Dirt and water. Seeds scatter the ground. Life emerges. It is in this way that MUDD scatters it’s own seeds among its listeners and instills in them a fraction of their own unmatched liveliness.
(L to R) Brandon, Nick, Vince, Steve
Mudd is a 4 piece, somewhat psychedelic-rock group, currently rooted in the great Columbus, Ohio. Mostly meeting during their earlier college years, you can feel the bonds between these guys as they’ve grown to where they are. The best way I could describe them is a beautiful union of talent and passion. Like if you stuck your hand into mud and it was all soft and nice and stuff and not all sandy. Like a sweet tenderness from mother earth. Anyways, these guys are super awesome and so is their merch. I’ll be buying more t-shirts and stickers soon.
This is January 10th at the Rumba Cafe with Mudd. If you’d just like to start by introducing yourselves.
Vince: Yeah, my name is Vince, I am the lead singer and I play guitar in the band in question, Mudd.
Steve: I’m Steve and I play bass and I also sing.
Brandon: I’m Brandon and I play the guitar. I sing a little bit too.
Nick: I am Nicholas Howard Grover Ⅰ, the first one in the family and I play drums in Mudd.
Alright, I guess to start out, if I have this right, you were all OSU graduates, is that right?
Vince: Yeah. Us three.
Brandon: Yeah, I didn’t graduate school.
Vince: Brandon joined us last year actually after we had another member that moved out of state.
Steve: To New York City, I think.
So how did this come together originally?
Vince: So, I was making music solo for just a short while and I was kind of not satisfied with that and I just wanted to try something a little bit more, you know, cool, I guess. I don’t know. I just like, I needed to start a band. It just felt right. And so, I hit up this GroupMe group chat. It was an Ohio State club for musicians to meet each other and I was just like, “I’m starting a band. This is what it’s going to sound like. These are the instruments I need, you know, in the band. “ And sure enough, I got a few replies but I ended up just picking randomly. It was our old guitarist, Colin, who came with Steve to our first jam with me and Nick.
Steve: He needed a ride to the jam. I wasn’t a bass player before Mudd. I was a drummer and I owned a bass. It was like, “Hey Steve, you want to take me to this gig? I guess you can play too.”
Vince: And we didn’t know that he wasn’t a bass player. He just came and played and we were just like, yep, he plays bass. We didn’t find out until like a year later.
Nick: I wasn’t in the group chat. I went to school for music for a year. Growing up, I played drums since I was a wee little, almost a sperm, honestly. I was playing drums as a sperm. Went to school for music for a year, got really burnt out, quit. Then Vince and I met in the dorms. At that time, we had talked about our love for music because I produced stuff on the side, house music, on the side. We were talking about DAWs and MIDI controllers and all that fun stuff. At one point, he used to come over to my old apartment years before Mudd came together and we would jam.
We were like, “We should put together a band” and we kept kind of doing it and we had a group of guys at one point, but we played together once and it never happened again. We played Smoke on the Water for like hours. Eventually, we were like, fuck it, let’s just do it. That’s when we messaged in the group chat, or in the GroupMe. And yeah, it just kind of organically happened from there. I mean, I’d love to say it was really intentional, but most of it just happened.
Vince: The universe fell into place.
Nick: Happenstance, I believe the people call it. The Muggles.
How did you end up joining up with them?
Brandon: I was kind of subbing with a band and we opened up for them in a couple shows or whatever.
Vince: We just knew you shredded.
Steve: He was the first person we reached out to when we were trying to find a new band.
Brandon: At the time, I was desperate for a band. I wanted to play. I wanted to be in a band, you know, like actually be a part of one. I was tired of subbing for bands and not having any creative say whatsoever. It was annoying just learning songs and just not really feeling a part of a band. so I joined up with them. Vince DM’d me on Instagram. I was like, that sounds like a fun thing to do, so. We’ve been together ever since.
Nick: I think it’s important to add that when we saw you play that first time before you joined the band, we were all fangirling. “Who’s this fucking guitarist?”
Brandon: I remember that show.
Nick: Station One, right?
Brandon: I had four days to learn songs.
Nick: You learned them. It happened. It sounded so good.
Brandon: I don’t think I slept that whole week.
Vince: Damn, man.
Nick: Dedication.
Brandon: but yeah, it was a good time. The perks of playing in bands, you get to meet other people and then get to form some jam buddies and whatnot.
Nick: The community’s definitely the best part. There’s such a big community in Columbus.
Brandon: Yeah, for sure. No one talks crap about each other. I think everyone’s all for each other. There’s no competition at all
Nick: For realsies.
When you were talking about that dorm thing, was that during when you had all those TikToks?
Vince: That was actually before that.
That was before that?
Vince: That was before that. So.. the TikTok blew up my sophomore year. I met Nick [when] we lived across the hall from each other my freshman year. He was a sophomore, I was a freshman.
Nick: I’m one year above.
Vince: He had just transferred in from the music school he was talking about. We were both first years at OSU, at least. We just hit it off right away. We were shaving in the bathroom. We were just like, “Hey, what’s up?”
Nick: I remember that. Shaving, you’re like, “What’s up, man?” And I’m like, “What’s up, dog?”
Brandon: You guys both got your staches going.
Nick: And then we were kissing. Just kidding.
Vince: It would be okay if that was true. But it’s not.
So I guess you said you came out with the drums already with you. But what are the rest of your guys musical history? Did you come up with it?
Vince: Like the instruments we each play, you mean?
Yeah. Did you grow up with music?
Vince: Oh, yeah, absolutely. My dad was in a band for 30 plus years. It was called the Danger Brothers. And he was.. I’m exactly what he was. He was lead singer and rhythm guitar, and that’s exactly what I ended up being. I actually started playing the drums first when I was like a toddler. Like two years old, maybe. My parents just for some reason got a drum set and I just started bashing on it. And I loved it. Then I got to be like five or six years old and for some reason, I don’t remember why, but they put me in piano lessons. And I kind of stopped playing the drums and I played piano for like forever. Then fast forward to 2020, right before COVID happened is when I finally started playing the guitar because I just wanted to produce music. I just had this weird obsession, I was like, “I need to do this, and I don’t want to hire a guitarist. I’m just going to learn how to play guitar.” And that’s basically what I did.
Steve: Yeah, I’ve been in music for as long as I can remember, really. I started playing the piano when I was six years old. I only did that for a couple years, though. And then I was a little kid who didn’t want to practice, so my parents took me out of the lessons. So I stopped with piano, and then I actually went the musical theater route, singing and acting in plays. I did that all throughout high school. I started in percussion in fifth grade, just did orchestral stuff for a long time. Then I picked up drum set in high school, guitar a couple years later, and then bass when I joined Mudd. So, yeah, I’ve been playing a little bit of everything for a long time.
Brandon: I started really playing guitar when Guitar Hero was a thing.
Nick: Dude, yes!
Vince: I’m so bad at Guitar Hero. I can play the real guitar, and I can’t fucking play Guitar Hero.
Brandon: Yeah, I was awful. I was awful at Guitar Hero, but, you know, Welcome to the Jungle and like Slash and everything was like, this is fucking badass. And, you know, got into rock and roll at a very early age with my dad. He loved, like, Black Sabbath and Hendrix and, you know, Zeppelin and Guns N’ Roses and just all those kind of classic rock bands that, you know, everyone loves. And I got into, like, all the heavier stuff, too, mixed in with blues and [it] just kind of grew.
I took guitar lessons when I was young. I was more of, like, a listen and learn type of guy and really started grinding once I got to high school, because… I was playing baseball, and I was very serious about that, and then I realized [I was]“not going to go pro”, you know, whatever, and music was starting to become... I started to become like a stoner and everything, and music was a lot cooler than baseball to me. And I decided I was going to go to OU for audio engineering and recording, and then dropped out of there because I’m not spending 25 grand just to go to school for audio engineering.
Nick: That’s so real.
Vince: You can learn it from YouTube.
Brandon: Yeah, and, you know, got involved in the Columbus music scene after I dropped out of OU. I moved to campus with some buddies. I didn’t go to school or nothing. I just moved to campus and got some auditions with some legendary Columbus band, Zoo Trippin, and they kind of got me introduced to the scene and whatnot and got me comfortable playing live and [I’ve] just kind of been growing ever since, and...here we are today. Joining up with the boys. It’s great.
Nick: I love it. I want to add really quick: before music school, I grew up with the same thing, my dad played drums in bands, and he was in a band in, like, high school and stuff, but my dad’s a full-time musician still to this day. He plays a little bit of everything. I also was in piano lessons when I was a kid, also didn’t practice at all and would go to recitals, like, not knowing and winging it on the spot, but I started with Rock Band. Like, before I ever had a drum set, I was playing the drums on Rock Band, and I remember, like, having this autistic urge to be able to play every song I’d expert on the drum, like, the little four-piece quad drum set thing.
I remember playing Panic Attack by Dream Theater. That was, like, my fucking goal. Like, I needed to be able to play to an expert, and I realized... my little smooth autistic brain realized that if you play expert on a song in Rock Band, it’s the real drum part transposed. Like, the yellow pad is the hi-hat and the rack tom, blue tab is right cymbal, second rack tom, green pad is crash cymbal, like, floor tom, and so I was, like, learning all these songs on drums. And my dad was a worship leader in Methodist Church- no longer associated, because, like... Uh...
Nick: But at that time, we were... And I remember we’d go in at like 5 a.m., and I’d be like, “Dad, can I go play the drums?” And the drummer in this one worship band had, like, a four-rack tom, three-floor tom, like, quintillion cymbals, like, just this fucking Megadeth epic drum kit, and I remember I sat down, and I started playing the Mr. Roboto by Styx kind of beat, like the... “tktkt” you know, and my dad kicked into the church and he’s like, “What the hell are you doing?” And I thought I was, like, in trouble, and I’m like, “Oh”, and he’s like, “Where did you learn that?” And that Christmas- this was in the wintertime, so, like, right before Christmas- they got me a drum kit, and that’s where it started.
I didn’t play any sports. I didn’t do really anything else but just play drums after school, and, like, there’s this feeling- and I know every musician can relate to this- there’s this feeling you get when you are playing your instrument, and you’re, like, in a flow state, and you, like... You become it. It’s like when you drive really well and you’re locked in, and you just become one with the sound, you know? You’re just speaking. And that, since then, has just always called to me. I feel like, in a way, I’ve just been able to manifest situations where I can play that live, and it’s awesome. So, yeah, I guess the whole point of that is if you have a love for any sort of music, just, like, do it, because that’s the whole name of the game.
Brandon: Even if you suck, you know, you’re eventually going to become good at that.
Nick: And that’s subjective anyways, you know?
Brandon: Like, I don’t really think I’m that good, you know, but it’s fun.
Nick: Cap!
Steve: Dude, you rip.
You were super sick up there.
Vince: “Everyone feel sorry for me!”
Nick: “Guys, I’m so bad!” Right? Right, guys? Am I bad? Tell me? No, just kidding.
I guess, next thing on my list, what’s with the name?
Vince: Mudd, okay, so, there is a story behind this, and it’s...
Nick: The food duckers.
Unanimous: *laughter*
Nick: We’ll get there, we’ll get there, we’ll get there.
Vince: Okay, so, Mudd, the name Mudd, literally, one time, I was in the shower, and I just had this random- you know, you just get, like, visions in the shower, like, full-length movies of, like, prophecy. I received a prophetic vision from the universe, and it was just the word “Mud”, and at the time I was just thinking it could be some kind of, like, cool entertainment brand, like, “it would have, like, a YouTube channel and have different series” and be like a social media, kind of. More of like a video/content thing. That was, my original idea, and then that was only a few months before the band started. Then when the band happened, I was like, “Wait, that Mud idea” and, like, “Mud’s simple, it’s short and sweet.” I love names that are short and sweet. We’re not the first ones to be named Mud, but, you know, if you’re the first one to make yourself known with, like, a short name, I just think there’s something so impactful about a short, punchy name, and that’s why I liked it.
Brandon: Everyone calls us Mud with two Ds.
Vince: Yeah. Oh, yeah, the second D. It was originally just gonna be one D, and then Colin, our first guitarist, was just like, “what if we added a second D?” And we were just like, “Ok.”
Steve: We did like a NCAA-style bracket to decide the name.
Vince: Yeah, we did a bracket! That’s right.
Steve: The process of elimination.
Nick: Every other name was just a sexual innuendo.
Vince: Yeah, it was really inappropriate.
Steve: We decided to keep it family-friendly.
Nick: And one of those was the food duckers.
Vince: The food duckers. If you replace the Ds. Make that what you will, yeah. Replace the first letters of food.
Nick: You’re talking about ducking under food, like food fight, like you duck under the food, but also another sexual joke.
Steve: If you really think about it.
Vince: Yeah, so nothing too crazy, but yeah.
I think I get what you mean, though, because, like, one day, they’re not gonna think of water and dirt, they’re gonna think of you guys.
Unanimous: Exactly. Exactly.
Nick: “I got mud on my shoes!” and it’s just a picture of us.
Vince: That’s such a good point, though, like the household name kind of thing. Like, I’m trying to think of another- what’s another thing like that that’s, like, just a word, but you know the brand before you know the word. Amazon, Amazon. Like, you think of the company before you think of, like, the rainforest. You get the idea.
Brandon: We strive to be Jeff Bezos, nothing more, nothing less.
Vince: I really just wanna...
Nick: I wanna be bald so bad!
Vince: Sell books, be a billionaire.
Nick: He’s so bald. Yeah. Me when I’m bald? Anyway.
Vince: Okay. One day we will be.
So, on Spotify, it said you were, like, indie, alt, like psychedelic rock, but I feel like it’s hard to put your sound in a box. Like, how would you describe yourself to someone who hasn’t heard you?
Vince: That’s a really good question.
Steve: That was, like, the initial...
Brandon: The psychedelic part is definitely, you know...
Steve: It’s there, but that was just, like, the initial thing we said the band was gonna be from the very beginning. Vince was like, “Let’s make this indie psychedelic rock” and we would play, like, King Giz covers. We still do sometimes. But it just kind of… especially since we all have such different influences, like, Brandon’s a big blues rock guy and then, like, all the Hendrix and Zeppelin stuff that he plays. Nick’s a classically trained jazz drummer.
Nick: Unfortunately
Steve: I’m a metalhead, and then Vince is, like, super into the indie scene.
Vince: Yeah, so I guess, like, in a broad term, it’s just alternative rock,
Steve: It doesn’t really fit under one umbrella.
Nick: I got it. It’s just, like, ADHD music. Like, everything is just all over the place. And we all four have ADHD, either probably or definitely. Yeah. It’s just what we want it to be, which is pretty awesome, honestly.
Vince: The way I would describe it personally: I think the foundation of all of our music is, very, like, just alternative rock. And then we all have our different influences that kind of layer on top of that. Like, as we write a song, Brandon will rip a fucking killer rock solo. And then we’ll also have a section that’s, like, kind of bluesy or kind of funky. We just... We have a good way of combining all of our different tastes.
Brandon: Yeah, it all works well together. When we write our songs and stuff, we don’t... Like, we’re not arguing. It all just flows together, like, all of our certain different little things that we got going on. It’s teamwork. It all works super well together. It’s a weird thing, but...
Steve: It makes for interesting combinations.
Brandon: Yeah. It does make it quite difficult to describe to my co-workers.
(DESCEND EP cover)
Unanimous: *Laughter*
Nick: They only know like Alex Warren and Imagine Dragons. It’s like, the co-worker music stuff. How to explain to an Imagine Dragons fan, what we do…
Vince: Mudrock.
Nick: Nothing against Imagine Dragons.
Brandon: Mudrock!
Nick: Yeah, that actually goes brazy, dude. You should say that. Mudrock.
Vince: Mudrock. I like that.
Okay, and then this one’s sort of relating to all the TikTok stuff. Like, what role do you think that the internet’s gonna take in, like, for music making in the future?
Vince: My gosh… I mean, the internet... Unfortunately and fortunately is, like, everything right now. I say that because there’s so much good, unexpected, like... You can just blow up overnight on a random video. But also, at the same time, like, it could take years of grinding to get that one video. Social media. We’ve had definitely our fair share of days where we just get together and just make content. Because you have to do it.
Brandon: We try not to be, like, cringe as hell, you know? Like, “Ooh, did we just make the song of the summer?” Like, we still have a lot of self-respect for ourselves and, you know, we’re not trying to sell out and stuff, you know?
Steve: Music comes first.
Vince: Yeah, music is first.
Brandon: We’re just fortunate we don’t write our songs with an audience or anything.
Vince: But yeah, to wrap up your question, the internet plays a huge role and, like, today you can’t be a successful band without having an internet presence. You have to at the very least be on, you know, something. For people to know who you are.
Nick: And who knows how AI is going to play into this shit. AI music is terrifying.
Brandon: We had, like, an AI poster made for us before a show and we were so pissed off about it.
Nick: There’s been moments where I’ll find a group on Spotify and I’m like, “This is kind of funky” and then it’s like, “Oh fuck, they’re AI. This is an AI band.” And I’m like, “Fuck, how did I not realize right away it was AI?” And that scares me because I’m like, fuck, if I didn’t realize it was AI right away, how many people listen to AI music? Which is like the most soulless music possible which completely defeats the purpose of music. It’s like eating a steak that has no protein in it, you know.
Steve: I’m not that worried about AI.
Vince: It’s gonna… the bubble pops.
Steve: It’s not just the bubble, it’s the fact that when people wanna connect with music they’re not trying to connect to the music itself entirely. They also wanna connect to the artist.
Brandon: It’s the human aspect of music. You relate to people’s lyrics and even song, you know.
Steve: It’s the personality, it’s the visuals, it’s the experience, it’s everything.
Brandon: AI can’t recreate a tasty blue solo.
Nick: It can create the corporate music that it seems like half of the population enjoys. Like, the co-worker music, the bland stuff, AI does that perfectly. And you think about, like, the biggest consumers of music, you have music fans and then people who listen to music. And people who listen to music would love AI music because they wouldn’t be able to delineate. They wouldn’t be able to tell what’s what. That’s what scares me because the overall market challenge. Like, who’s making the money?
Like the consumers of fucking Alex Warren music I think his name is. They, like, ah. It just scares me because if there is only so much, like with Spotify it’s so saturated. And then you have TikTok and you have SoundCloud and everything. It’s like, you have people who love music and that’s who we want to connect with, but when you look at the dollar value, like, we want to make this a career. We think about it monetarily. And obviously we don’t want to sell out, but a lot of the money in music comes from the people who just listen to music you know? That’s scary, because…
Vince: The decision makers are… making bad decisions.
Brandon: Yeah. I mean a lot of these songs.. written by some guy in a suit. You know?
Vince: I mean that in terms of like the executives. It’s all controlled by a record company.
Steve: It’s all just luck in the end. To a degree.
Brandon: It really is, you know? I mean, you can grind your ass off all you want.
Vince: And if you love what you do and you stick around long enough you’ll get enough chances to be lucky that eventually you’ll get lucky. That’s kind of how I look at it. Like, I’m going to do this regardless.
Brandon: It doesn’t really feel like work to us.
Vince: Like, if it wouldn’t go anywhere I would still make music just because I enjoy making music. It’s not about, like, “I want to make it” or whatever. I think I can speak for all of us when we say-
Brandon: It would be sweet to.
Vince: It would be awesome. Like obviously that’s our goal. That’s in our future is to, like-
Brandon: Never have to work again and this is our job..
Vince: Yeah, but at the end of the day it’s just about doing it because we love it. It’s what we do. It’s what we do.
It’s more about the expression.
Vince: Yeah, we need an outlet, you know?
Brandon: It’s our therapy.
Vince: Yeah.
It’s 2026 now. What are you guys’ New Year’s resolutions?
Brandon: You know, this past year we were kind of hoping to get an album out, so.. Just kind of getting back in the swing of things and really just grinding and… Like, anytime we have days together, we’re super, you know, like, we make tons of progress. We write tons of great songs, we have a ton of songs just sitting, you know, [and] we’re going to work on them. We’re going to work on them and it’s going to be a great time.
Vince: My own resolution is just to lock in, honestly just stop procrastinating. That goes for music but that goes for everything else too. I feel like if I just improve my habits and everything in every other area of my life it’s only going to benefit the music and every other area. Like, if I just better myself as a whole then everything else is going to prosper. So I’ve really taken a…. I’ve had a lot of time on my hands let’s say, because I got fired three weeks ago.
Unanimous: *laughter*
Steve: Hell yeah.
Vince: I got fired from my job and I don’t regret it a single bit.
Brandon: Go off queen.
Vince: I was so ready to leave that job and it honestly has just given me a lot of time to reflect and make a plan for 2026, which I feel, truly, in my heart, is a huge year for us. As people and also as a band. Like I just think this is the year a lot of shit happens. I don’t know. It’s just a feeling. I’ve had feelings before and they’ve been right.
Brandon: It’s going to be a great year.
Steve: It is. Yeah, I’ve been thinking a lot, I heard somewhere that being good at something isn’t about inherent skill or luck or anything, it’s just about familiarity. So just to keep up with that I want to play music every day. I want to have the instrument in my hands and I want to be doing something even if it’s mindless. Just being around music.
Vince: That’s another thing. Create every day. That’s another thing I told myself. I was going to make something every day.
Brandon: Yeah, like I listen to music every day, play guitar every single day, you know, just get in that mind. Even if you’re not writing a song or whatever, you’re still practicing, stuff like that. Just getting better at your instrument in general and having more confidence up there. All in all, it’s just… I mean it’s us four up there having a good time with each other, you know? Like, we’re all best buds.
Nick: There’s this this book I read by Joseph Nguyen I can’t remember the name of it, but it’s about thinking. And I think to summarize it all, he had a quote in this book that I feel captures everything we’re all saying and that’s goals of desperation versus goals of inspiration. So your goals of desperation are like “I need to make money so I can pay my bills! So I can, you know, live a life.” That’s a goal of desperation.
You’re desperate for money because if you don’t have it bad things happen, whereas a goal of inspiration is [when] there’s no downside for not doing it. You do it because you love doing it. So I want to replace a lot of my goals of desperation with goals of inspiration and I think that captures everything you guys said where it’s like, “I want to do this because I love doing it not because I’m scared of what happens if I don’t.” You know? You should read that book. I can’t remember the name of it but it’s a really good book.
Vince: Dogs gotta eat man.
Brandon: Yeah we’re all super hungry for it.
Vince: Dogs gotta eat for this.
I’ve got a couple of sort of rapid fire individual questions for you. (to Brandon) You’re like a super crazy soloist. What’s like your favorite riff or solo you’ve played?
Brandon: God… it changes all throughout you know I’m definitely a huge Hendrix guy. I love Guns N’ Roses. Those are my favorites. I’ve been really recently getting into kind of the darker metal stuff, like Sabbath and there’s this band I really like called Witch and they have this killer riff man. It’s so sick. And I’ve got like a Marshall stack and I have a Les Paul and, I don’t know, that good old kind of rock and roll sound just turns me on… A lot of the Hendrix stuff is really kind of how I go about things. Like uh, Voodoo Child and then there’s that minute jam called Voodoo Chile, which is ridiculous and super psychedelic. I get a huge psychedelic vibe from Hendrix, like when you mix kind of like a demonic rock with blues and acid. It’s pretty magical and it’s pretty badass, you know. Like, nothing better than a Les Paul-Marshall combo, you know. It doesn’t get better than that.
And then (to Nick) I know you did like the almost like electro remix of Laughing Gas. Do you like more electro music on the side, I guess?
Steve: Doctor Grover!
Nick: Yeah, I mean, house music is probably my favorite genre of music, but I grew up in middle school listening... Like I discovered Skrillex when he was huge, you know, like when everybody was into Skrillex. There’s just something about, like, the infinite possibilities of electronic music. Like I love alt and rock, but you’re kind of loyal to, like, the constraints of guitar, drums, bass, you know, and like some synthy stuff, but EDM is just fucking anything you want. If you can think of a sound, you can make it and there’s no, like, paradox of choice in that. There’s no, like, you’re at the grocery store and there’s a thousand options. It’s more excitement of “Holy fuck, I can literally make any sound I want” and I just love the energy behind it.
So yeah, I mean, a goal of inspiration for 2026 is: I have a bunch of remixes of other songs I’m sitting on that are 80% done that I just can’t finish because I have ADHD or whatever. I can’t get them done, but they’re almost there and they’re really exciting and I love them. I love taking music and just making everything about it except for the vocal line different and changing it completely with the infinite possibilities of EDM where you can just do whatever the hell you want and call it EDM. You know what I mean? So yes, I really love that shit and it’s fun. I love playing drums and I love rock music too, but when I’m making music, there’s kind of a ritual to it. I need at least some kind of substance in me, like smoking or drinking a fucking espresso martini or something and just sitting down and, you know. It’s so fun. It’s so fun to just try stuff. I think EDM warrants that the most, at least for me it does.
Do you have like a separate SoundCloud account for that stuff?
Nick: I have a Spotify. Yeah, I make music under Dr. Grover, which has got a handful of house stuff, but it’s not my best work. It’s stuff from like 2022 and on. But yeah, Dr. Grover, stream Dr. Grover on Spotify uf you’re in the mood to, you know, do some crazy like ball stuff or..
Unanimous: *laughter*
Are you (to Steve) bringing your Rubik’s cube skills into the new year?
Nick: Tell them about the world record you had!
Steve: I did have a world record at one point. I mean, that’s just something I do as a hobby at this point. I like to say I’m retired from my competition days. I had a lot of fun, I went to a couple of national championships. I went to continental championships one time, held a couple of state records. I held one or two really obscure world records.
Nick: What were they?
Vince: They involved FEET.
Steve: Yeah. I was really good at solving the Rubik’s cube with my feet.
Vince: Ughhh yeah you were.
Nick: Lets just say he was good with his feet.
Steve: I will continue with that in the new year, but just on the side. The thing about competing in that is that it just takes up your weekend time man, and that’s not really conducive with being in a band.
Nick: Especially when you’re working full time.
Steve: Yes, indeed. So yeah, always a part of me.
So in that space, is it more like when you see the cube, are you just anticipating what you’re going to do before? Or is it more like in the moment?
Steve: That’s part of it. I mean, every scramble is different that you get in the competitions. There’s like quintillion possible combinations of the Rubik’s cube.
Vince: I cannot count that high.
Steve: But there’s a method you learn. There’s a proven method that’s quick. And I mean, there’s a lot of learning involved. It took me a couple of years to fully figure out the method but whenever I see it, it’s like not even a thought in my mind anymore. It’s automatic. Honestly, it’s like playing an instrument. You can just move it how you want it to.
Nick: That makes a lot of sense, actually.
Steve: Yeah. It takes a lot of time to get to that point, I mean, I’ve done like hundreds of thousands of solves. But a big part of it is anticipating what’s going to come next. Like, you don’t really look at what you’re solving. You kind of see it as it comes.
Vince: Put it in your ass and then see what happens.
Steve: Right.
Nick: You see it as it comes when it’s in your ass. That’s awesome Steve.
Vince: Make sure you put that in there.
Nick: That makes a lot of sense though when you say it’s like playing an instrument. I see why you enjoy it.
Steve: It’s way more similar than you think.
Nick: That’s cool. That’s awesome, man.
And then this is sort of more about like the lyrics. I’m assuming you (to Vince) write the lyrics.
Vince: We all kind of do. It depends on the song. I would say I’ve written a lot of them, but I’ve not written all of them. Do you have a question about a particular song?
It was sort of... Well, I was like listening to them a lot. I feel like a lot of them are about love and... Laughing gas, is that about toxic relationships?
(Laughing Gas single cover)
Vince: A little bit, yeah. It’s kind of just about, like, you can’t stop. “It happens every time.” “I don’t mind.” It’s kind of just like you’re used to the routine of being in this toxic cycle. It’s kind of exactly what it is. Yeah.
Nick: I think we were all in toxic…
Vince: Yeah, exactly. At the time that song was written, it just spoke to what was going on in our lives.
Steve: Was that written during the Great Mudd-Pression?
Vince: Yes, the first ones.
Unanimous: laughter
Steve: We had a couple of weeks where we were all pretty down and out.
Vince: Yeah, for various reasons. That song actually was born because Steve and I switched instruments when practicing randomly. I was just like, “Yo, can I play the bass?” And he was like, “Yo, can I play the guitar?” And then I just made the bass line, just randomly started playing that bass line. And we kind of just wrote that song in a practice.
Steve: You wrote the bass riff. I wrote the chorus.
Vince: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then the lyrics came after. The lyrics are almost always the last thing.
Brandon: They’re typically a collaborative effort.
Nick: Same thing with the titles. We have working titles. That song reminded us of Feel Good Inc. by Gorillaz, so the working title for that one was Feel Bad LLC.
Unanimous: *laughter*
Branon: Yeah, we have one called Butt Cheeks.
Unanimous: *laughter*
Nick: Our song Ascend on the Descend EP, Ascend was initially called Gas Station Boner Pill.
Vince: Like we actually had to unlearn calling it that.
Steve: Yeah, we had to switch with everything man.
Nick: It feels wrong when we name it because for months we’ve called it the working title. And then we’re like, “What?”
Vince: Painted. Painted is another one.
Nick: We called it Pentis. So we’re like, Painted is kind of like Pentis.
Steve: We’re just a bunch of goofy goobers, man. That’s all.
Vince: You can see we like to have fun around here. The lyrics...
Steve: One rule, have fun.
Vince: At least like my personal approach, and I’m sure we all have a similar approach to some degree, but I just hate the idea of writing something and going back and feeling like it’s cliche or overdone, like it’s just been done before. So I’m always second guessing myself a lot, which holds me back in a way, because I don’t go with my first idea ever unless I’m like, “This is fire.” So I have had to, like, train myself to just be able to trust my ideas, like “This is good.” It’s allowed to be, you know, the first thing that comes to your mind. I just develop a lot of weird tendencies.
Brandon: And then that’s a good segue into maybe changing it to something else, you know? This is a good start and then…
Steve: You explore different combinations.
Vince: The main thing is that it’s authentic. That’s the only thing I’m concerned about is that it comes across…
Brandon: It’s the main ingredient in music.
Vince: With the authentic emotion that we were trying to convey, and not something that’s written just to be like a pop hit or anything. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but that’s just not the approach I’m used to taking, you know.
I guess this is like a question for all of you now. With all like the yearning in your songs a little bit, is it right to say that, I don’t know if this is the right term, but like hopeless romantics? Is that right?
Nick: Oh, yeah
Vince: That’s a great way to say it.
Nick: We’re all very keen on our relationships. Like, relationships are a big part of anybody’s life, but we really, like…. relationships sometimes rule our lives, which gives us songs like Laughing Gas, because if it’s a bad relationship, it’s on our minds all the time. It’s usually what causes the mud-pressions- either work, stress, but primarily bad relationships.
Brandon: Yeah, usually if you’re in a band, you hate work. You do not want to work.
Nick: Yeah, it’s like, “How’s it going, man?” “I fucking hate my job.”(in an angry voice) But we all yearn. We’re a bunch of yearners.
Vince: We’re such yearners dude.
Brandon: Yeah, and we’re in our 20s, you know.
Vince: D1 yearners.
Nick: Yeah, that’s real… That’s real.
Yeah, I think the one that spoke to me the most in that way was Muddles. Like that one, I really love that one.
Nick: That was about being rejected at a party. Like you see this girl and you want to dance with her, and then she’s just like, “Pfft, nah”
Vince: Not even that, it’s like you see a girl and you’re like, “Oh my god, I’m going to marry this woman” before you even talk to her. Like that moment where you meet or see someone and you’re just immediately enamored.
Nick: Soon to be wife.
Vince: All of our girlfriends, which are the most beautiful women on earth. Besides our moms!
Brandon: We’re all in relationships right now.
Vince: But yeah, yeah, that has a lot to do with it.
*The New Modern walks in*
Vince: Take your pants off!
Isaac (Vocalist of The New Modern):You think I won’t?
Vince: Do it!
Nick: Guys, we should go do mean stuff to him. Like having him poop on us.
Unanimous: *laughter*
Nick: Like mean stuff. It’d be so mean of us if we had him poop on us.
Brandon: He’s going to listen back to this.
Unanimous: *laughter*
The New Modern: See you guys later!
Mudd: See you guys
Nick: Good shit tonight, good shit.
Vince: They’re probably like, “What?”
Nick: What the literal heck? Do not replace the CK and heck with two L’s. Don’t do it. Do not do it.
All that’s on the record
Unanimous: *laughter*
Nick: My girlfriend came up with that joke, by the way. It wasn’t me, it was my girlfriend. Okay, that’s all.
To close this out, do you have big projects in the future that we should hear about?
Unanimous: Album. Album. Album.
Vince: We’re finishing that first album. That’s going to be out this year.
Nick: Dr. Grover album, remix album.
Vince: Yeah. That’s all there is to say. Mudd album.
Brandon: Guaranteed.
Vince: Mudd album guaranteed in ‘26. And also maybe a little bit of piss. Dribbling. I already took all my showers for the year. I front loaded all my wiping and showering.
Steve: And brushing my teeth.
Vince: And brushing my teeth.
Brandon: We’re good on that. So we can focus on the album.
Unanimous: *laughter*
Nick: Hell yeah.
All right. Shout out. Really quick. What do you have?
Vince: Shout out Dr. Grover, shout out Rumba Cafe! Always our favorite spot to play.
Nick: New Modern. Shout out New Modern.
Awesome. It was nice meeting you guys!
It was super cool to meet these dudes. They were super considerate through this whole interview process and just seem super chill overall. It’s always a little treat to see these guys live. For sure save the date when a show comes up. I’ll definitely be waiting in anticipating for any future releases from these guys.
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