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Frogs: Angular Punk With An Angle

Updated: Apr 19

With each jagged line, wide skip, and heavy drop, Boston’s angular punk band, Frogs, is using their raw, unapologetic musicianship to make an impact that is bound to change our local scene for good. 

Photo by Donovan Jermyn
Photo by Donovan Jermyn

Together Outrageously had the opportunity to sit down with Matt Spisak, Danny Francis, and Emilio Bowen, three of the band's four members, to discuss how a small group of guys are enabling meaningful change in New England’s vast DIY scene. 


Spisak, vocalist and guitarist, and Francis, resident drummer, met early on in their career at the School of Rock in Fairfield, Connecticut. The two attended the same music magnet school and started their collaborative career in the 7th grade when they started a cover band. 


Danny Francis, drums.                                                                                                                                          Photo by Alex Ilyadis
Danny Francis, drums. Photo by Alex Ilyadis

It wasn’t until their junior year of high school, however, that Frogs would become official. Francis and Harrison Broad, the band’s second guitarist, wrote the first Frogs song, and Spisak joined soon after. However, it was still early days, and the group didn’t feel they had truly pinned down a sound they liked. They quickly decided it was time to start refining their sound. 


Francis: We were like, fuck, our music sucks! Oh my god. 


Spisak: And I wanted to write punk music. 


Francis: So did I, and we were like, why don't we just make music that's like the music we listen to?


Bowen: Isn’t that crazy?  


Francis, and Spisak started attending Berklee School of Music, and Broad Norteastern, in 2023, but they were without a bassist when they got there. That is until they found Bowen.

Emilio Bowen, bass.                                                                                                                                              Photo by Donovan Jermyn
Emilio Bowen, bass. Photo by Donovan Jermyn

Bowen started his music career in the fourth grade at the Alliance Academy in Ecuador, learning the trombone first, then the bassoon, and, eventually, about 11 instruments in total. It wasn’t until middle school that he learned the bass, but he was quick to master the instrument through a rock band he had joined at the time. Finally, in December of 2023, he joined Frogs. 


Bowen: Shout out again to our friend Sammy. He put up a thing on his Instagram saying, “Hey, this punk band needs a bassist.” I was like, ooh, a punk band. I joined in, got the material, rehearsed with these guys, and after that... 


Spisak: It just clicked really naturally. We all get along really well. And just playing, especially at this point, I feel like playing-wise, we know each other really well and know how to work off each other.


Since forming, the band has released one demo EP, demo ‘24, and two singles, “48 Burbank” and “Grrrlfriend.” Because of their close relationship, songwriting for the band is a democratic process. Each member has a role in the finalized product. 


Spisak, a songwriting major, writes most of the lyrics. 


Spisak: I just come up with ideas as I'm walking around. I have legit filled notebooks of just lyric ideas and a bunch of other stuff. My notes app on my phone is maybe 20 gigabytes of just random prose and bullshit, and that usually gets turned into a song.


Matt Spisak, vocals and guitar.                                                                                                                             Photo by Alex Ilyadis
Matt Spisak, vocals and guitar. Photo by Alex Ilyadis

From there, he sends his ideas in video form to the rest of the band so everyone can offer their opinions. 


Spisak: I'll send a video of me playing it and breaking down part by part so they have an idea of what the chords are, the harmonies, all that stuff, and sometimes I'll give them notes of specific inversions to use or specific chords I'm hitting or ideas I have for them to hit. But ultimately, at that point, it's on them. That's where their creativity comes in. [...] They take it from there and they do their thing with it and it comes out great every time. 


Most of their songs are stories that pull from the band members' personal experiences with relationships and mental illness. What characterizes a Frogs song is its ability to remain personal enough to speak to the listener but still be out-of-the-box and unexpected. They achieve this through unique time signatures, heavy dissonance, and unexpected rhythms, but also through their philosophy that a song is never finished, which allows for a consistently innovative set. 


Spisak: A shared philosophy in the band is there's always room for improvement and there's always room for growth and development on things. [...] I definitely have patterns and certain structures I usually write in, especially for Frogs, but a lot of the best and the most interesting stuff to me comes when I'm not doing that, and I try to place myself outside of that box. So it's just this thing of just always growing and not letting yourself stay in one spot.


[...]


Bowen: We want this seamless set that just goes from start to finish all the way through. We like to interject some jamming into songs. So that’s where a lot of that, “the songs never finished” comes from because we're always thinking of new ways of how we blend all these songs together to make a set.


Not all of their songs have been expected additions to their discography. “Grrrlfriend” originated as a joke among the band members, who even went as far as to say that it would never make it onto streaming platforms. However, when they noticed the positive reaction from the crowd during live performances, they decided to record it—a decision that showcases their understanding and appreciation of their audience.


Photo by Alex Ilyadis
Photo by Alex Ilyadis

Keeping their community refreshed and excited is a core value of Frogs. In fact, community is what keeps the band afloat, as they pride themselves on being 100% DIY. 

 

Francis: We just want to get as far as we possibly can and make as big of a possible impact as we can by doing it just ourselves and building it only off of DIY culture.


Boston has always been a hub for music, especially the DIY scene. Recently, however, the Boston Police Department has cracked down on local house shows, leaving the scene without some iconic venues and creating an overarching fear of shutdown across the Boston DIY scene. 


The problem with DIY culture in Boston right now goes even further beyond that. It’s easy to claim that the despairing spirit of the current scene is a result of the BPD; however, the real problem is the divide among the people. 


Frogs argue that a scene's power relies almost entirely on thoughtful organizing. With cliques of bands and venues that will not book outside of their circle, along with a general lack of advocacy and awareness, Boston’s DIY scene struggles to be successful. 


Francis: It's just, like these bands are popular. Go see these bands because they're friends with the big bands and the big bands only book their friends. 


Spisak: Which, we love a lot of the big bands. 


Francis: Yeah, some of them are really cool people, but they kind of just like…


Bowen: It makes for a really stale scene. 


Francis: Very stale scene. 


Not only are cliques a problem, but a general distrust between people and venues in the scene has caused a great divide. 


Bowen: The animosity in the scene is something that really gets me as well. All of these things that happen inside of it that cause rumors, that cause drama, that causes hate between separate parties of separate different bookers and venue owners. If you want to have a zine and make it grow, why are you stopping that growth from happening by spreading rumors and animosity? 


When the scene doesn’t work for its people, the people have to work for themselves. Frogs are no strangers to this solution. They are part of a music collective founded by Spisak, Francis, and two other members, William Donahue and Sammy Scott, who are both members of Boston bands themselves. 


Their collective is Out For A Rip, Canadian slang for going out for a smoke. The collective, zine and blooming record label works with fellow New England artists who are also working towards the same goal of building a positive and inclusive scene.


Image courtesy of @outforaripindie on Instagram
Image courtesy of @outforaripindie on Instagram

A scene cannot work unless people are willing to work with each other– one of their central values, as outlined on Out For A Rip’s Instagram, is: “...we believe in the power of doing it yourself, so that means everyone who is part of our collective is here to help everyone.”


Spisak: We really care about DIY culture and everything and our main goal in life is to try and better it, leave an impact and especially leave it a better place than it was for us.


This also means making a significant effort to break out of the current clique mold that has a hold on Boston’s DIY scene. 


Spisak: Our goal is to book a lot of newer bands coming up, especially ones we really fucking like.


Francis: Especially ones that we know go out of their way to do better the scene themselves and also bands we feel represent what we represent. 


Frogs are heavily inspired by Ian MacKaye, the iconic frontman of hardcore bands Fugazi and Minor Threat. They not only do things like run charity shows and donate their merchandise royalties to charity, but they also find inspiration in Fugazi’s ability to make a powerful community out of localized DIY scenes.  


Francis: They represented everything about community and this is going to be corny, but doing music just because it's fucking art, because that's what it is. We're people trying to say something, and we want to give those people that platform, and we feel, at least I do, especially Boston and in the DIY scene in general, there's a lot of people that use it as an aesthetic or pretty much basically just that “Anarchy for Sale” [by Dead Kennedys] type shit.


Harrison Broad, guitar.                                                                                                                                                     Photo by Donovan Jesmyn
Harrison Broad, guitar. Photo by Donovan Jesmyn

One way they ensure the DIY scene is doing enough to support local artists and house-show goers is by making an effort to be vocal about current events locally and nationally. A central theme among DIY scenes is the idea of keeping each other safe, and in the political climate America is currently in, this sentiment is especially true. 


Spisak: The reason why we have Big Orange Man in power and we have big billionaires, an oligarchy, running the country is because people don't know that we have power. [...] The reason why a lot of countries are the way they are, they have socialized medicine, and all these social policies is because the people did some fucking shit to make that happen. You have to organize and you have to do shit and it's especially important to be aware of that. 


Virtue signaling, the act of expressing an opinion to align with popular values, has become a huge problem, growing incredibly popular with the rise of social media. What more people need to do within DIY communities is make a significant effort to become educated on not only the issues that plague our society but also to educate each other on our rights as citizens—our power as people. 


Spisak: A lot of people feel hopeless right now, and I don't blame them. It's really rough, especially people that are actually affected by this. I can sit here on my nice stool in my nice Back Bay apartment as a white man; none of the policies really affect me drastically. But they definitely affect people I care about, and they might affect you, and it's important to know that we have a say in everything. Even if we feel like we don't, there's things we can do. 


They also believe that local venues must work harder to create spaces where bands and community members alike can come together and have the space to share meaningful ideas and spread awareness that benefits the scene in its entirety. 


Bowen: You just have to have an open mindset about things. You really have to look at what your demographic is, who your demographic is, and what population you want to adhere to, and be open about what that certain population likes and dislikes. Where they lean politically. Where they lean musically. And with how blue Boston is as a region in and of itself, most people here are leaning left.


[...]


Spisak: All change comes from the young people, and that's especially true in DIY culture. DIY culture, to bring that back around, is a youth movement. It will always be a youth movement. The youth have the power [...] That's the great thing about DIY; we don't have to be in fucking New York City, LA, or Nashville to like to be in a band and try and make it work. That’s the thing about DIY is you can make it work anywhere. It's about building the community.


In partnership with Out For A Rip and other local artists, Frogs will continue creating space for advocacy and DIY in the New England area. They are currently recording an EP and plan to tour the East Coast over the summer, making as many connections as possible along the way.

 

Spisak: It's all about making connections. And if you just work with the same people all the time, you're not gonna build anything. You're just gonna, this is your house, and it's gonna stay that, like, that size, and it's not gonna grow.


Photo by Donovan Jesmyn
Photo by Donovan Jesmyn

Though passionate about being outspoken, they recognize that speaking up about DIY culture and current events should not be considered radical. It’s for the greater good of everyone. 


Francis: We're just some guys.


Spisak: Yeah, we're just four dudes. Four normal dudes. 


Bowen: We just really want to play music. 


Spisak: And just really give a shit about all this stuff. Especially the DIY music part.

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