticized for how they sound then male or AMAB singers just because it is just more accepted to be imperfect when you’re a more masculine figure. I just definitely feel like I want to set a good example for women in the scene so I get nervous about it.

 

On the flip side, what's the best aspect of performing?

 

[V] I think finishing the show and you know you did good and you know the crowd enjoyed it and you’re like oh my god we did it. 

 

[N] If there’s like high crowd engagement, like the show at the runoff at first there wasn’t many people there and I was like okay this is going to be fine and then we get out there and I don’t know how many people were there but it was a ton. 

 

[V] We went to the green room and when we came back it was like triple the amount of people. 

 

[N] Oh my god I was pissing my pants. When we practice a ton, which we did before that one, and then seeing your practice pay off. I know what we're playing is good and I like our music and stuff and it’s nice when other people recognize that. That’s a lot of it for me. 

 

Was music all of your guys’ first form of self expression or creative expression?

 

[V] I was definitely into art first, like drawing art. I think what’s cool about music to me is sharing it with other people and playing it for other people and stuff like that but I do a lot of art, I just took a sculpture class at KVCC so I did 3D art, mixed media, I do painting, I do drawing, I do watercolor etc. Yeah so, I think that that one is definitely more prevalent in my life. I know I did a lot more song writing as venting back a couple years ago when I was in a really toxic relationship. Physical art is what I lean to most because it’s just what I’m most comfortable and confident in. 

 

[J] It’s always been music for me. 

 

Yeah it sounded like you got into it pretty young. 

 

[J] Yeah I did. 

 

[N] My dad like brainwashed me by like here watch this video of Tom Waits, and then watch this video of the clash. These guys are cool, this is what you need to do. Yeah, I guess music for me too,music is where I find myself expressing myself more. 

 

[R] I grew up in a more artsy house in general, my moms a dancer, my brother played guitar too, my dad played piano. It was kind of easy to express myself growing up always. 

 

[V] I feel like clothing is self expression. 

 

[N] Oh yeah true! I started realizing fashion would be a good way to express myself like late middle school. I wanted people to know the bands and artists I listened to and visually how artists dressed attracted me. So I would dress like The Strokes and stuff, Mac Demarco. 

 

[V] Your eras of fashion. 

 

[J] Can’t forget about the Brian Jones era. 

 

[N] Brian Jones! I had like a blonde bowl cut, that was rough and I was like this is an ugly haircut but I’m getting it because Brian Jones had it. When we first started playing I was wearing cowboy clothes and stuff because we were a country band full suits and like bolo ties and now I’m just more into punk fashion. That’s a big way of expressing myself for sure. 

 

[V] I know your fashion sense definitely makes me feel more comfortable about getting dressed up for shows in general and also just I was like ok this person is a safe space. Fashion is very important to me, I went to school for fashion design temporarily. 

 

[N] I didn’t know that! That’s awesome

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[V] Yes I did for a semester until I was like bye I’m going back home. One time in middle school I made a pant leg out of this old leopard print jacket that I had. It was held together by like safety pins. And I don’t know why, it was just half a pant leg, people totally made fun of me for it but I was like fuck it, I wore it to school. 

 

[N] That’s cool. For me it also comes down to how I want to express myself gender wise. Sometimes I want to just wear a skirt or paint my nails. 

 

[R] Neil and I wore dresses to my high school talent show. 

 

[N] So it was his senior year and he said he wanted us to come, and like granted I'm in my fourth year of college so I was like I’m just gonna do it anyways. 

 

[V] You can be like screw you I’m an adult.

 

[N] Exactly, I thought it was bad ass. I knew that was going to be taboo for like Portage Northern for us to just like play in dresses. 

 

Do you feel like music gives you an opportunity to express yourself in ways that other art forms, such as fashion, or like you said physical art doesn’t. 

 

[V] I’d say it’s definitely different because you’re using two senses to experience it which is just an interesting time. I know I’m very sensitive to music, it makes me cry quite a bit. I can’t listen to sad music if I’m not in a sad mood because it will make me cry. Depending on the feeling that I want to express I think that music can be a more powerful tool, if it's a really strong feeling that requires more kind of layers than just like a piece of vent art or just like screaming into the void or something. 

 

[N] I’ve never cried looking at a painting. Some songs I just hear the first one minute of it and like something instantly clicks with you and then you just ctry. I find it like an easier outlet to say how I feel or express how I feel rather than physical art. 

 

What do you think you would want people to know about the music that you make? 

 

[N] If you want to know about me just listen to my music. What I stand for and what I’m interested in is all in my music, or like what types of music that I listen to. Rather than wanting to create something that is 100 percent original I’m somebody who is a music appreciation and just, I typically write stuff like I like. 

 

[V] We like people to dance. 

 

[N] I like telling stories.

 

[V] When I think about performing music to other people, I just want people to have a good time. I want people to enjoy themselves and I want people to enjoy the art that we’re creating. 

 

What makes you bring something to this band vs keep it to yourself?

 

[J] If it's too depressing I won’t bring it to the band but the majority of the songs I write are sad so that’s why very few of my songs have come into the band. 

 

[N] I’m going to save all my best stuff. Like stuff I am most proud of, to the table. 

 

[V] I think I’m just excited to see what it's like to have a collaborative effort on a piece of art that I’ve created. Mine are relatively bare bones and I’ve always wanted to see what other people would create with my lyrics and chord progressions. Here’s my idea: what do you guys want to do with it? As a band, as a group, what do we like best about this and what choices do we want to make?

 

It sounds like you guys see a more collaborative effort going forward, what else do you guys see in your future?

 

[J] I definitely want to bring different genres to the plate more. I’d like to have some punk songs or there’s a song I worked on that has a Spanish march section so that would be cool to do. 

 

[N] Becoming more genre fluid is definitely something to strive for I think. We're definitely recording an EP right now. 

 

[V] We need to cover female bands by the way. 

 

[N] Yeah, but we’re definitely recording an EP right now. 

 

How does the sound of that so far compare to the stuff that you’ve released already?

 

[N] Less country, more garage rock and Jack’s going to have three songs on it. He like writes stuff that I don’t write, he like adds bridges and stuff to the songs. 

 

[V] It’s not like three verses and two choruses. 

 

[N] I think the songs that Jack has brought to the table are more polished in the songwriting aspects than some of my stuff is. I know Jack’s such a good songwriter I have to impress him. 

 

[J] Thanks. 

 

What drives you to create music?

 

[R] Just catharsis really. I think my role in the band is just the bass player. 

 

[N] The vibe bringer. 

 

[R] It’s more of like, with what I know how can I write the best baseline for this song. It’s less about expressing my own personal emotion. Yeah I mean I just think it’s fun.

 

[N] What drives me is the thought of playing a show live, but mostly just like, expressing myself and being able to have people listen to me expressing myself. 

 

[J] It’s just kind of a release that I get from playing and also I think stuff just starts in my brain and it’s like I might as well just like work on it as a song or something so that’s really all it is. 

 

[V] Music has always been such a big part of my life. As far back as I can remember my parents always had music playing, they’re huge music buffs, they’re giant record collectors, they just will talk about music for so long. Creating music and having it be a part of my life has always been just so natural for me that I really could not imagine not doing something with it. Now, seeing that other local bands like Saturday’s at Your Place has really blown up it just makes me have more hope. It’s so crazy and it’s actually very driving to me like oh, we might actually have a chance of making it bigger than just a little small town band making it bigger than just a small town band.

 

[N] Yeah Saturdays at Your Place definitely motivates me. I mean they’re great at what they do and they’re just legit. 

 

[V] It just gives me optimism, it gives me hope, it’s like someone else who started in a similar place as us. 

 

[N] I want people to know our music and stuff because I think it’s worth listening to, and sometimes you can get discouraged so to see a band like me from Kalamazoo like I saw them play live at one of their first shows and to see them get signed to a California label, that’s awesome. Yeah it definitely motivations 

 

So it sounds like that’s something you guys are striving for too, being a bigger act. 

 

[V] I know making it big isn’t what’s most important for us, at least not for me, it's creating the music with people that I really enjoy being around. 

 

[N] When it comes down to it, it's about the songs, it's about the music you’re doing and the connections, but like…

 

[V] It would be cool if it happened though. 

 

[N] When we become rich and famous it’s going to be often. 

 

[V+N] Follow us on instagram, look out for our new album. The_frogs_and_toads_official with underscores in between all the things. 

 

[All] Shout out to Lee Cleveland, Sleeping Inn, Saturdays at Your Place, Graham, Elliot who's not here. 

 

[V] He’s hard at work, he just broke his wrist. A ladder fell on it. He played a show like the next day. He’s got like wolverine powers I think. 

 

[N] He’s a superhero, a man of many mysteries. Shout out Kalamazoo, shout out not Portage. Don’t tag the location of where you’re at.