There have been many iconic rabbits throughout human history: Bugs Bunny, the Easter Bunny, Bunnicla, the one from Zootopia. But none of them compare with the Dayton, Ohio band, Bomb Bunny.
Bomb Bunny is a shoegaze trio most recognizable by their hypnotic, vibrant melodies. They do an incredible job filling their tracks completely with sounds that massage your brain and leave you itching to hear more. The vocal style of their lead guitarist provides a signature contrast that layers perfectly over top of their intricately designed soundscapes to create a sort of energetic mellowness. Their unique tunings give their music a sense of otherworldliness, and serve as a foundation for the extraterrestrial experiences they construct.
So, when we were presented with an opportunity to interview them, we were ecstatic. We spoke with Bomb Bunny on July 24, 2024, a Wednesday night excursion at Dirty Dungarees, a local laundromat/music venue/bar. A lot has changed for Bomb Bunny since this interview was recorded, including the release of a new single and the announcement of a brand new album releasing September 6th (along with a release show).
You can find their musical catalogue here, and we encourage you to listen to it in full! But, as with many bands, until you see Bomb Bunny live, you won’t really get the full experience. For long time bunnies, newly initiated bunnies, or anyone at all, we present to you an interview that serves as a basic yet broad introduction to a band much more than basic, and much bigger than broad. Dayton has been known for many things: the invention of planes, the step ladder, cash registers, and now, Bomb Bunny!
BOMB BUNNY
— Maude (bass) , Fran (vocals/guitar), and Hamilton (drums, not interviewed) —
DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE
What is a Bomb Bunny?
Maude: I don’t know… that's a good question. Fran is Bunny.
You’re Bunny?
Fran: Well, technically the whole reason behind “Bunny” is because when I was a kid, my mom was going to call me “Bunny”. But then her friend decided to call her kid Bunny instead after she told her that. That made me mad when I found out about that, because Bunny is a cute ass name. So then I was like: “Bunny? Ok”, and then “Bomb” just sounded cool before it.
Maude: Yeah, exactly. And we get a lot of: “Oh, Bad Bunny?”
Fran: “Hey, we’ve got Bad Bunny- oh, I’m sorry, what is it??”
Maude: “I'm sorry- Bong? Bong Bunny??” We get some misconceptions there.
Yeah, Bong Bunny would be a very different band.
Maude: Yeah, that’s our stoner rock band.
When did you guys first start playing together?
Fran: When we were like 15 or 16. We were in orchestra together, in a small ensemble. Maude played bass.
Maude: Yeah, I played the upright guy.
Fran: The stand up bass, and I played violin and just taught myself guitar.
Does violin to guitar translate easily?
Fran: No, I just like, taught myself how to play guitar through writing. My brain just kind of works like… I just go on an instrument and write something. Like, you can pick up literally anything and make anything with it at any time, if you really think about it. You can get on piano and make anything. You just have to take away all the rules and once you take away the rules, then that's when it's cool.
Is that what contributes to your sound?
Fran: I mean, I use all different tunings. I don't use standard at all.
Maude: We will be changing tunings two times tonight. But there was talk of a third…
Fran: Three times. Three times!
Maude: There will be three tunings, but we will be changing twice tonight. There was talk of a third change, [which would be] four tunings.
Fran: 🤓 “Actually…”
Maude: 🤓☝️ “Ermm, actually there's going to be three tunings.”
So you guys are, like, classically trained?
Fran: Yes. Both of us are.
Maude: But, I never really took to music theory. I don't think either of us really did.
Fran: I mean, I know how to do music theory, I'm just not interested in it.
Maude: We don't really write songs with the theory in mind.
You just write what sounds good. Do you think that correlates with music theory?
Maude: Yeah, in some way. Hopefully. Maybe.
Fran: Yeah, probably. Like, somebody could take it and be like, “Oh yeah, this is 3/4, this is 4/4”, you know. You could put it in a box if you wanted to, but it's more fun to just not.
You guys classify yourself as ‘shoegaze’. What is that for the readers that don't know- the Bomb Bunny definition.
Fran: To me, my brain feels the best when I hear loud, dreamy, like, overwhelmingly in your face, everything surrounding you, atmospheric tones.
Maude: Very much Wall of Sound. Just really lush and, like, could cut it with a knife...
Fran: Yeah, lush. I like lush. I like anything that sounds lush. I don't know if you guys have heard Dive? I really fucking love Dive. I like in general music that feels like it surrounds me, like- do you guys like Jeff Buckley? I like on “Grace” how- specifically “Dream Brother” and the song, “Grace”- I can feel my brain literally vibrating at certain points in the song because I can just feel it surrounding me.
And that's how I try to write music. When I'm on my laptop or whatever, or when we're writing together, I try to make things that make me feel like I'm in a different universe. And I can just close my eyes and be away from wherever this is. Like, alien music.
Maude: I feel like a lot of people define [shoegaze as]- and this makes sense- just having a lot of pedals, and that’s where the name comes from obviously. We both use a lot to amplify our sound, because we're a three piece. We only have so much room, but we make do with it as much as we can in that way. And I think we do all right.
We think you guys are pretty good. We here at the Bobcat Press really like your guys' stuff.
Fran: Thank you so much.
Maude: Thank you.
Fran: We'd like to thank The Bobcat Press for having us on.
Caleb: Yeah, this is an honor. Not too many people get this opportunity…
Ian: Yeah, seriously, thank you too. This has been like eight months in the making, so.
Caleb: Yeah, when you guys first met us (December 2023), we weren't committed to this at all.
Maude: What were we doing? We were just fucking riffing…
Fran: We were at Rumba. I think you watched me do a handshake over and over.
Maude: Oh, yeah yeah yeah, dapping up. Yeah, Fran’s gotten a lot better I'll have you know- at dapping up.
Really?
* Bomb Bunny dap up *
Wow! Bomb Bunny has gotten better!
Fran: Yeah. New and improved!
Maude: Well, Fran has gotten better. I'm alright. On the record.
Did you take a class or something?
Fran: No, we just took four months off from playing because we were recording, so I developed fast.
Maude: We had to get a new drummer…
Fran: Yeah, we had to get a new drummer.
Bunny Branding
Who is Shithead?
Fran: It's a little guy we found at this place in Dayton called Antique Village. He's a little- he was a baby doll. He had, like, a Beatles haircut, and me and my ex-boyfriend took him and we, like, stuck a knife through his head and lit his hair on fire and tore off his eyebrows.
Maude: Drew a bunch of tattoos on him…
Fran: And then we took him back to the other guys and we all just went at him. We wrote, “Poor shithead” on him.
Maude: Yeah, it was a great little time. And then it became- the face of it is on our EP.
Fran: Everybody always asks me, like, “Oh, is it for your ex? Like, are you saying it's ‘For shithead’ like your ex-boyfriend or something?” and I’m like, “No. It's genuinely, like, a little baby doll.”
Maude: It’s just a little guy. Don't disrespect his name.
No, no, of course not.
Do you guys have a logo?
Maude: Like a bomb with a bunny in it?
Yeah, something like that.
Fran: In a sense… I write everything out in my handwriting.
Maude: I feel like your little guys would be our logo.
Fran: No, no, no, those are my personal logo. Those are my personal tag. We're not gonna identify those with Bomb Bunny. However, there will be a t-shirt with them on there. Keep on the lookout.
You guys are doing t-shirts?
Maude: Oh, bitch, we're doing some merch.
Fran: We're doing a lot of merch. Two different t-shirt designs, cassettes, stickers!
You guys doing CDs?
Fran: No CD's, cassettes. The cassettes have art in them that I made!
Maude: It’s more attainable than ordering vinyl, you know?
Ian: If you guys ever need someone to, like, print CDs, I got a CD burner.
Caleb: Really?
Ian: Yeah, it's called a laptop.
Fran: I do too. I make mixtapes- on CDs.
Ian: That’s very cool actually. We need more of that.
So what songs are you guys going to play tonight? Anything we haven't heard?
Fran: Well, we're releasing an album on September 6th (2024), so a lot of songs from that album. There’s this one called “Sleazebag”.
Maude: Um, “House Show Angel”.
Fran: “Cool Guy”. We’re playing “Overgrown Valentine”, which is from the old EP.
Fran: “Kaleidoscope Brain” and “Final Letter.” Those are off our new album.
The Ohio Music Scene
Do you guys feel like there's a good scene for house shows in Dayton?
Maude: There's not really one house show venue- Well, there's the Sean Shack. That exists, but we don't really play there that much.
Fran: We used to have a house that we lived in for like a year and a half, which is what our album coming up is about, and we did a bunch of house shows there and they were sick. Like, literally I saw motherfuckers I'd never seen in Dayton before show up. They were really high energy, like, I'm really sad that we don't have that house anymore just for that. We had a really good basement, and we were in an area where we could do it [and] people wouldn't complain.
Maude: It was just good. It was a very pretty house, it made sense to have shows there. The energy was always great, yeah. Other than that, the main places are just kind of bars and Blind Rage.
Maude: Yep, Belmont Billiards is like the new… It is a bar, but it just feels very DIY in there.
Does it feel the same as the laundromat we're standing outside of?
Fran: Mm, no. I would say Dayton had its big scene in the 90s and now it's in a baby stage again where I think in the next two years it's definitely going to, like, happen again. It's just taking a minute. But I can tell people are [interested in it]. Like, one of our friends, Max, he's trying to find a house to have a house show venue. I've seen new bands form. The problem was, there weren't a lot of bands in Dayton, and you can't really have a lot of shows if there are just like three bands that play. But now there are more young bands popping up!
I do think the key is DIY always and forever. Like, here the DIY to me is so special. Like every time we've ever played at Marlboro Manor or like, Greenhouse- Noah (Befriend Strange Creatures) used to have Frank's Garage. All those experiences are like my most favorite memories of playing music.
Maude: They're just so much more raw. I mean, obviously there's pros and cons but like, you play at a bar and they're hooking you up to a PA and you lose some kind of control. And you're in a public space, so there’s a certain kind of demeanor that comes with that.
Fran: It’s the energy of people who go to house shows. It's a community. It's like everybody who goes to house shows knows each other and supports everybody's art. It's cool. You get to go see your friends and people you might not have met otherwise. I just love the energy of house shows. I feel like people feel like they can be free there versus when they're at bars, they're a little more contained. They don't know what they can and can’t do. I feel like at house shows everybody can just be themselves.
Maude: We don't pick our shows with the expectation of charging, like, a door fee, at a bar or somewhere like that where it's easiest to do that.
Fran: I don't give a fuck about money.
Maude: We don't, really. That's just not the priority.
Fran: The whole reason that we play music is because- well at least for me- I like to play because I like playing and I like to experience the energy of other people. And a door fee is not… I'm there for the experience and if more people will come and want to experience it by having a free show, then…
I mean, obviously artists should get supported and I understand why people do door fees- I don't disagree with it. It's just personally, for me, I think it's cool when you have a free show and like, literally everybody in the whole fuckin’ town shows up.
What's the coolest collaboration you could do in the local scene that you haven’t done already?
Fran: Ok, Mary Klein is the lead person in Hueston Woods. Me and Mary are friends and we’re planning on doing something music-wise. I’ve already done music with Noah from Befriend Strange Creatures, but it's taken us about 80 years to not even complete one song because we're… yeah. But we're working on it! It'll be out in 10 years from now, just wait!
I’m excited! Marking my calendar right now.
Fran: I would love to collaborate with like, Six Flags Guy. (Editor’s Note: Six Flags Guy will make an appearance at the aforementioned album release show!)
Yeah, Six Flags Guy. Creative, neat- cool guy. We did an interview with him and then… weren’t able to write it… (Editor’s Note: lost media, unfortunately)
Influences
Dead or alive, what’s your dream setlist with like, you and two other artists or two other bands?
Fran: Dive.
Maude: Dive would be cool. Unwound would be sick. I love Unwound so much. That'd be cool.
Fran: Sonic Youth?
Maude: Bring them back together for that, call up Thurston.
Fran: Big Black if Steve Alibini was alive. Slint.
Maude: That would be really cool: Slint and Six Flags Guy. And then us, for some reason.
I would go to that show.
Does Slint have an influence on your guys' playing style at all?
Fran: It used to be more. Sometimes I feel like nothing, now, is…. I just write. What is a current influence? Like, I feel like I used to have a lot more things.
Maude: Well, I feel like Southpacific has been, like, a kind of droning influence. They’re not really an influence, but they have [parts].
Fran: Yeah, but it’s not like a real influence. I do like droning stuff though, I really am inspired by things that feel very liminal.
Maude: Fran’s got that, I’ve got like electronic inspirations that I think are really cool sound wise.
Fran: I like Polvo a lot. You should listen to Polvo, specifically the song, “Tragic Carpet Ride”. That shit’s cool. It's really cool.
Beyond Bunny
What’s your life like outside of music?
Fran: I’m a hairstylist. I do hair and I’m a barista at a coffee shop I work at, Mondays and Saturdays. And then I do music every other chance I get!
That sounds about right. That's what you wanna do.
Maude: I’m also a barista. I was a bartender for a little bit, but the place sucked. I like bartending, but the place sucked. But being a barista and also being in a band is so nice. It's so good. You get morning shifts, then you can do shit in the night time. So like, it makes the most sense.
Fran: Exactly. That's why I like working at a coffee shop.
Maude: Do I stay up way too late still, until like one in the morning, and have to work at like 7AM the next day? Yeah. But like… I'll take the L on that one. It'll be fine. But yeah, it works well.
I’ve heard about that. You were supposed to release an EP in March, right?
Fran: I was doing cosmetology school and then some shit happened. [Then] we were working on the Bomb Bunny album and now it's done and uploaded and supposed to release on September 6th. Now that that's uploaded and done, now my goal is to work on the Wujeria stuff and hopefully get that out by January-ish. That would be the goal.
What does Wujeria mean?
Fran: So, my childhood nickname growing up was Wujen. That's just a random thing my parents made up because my family is like alien people. And then my mom used to have a joke that- because I was an only child- when I was being really bad, she would go give all my toys and stuff to Wujeria, who was like my evil twin. So then I was like, “Ok, well, Wujeria sounds cooler than Wujen”. So I named it Wujeria, and then I realized nothing else in the world is called Wujeria, which is really weird.
That’s smart. That’s how you do branding.
Maude: Yeah, you're the first to get the goddamn Instagram tag.
That's pretty big. We got @thebobcatpress.
Maude: Oh, I got @stomachsleepy on Instagram. That's a solid one.
Fran: That’s pretty cool. Everybody wants that one.
Maude: I've been told it sounds like an Xbox gamer tag though.
Creature Talk
Do you think you could catch a rabbit?
Maude: Could we catch a rabbit? You'd (Fran) be able to, like, enchant a rabbit I feel like, and then draw it towards you.
Fran: Yeah, that's true.
Maude: I feel like I could catch a rabbit. I could tap in to some primal hunter urge inside me and really go.
Have you ever tried?
Maude: I don’t need to try, I just know I could do it.
Fran: I don't see a lot of rabbits…
It sounds easier than it is.
Maude: Oh yeah, it would be hard as shit.
Mouse or squirrel?
Maude: Ohh, interesting. Possum.
Fran: No. No! Nobody likes possums, fuck off!
That's an illegal answer…
Maude: I fucking love possums! It’s the only marsupial native to fucking North America.
Fran: (laughing) Nobody gives a shit! Fuck off…
That’s the only marsupial?
Maude: Yeah!
Okay, that is pretty big…
Maude: Right? Like, it's kind of hard.
Fran: Squirrel. No, wait!!
Maude: I'm going mouse. I've had to take care of squirrels before- I went to a wildlife hospital and interned there in Canada. Squirrels are fucking, just, little spasms- and I'm sure mice are too, but they're more containable, so, you know.
Ian: Yeah, like forest mice or house mice? I'd rather be a house mice.
Maude: Nah, I'd be a fucking forest mouse. I'd be out there.
Fran: Yeah, but then if you're a house mice, you're at risk of getting killed real early. And people are kind of mean to you, they like, hate you.
Maude: That’s the question of city mouse or country mouse.
Fran: I'd rather be a country mouse, but I'd be a city squirrel.
Maude: The country mouse gets the less dangerous life, but the city mouse gets the better food…
Fran: Actually I don’t want to be a city squirrel, that sounds lame.
I agree with that: city squirrel, country mouse.
Fran: You heard it here first!
Maude: Gay son or thot daughter…
Yeah, exactly.
Hamster that looks like a rock or rock that looks like a hamster?
Maude: Like, to have and keep?
Yeah
Fran: Hamster that looks like a rock. Does it look mangled?? Like, does it have no legs and arms?
No, just from kind of far away it really looks like a rock.
Maude: Rock that looks like a hamster for sure.
And that’s our interview!
First of all, THANK YOU BOMB BUNNY! Definitely make sure to stream their new album when it releases (September 6) and go to their release show for it! And buy their merch when it becomes available. Just, support local music, you know? If you’re still here reading, thank you too!
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We may be a little less Bobcat Press in the coming months (back to school season), but we hope you’ll continue interacting with the stuff we make and join the Bobcat Nation (not trademarked)!!!!! We have big things coming maybe eventually, so stay tuned (if you want to).
