Punk Head: You've described Frogmouth as a band that can move from cowpunk to surf to progressive rock without losing its identity. What's the one thing that makes a song sound unmistakably like Frogmouth?
Angus: This is a band full of writers. And as music fans ourselves, we all have a range of interests and tastes and moods, musically. We tend to keep in “rock” and anyone can stick on whatever other hyphen or adjective you want. It is just this wide range of stuff but we sound like US. This group of individuals. It’s a fun braid of us working together - and FUN matters. We have a great time playing together and I think that is part of what makes us “Frogmouth”.
Jordan: We all still have individual styles and voices, that when blended together, do create the amalgamation of sound that is "Frogmouth". It makes it tough to tell people what we sound like, because we can't really point to another band that sounds exactly like what we're creating. And we think that's a good thing!
Punk Head: There's a lot of technical ambition in your music, but the attitude is often sarcastic and playful. Do you think rock bands sometimes take themselves too seriously?
Jesse: There certainly are rock bands that take themselves more seriously than we do, but there are a ton that don't. I'm not here to judge for the most part how someone chooses to express themselves. Putting something creative and original out in the universe is hard and scary, so I respect anyone who makes that leap. But I do find myself gravitating to artists like Cheekface who mix humor with deeper messages that you can't help but dance to.
Punk Head: “Clockmaker" and "Alamogordo" occupy pretty different musical worlds. Was that contrast intentional when choosing the first two singles?
Jay: That was a happy accident, as it were the first two songs (plus Delivery) that we had written for the yet unnamed album. “Clockmaker” was an old demo that Jesse had made years prior that he submitted in which I initially saw the potential in to flesh it out and work on. “Alamogordo” came about as I had taken a trip to New Mexico and seen the city and became inspired by it. I wrote the main riff and chorus. Jesse and the rest of the band filled in the muscles and bones of it. Sonically speaking, we all gravitate to the genesis of the song and don’t try to sound like anything else, as cliche as that may sound. Not so intentional, well maybe a little bit, but more of “let’s get these new songs out ASAP and write a record around them” type mentality.
Punk Head: How do you decide who sings each song?
Jay: The primary songwriter usually is the one who sings the song and it’s it mutually agreed upon. We all share songwriting credits for posterity’s sake, but sometimes it can happen by awesome chance. We decided to cover “Mystery” by The Wipers because I was a big fan of it and the band liked it too. Initially I was going to sing it, but the day of plotting it out, my voice was rather hoarse. Angus (our bassist) spoke up and inquired if he could sing lead on it, so I said ‘go ahead.’ Couldn’t have been a better outcome as he shines very well on that song.
Another thing we’ll do is write lyrics from one person, but someone else sing it. Jesse and I did that with “Champagne Taste On A Beer Can Budget.” While I sing lead on it, the second verse is primarily written by Jesse. So it’s all relative to the song, who has the best parts for it etc. that’s what I feel sets us different than other bands, respectfully speaking.
Punk Head: You seem interested in making music that can be musically unpredictable without making the listener feel shut out. How do you know when you're challenging your audience in an exciting way, and when you're just making things complicated for yourselves?
Angus: We all love to play and get ambitious but we all love good SONGS more. We all understand songs as the greater goal. We all write and I think we all love to rock. So, all the energy and complexity can be fun when it fits into these contexts. If it isn’t fun, if it isn’t taking us somewhere, if being busy isn’t serving one of those ends, it doesn’t happen.
