Intro
(Song – Lagoon by Bug Moment)

Jeffrey Deiss
What’s happening Madison. Today on the Badger Herald podcast, I’m going to be interviewing the Milwaukee based band Bug Moment. I’ve seen them play at venues all around the city every time you guys all give a great performance. And also a great Twitter account — my favorite tweet so far is “Alex G is my Ice Spice.” That one, it really got me going. And most importantly, to the important stuff, this month Bug Moment released their second album, The Flying Toad Circus, and they’ve been touring in support of the album. So I thought I would reel them in to an interview while they’re visiting Madison, and we can have a conversation. Yeah, just to clarify, it is second album, right?

Jasmine Rosenblatt
We released an EP up before this? So this is our like, LP. First one. So yeah, okay.

Deiss
Okay. Good. Gotta make sure I get my facts right. Before we get into the album and questions about all that. Just want to have all you introduce yourselves. So maybe going around, could you say your name is where you’re from and what you do in the band.

Rosenblatt
I’m Jasmine. I’m from Milwaukee. The front person, let’s do vocals.

Aidan Hoppens
My name is Aiden. I’m from Milwaukee as well. And I play the drums.

Elias Dorsey
My name is Eli. I’m also from Milwaukee. And I play the bass.

Gray Kornacki
I’m Gray. I’m from Milwaukee, and I play guitar and produce.

Deiss
Perfect. So just I want a little background on the band to give the audience a little history. So how did Bug Moment start? And yeah, whoever wants to take that.

Rosenblatt
So Gray and I met in a credit recovery program in high school senior year. And during quarantine, she was like, “Do you want to sing on this song like this one line?” And then I did. And then she was like when I sing on seven more them. I was like, sure. And then we released Bugs, our first EP. And then Aiden joined the band when we decided randomly we would do live shows. And then probably like a year later, Eli joined when I ran into him at Cactus Club, I was like chocolate bass rose. And then, fully formed band.

Deiss
There we go. So I said, we get to the album, The Flying Toad Circus. I love this thing. I listen to the whole thing multiple times. I mean, if I did it, that would be not good preparation, but I really did love it. And it was great to hear songs of her live or in singles kind of remixed and mastered. Um, what was the writing and recording process like for this album?

Kornacki
It was really long. We started like, the demos for the project, like right after we put out bugs. So like, I don’t know, I don’t know, when that came out. Was that 2021? Was that 2021?

Rosenblatt
Yes.

Dorsey
The recording process, we actually went through my cousin who plays in another Milwaukee based band, and he engineered the entire project. So a lot of the ideas that they had already had, and demos were like, redone again, through Sterling’s recording process. And that was like, it was long. And it definitely was a different approach than playing live music. And that’s something that I had to learn for the first time because this is my first like band I’ve ever been in. But it was a really cool process. And it was like, interesting to have so much creative license over what you want the sounds to be.

Deiss
Yeah, I was gonna mention it. Also, anyone has anything else about that, um, the live sound you all have. And the recorded sound, I think is pretty different. I expected when I listen to the element to be way like heavier and noisier because that’s what I’ve heard from shows. Both are really cool. So it’s kind of just like two sides of the same coin. But is this like a deliberate choice? Or is it just a circumstance of the live versus studio setting?

Hoppens 
It’s pretty deliberate, you know, because we think that our lifetime best serves like a vibe setting to bring the energy but with like the recording, it’s really just like how we want the songs to truly sound I’d say like, that’s what the songs are and then we change them based on that. We take the idea and then see how we could implement it in a live setting.

Deiss
And also, there’s some songs like, I think Slush and Dust Mite, where there’s like electronic stuff going on. Have you played those songs live? And if so, is it kind of hard? Do you try to replicate some of that stuff, or.

Kornacki
We just started playing those kind of songs live. I mean, our first project Bugs is like, almost entirely all that electronic music that we adapted into, like band music, because it happened to have like, guitars on it. So it just like our live sound, especially the beginning was like, completely separate from our recorded sound. With this, I feel like our intention was to try to like, bridge the gap a little more, but like, still keep, like some of that electronic stuff. Like that’s fine slash we have been playing live recently. We just play it like with backing tracks and like auto tunes and stuff.

Deiss
That’s, that’s cool. Speaking of auto tune, Jasmine, live, you do a lot of vocal effects stuff. At least I think sometimes I don’t really know what you’re doing, but I’ll just hear cool sounds and delay and distortion and stuff. When did you start picking up the whole live vocal effects thing? And how did you kind of come up with that?

Rosenblatt
So Lunar Moth is a Madison based band. They have the “death by audio,” like delay pedal. Ever seen them at a house show? Probably like six months ago, and I was like, took a photo of it. I was like, I need that. So then, I bought it. And I also got this new one. It’s uh, oh, my God was it called it’s called something live play. It’s like bowling. telecon live play. Yeah, it’s like this blue thing you can do literally anything you want. So cool. We just got press a button and turns all the effects on. It’s super cool.

Kornacki
It’s really programmable. It’s like, kind of wild. It’s like, it’s basically like a low latency plugin, but on a pedal. So like, I don’t have to worry about my computer being like charged or anything. So I can just like run separately.

Deiss
Yeah, when I played in a band in high school, we covered like Tame Impala songs. And I’d have like a Boss delay pedal. That was not very good. It was like, it was kind of a mess. Do that it sounds cool. Because it is kind of like messy. But you know. Do you also do auto tune live? Is that a thing? I don’t think I’ve heard that.

Rosenblatt
So I saw the new pedal you can do auto tune which is super cool. So I’ve been using that for our hyper pop songs live. So yeah, pretty much we’ve definitely been like leaning into more of the vocal effects now that we just have the pedal are able to do it. Yeah.

Deiss 
And speaking of hyper pop, I’m going to be honest, I was introduced to you all from like I said the live shows so I thought you were all like a straight emo band — like I thought it was more like a punk thing that also the album like what I did not see this coming. And there were songs like “Slush” and “Dust Mite.” And then you have the songs like “Face Pain” or “It’s Getting Dark,” where that’s kind of what I think of when I, you know, know your guys’ music to different members bring like a different influence or to different members write different songs where some of them are more in this style and the style.

Hoppens
Like all of us come from like, varying musical backgrounds, like you Eli’s more of into like the fun jazz like stuff. He brings, like, the groove you know, and then Gray’s really into like, EDM — I’m kidding — electronic music and hyper pop and Jasmine. Like, obviously we’re kind of similar but you you lean more towards like the folk like, like, Alex G kind of side stuff? Stuff so like, songs like Little Frog are like from Jasmine.

Deiss 
That’s my favorite one, by the way. I’m not gonna lie.

Hoppens
I come from like an emo background like title fight and all that. I think that’s what I bring.

Rosenblatt
We all find on liking emo music.

Deiss
That’s why you guys are emo-adjacent right? Yeah.

Kornacki
That was like a joke for a while and that kind of stuff. Yeah.

Deiss
I mean, it makes sense. Because it’s obviously it’s not just straight. Yeah, even music but there’s like different varieties of music.

Kornacki
Adjacent.

Dorsey
One of my favorite stories is right when I started practicing before I technically joined the band when I started practicing after Jasmine invited me to play a couple of shows because that’s how it started. I was in the car with gray and Jasmine, and they were playing music. And I think at some point it went from like stuff that they were showing me that there was their musical tastes to the demos they have recorded. I had no I swear you’re no fun. Still them because like it went from like the super like glitchy like this but very electronic production to like screaming mobiles. And I had no idea that that was still them. They’re like, yeah, we play our demos like, Are you kidding me? That’s just like it covered such a wide range of sounds.

Kornacki 
That you’re definitely referring to is not on the album. Yeah.

Deiss
I was gonna say I don’t think I remember that one. Um, speaking of different songs in the album, I say we go around, I kind of want to hear what each of your favorite songs whether, because of how it sounds, how you’ve recorded it, playing it live. What are each of your favorite songs on the album?

Rosenblatt
Hot take. I really like “Flytrap.” Because it’s scary and throws off the five. And I like playing it live because it’s just like, I don’t know, it’s like, so different live. And I get to like, scream at the end.

Deiss 
Yeah, that’s a spooky one.

Rosenblatt
Kind of bold to just end it like that. But I was like, I wouldn’t want it any other way.

Hoppens
I would say my favorite is “Mosquito,” because I just think it’s just like, just a really well like crafted song. And it just continuously like builds on itself. And it’s really fun to play live. Like. It’s just a very dynamic song. And I just like the flow of it. And it sounds good.

Dorsey
I think in terms of playing live, because thinking about it in those two ways, was like it was like a really good question because it had me thinking about like, which ones I just enjoy sonically. Like I really enjoyed listening to them, versus like, which ones are super fun to play live. And sonically, I think the instrumentation at the end of teeth all works together really well. It feels like like, that’s a really like compartmentalize moment on the album where everything’s working together really nicely. It’s all comes in concert, I guess. But live. It’s really fun to play live. But I think if we’re talking live, the live version of mosquito is entirely different from how it is on the album, actually, with the exception of the first part, kind of, yeah, because it begins the same way. But there’s like a point where the like, we kick into vocals and like, everything goes into like distortion and Hayden’s playing super hard. And it’s like this big, like, wall of sound after like seconds of sales, which always.

Kornacki 
Probably “Slush” is my favorite song because it’s like technically the first one that I worked on for the album. The second half of the song, we’re like transitions into like, kind of like spacey or like good cheer stuff. I made that like, right after we finish bugs. But probably like face paint, just because like I worked on it for a really long time.

Deiss 
Hey, I’m surprised no one said “Lagoon,” because to me that was like the first song I heard. I really liked that song. I like it.

Kornacki
I do really enjoy that song. But like, it’s one of the older ones. Yeah, that was the first thing that I ever kind of worked on. Like that was new for us. And like it will always like hold a place in my heart. I don’t know “Mosquito” just look yeah, like I objectively love that song. But I feel like there’s down was is though, like one of the oldest so like I feel like sometimes it’s like my child.

Deiss
You can get like sick or you can get sick of the older stuff sometimes I feel like.

Dorsey
All right, it almost feels as though like “Lagoon” has just been so good and so fun to play consistently for so long. That’s overlooked for sure.

Deiss
So obviously you would the album just coming out. I wouldn’t expect another this is what I’ve asked the last two bands because they had albums coming out. But you guys are kind of in the touring stretch now. How’s that been going overall and where have you visited?

Dorsey
This yesterday show was the first one after our release so okay, the like principle like the first step or summer run I suppose.

Deiss
It was just maybe what are your tour plans for the rest of spring?

Kornacki 
Trying to like stay in the Midwest or by like, try to get out of state as much as we can — we have like shows in Chicago and like Madison and maybe Minneapolis but like we don’t I feel like we definitely have shows lined up. I just have no idea.

Hoppens 
We also have like a weekender with Lunar Moth coming up next month. So yeah, we’re trying to just get like weekend beggars and stuff.

Deiss
It’s like the bug festival. Yeah, I also saw that on Twitter. So cool. I don’t really have many other specific questions but maybe you I know again, the album just came out. Do you have any plans for future music you’ve been working on?

Dorsey
We have some dastardly plots currently, like exacting our you know, we can’t say too much.

Deiss
I don’t want you to give away I don’t want to do.

Hoppens
Yeah, it’s just very exciting and it’s something that I like, really want to work on and it was it literally something like kind of kicked us in the past it would be like, Oh, we got to start making music. We’re kind of pressure to be like, okay, we got to make this a bit of a fire at song.

Kornacki
There are two other like ideas. Yeah. For projects you want to probably not an album or a while.

Deiss
Small project. I think that’s that’s always fun. Because you know, I have everyone has a lot of attention span these days. Really listen to my 20 track Deluxe album, usually like I don’t care that much. I think we just think 12 Again, like that. So I guess I’ll anticipate the dastardly plots to be executed in the near distant future. But besides that, thank you all for coming and talking to me today. And anyone listening to this podcast, make sure to listen to “Flying Toad Circus” by Bug Moment, and have a great day.

Outro
(Song – Little Frog by Bug Moment)