Talking About Burlington, VT with Brunch

After a short wave of covering projects coming out of Burlington, VT, SLUG thought it would be appropriate to sit down with a Burlington-based band to tell us what the city (and they) are all about. Enter Brunch, a post-punk group made up of Phil Bern (guitar), Mason Kosman (bass), Cameron Mincar (guitar) and Ayden Flanigan (drums). With their laptop placed on the living room floor, SLUG learned what makes Burlington so special and what makes a group like Brunch tick. 

SLUG: I have not met a ton of groups that rotate the mic like you guys do, especially so evenly. It felt very democratic on DOGINYA—each one of you guys got a turn. Is there one of you guys that takes up the mantle of lead singer more than the others, or is it just kind of whatever?

Bern: Um, I think it depends on the show. We’re definitely pretty even.

Flanigan: It’s definitely mostly Phil, or Cam. 

Mincar: Phil’s kind of taken [as] the front man, at least the front man spot on the snap.

SLUG: Is that intentional?

Mincar: [Phil is] the tallest, and he’s the most dramatic. 

Bern: Yeah, I dress the most dramatically. 

SLUG: Yeah, I was gonna say—correct me if I’m wrong, but you guys have your entire heights listed on the Brunch Instagram bio. I think it’s got to be hard to find four guys above six foot to be on the stage, but I bet it really adds some power. 

Bern: That’s why people come. 

SLUG: I feel like Salt Lake could be a sister city to Burlington, because we’re really known for having big ‘90s hardcore roots and also having a really strong local music scene relative to how many people there are—and also relative to the dominant culture that’s there, right? 

Flanigan: Burlington’s scene is rooted in the bars, and DIY venues come and go. My dad was a musician here, and a lot of those musicians are still playing in the same bars. A lot of those bars make room for younger bands, too. There’s a lot of diversity and the bars don’t scrutinize what type of music you play. They’re just trying to book acts and music every night and get people coming in. It’s fun. It’s a lot of different types of music coexisting. 

Bern: It’s too small to have segmented scenes. People get to know each other pretty well because there’s only a couple places to play. We’ve done bills with jam bands, hardcore and stoner metal. There’s nowhere you really need to fit in; as long as you’re nice to people, you can share a bill and divide with whomever. 

Flanigan: I think that really comes out in the music too, you know? I mean, we’ve got a sound, but we might be on a bill with more of a funk band, so we want some songs that people can dance to, or we might be playing a bill with all shoegaze bands so we try to get something that’s more in that spectrum. We’ve got this scene that’s asking for everything, and it’s almost a bit of a challenge. We gotta get out and create that. 

Mincar: It’s so tight knit, and so we’re all watching friends perform. And for me, it’s pretty inspiring. I think that’s definitely had an impact on how we write music. I’ve been inspired by some of my friends’ bands and I think they’ve been inspired by us and it kind of melts down into something different. 

SLUG: I think a lot of people got introduced to Burlington through that kind of weird Spotify Wrapped this last year—there was that ‘What city are you?’ [question]. I got Burlington, and also Charli xcx got Burlington.

Flanigan: Pull up, Charli!

SLUG: I feel like Spotify categorized a lot of people into Burlington that were into grimy, sad alt-rock and indie rock, kind of a little shoegaze. Is that accurate?

Kosman: I think so. I think there’s obviously a breadth of what people are playing in the post-Phish era—very funky, upbeat jam bands—but there’s a lot of more melancholy types of bands. I think Adrianne Lenker moved here from Big Thief, and that was big news. 

Bern: It’s also a melancholy place to live. The winters are really hard. 

SLUG: It looks gorgeous, but it also reminds me of a fishing port: small town, not, not a lot of buildings that are above, like, two or three stories.

Bern: New England. Gothic.

SLUG: How do you feel about Burlington being one of those pool of options? I think Spotify Wrapped tries to make itself a little niche and unique, but it is unique that your city was one of those options—enough to be recognized.

Bern: It’s cool. 

Mincar: Yeah, that’s it. I mean, it’s cool. When you come to Burlington, it’s such a small town  compared to New York or something. Just the fact that there is that that kind of noise coming up is pretty neat. 

Bern: But because of that, it’s got such a large percentage of people who are tapped into art and music and who are looking for something new. And so even though it is small, the chances that you’re going to meet someone who’s going to dig what you’re doing are higher here than in a city with a ton of people. 

Flanigan: The coolest stuff being made is made by people who aren’t trying to make waves. 

Kosman: We’re just doing it straight up and that’s really the backbone [of the scene]—people who are just talented.

Flanigan: They just want to make their their freaky art and it’s freaking awesome. 

SLUG: I saw that one of your first things you ever posted was a radio jam session that got recorded to YouTube and put up that was, I think, sponsored by some kind of outlet out there that you guys called Big Heavy World. Tell me a bit about that. 

Flanigan: They’ve been around forever and they’ve sort of held the hand of the scene throughout decades of just stuff going down, places, DIY venues coming and going. They have an online radio called the Radiator, which I DJ for. Inside their studio, they have the whole radio studio setup where you sit down and play, but to the side there’s this whole little museum of old music scene artifacts that they’re preserving.

Kosman: From what people have told me, they brought in groups like Bad Brains and Fugazi. So, there really is this backbone of a real community that organizes shows. It was a real privilege for us. 

SLUG: I was gonna say that they hosted you on a regular show that they do for locals called “Rocket Shop,” right? 

Mincar: We talked about those guys from the ‘90s who started that punk scene, and they were all back there mixing sound and streaming it, and they were super excited to see a band with similar styles and influences from that time. It was a really special night for us too, because that was the first time we’d actually been in front of a “record” button and we were able to play four of our songs that we’ve been been playing in basements for months. We played a song called “Missed Connections” that Phil wrote, and then we played “Man Is Old,” “Mental Glue” and “Big Bird.” 

Bern: Which is named after a DIY venue. 

Mincar: Yeah, that was the first show we ever played, [at] a spot called Big Bird—just this big, big yellow house in downtown Burlington.

Bern: We actually played it twice! The first time, because it was our first-ever show as a band, the band that we were playing with went on before us, and as we were going on into, like, this packed, sweaty basement, someone starts spreading the word that a carbon monoxide pipe broke and everyone was going to die, so we all had to evacuate. That’s what the song is about. 

SLUG: How long have you guys been a band? 

Mincar: Phil and I started jamming just we had two college philosophy classes together, and I thought Phil was cool, and we just follow[ed] each other on Instagram. And then Phil had a friend who played drums.  His name is Mike Scott—you want to tell him about Mike Scott? 

Bern: Sure. Mike, Cam and I met through the philosophy department at UVM [University of Vermont]. I didn’t have many friends during COVID and shit was so boring. I was going to shows before but I couldn’t help but think I would much rather be up there than down here. We started a little band, and we were mostly doing blues and blues rock. Someone in Philosophy Club knew Mason, [a club] which I was running at the time, and he liked the band Viagra Boys, and I like the band Viagra Boys, and he played bass, and we needed a bass player. That’s it. And then Mike ended up moving to Alaska to fish salmon and so… 

SLUG: How romantic. 

Bern: So Aiden had come to a show or two, and we posted on our story that we needed a drummer. Aiden’s not really a drummer, but he can play drums good enough and he just fit in perfectly. And then that’s been it since then. 

SLUG: While a lot of modern punk/post-punk groups pull from more contemporary sources, it seems like you guys are reaching super far back in some of your songs to the origins of punk back to the late ‘60s. I want to know if I’m right in that assumption. Who has inspired you, and what elements are you trying to blend into your music that are maybe a little bit abrasive or contradictory to that punk sound?

Kosman: I think it’s interesting that we’re all primarily guitar players and we all have touch points that we share in terms of taste. And one of those is Velvet Underground and The Stooges. But we are all pulling from different inspirations, and then when we’re writing a song, each of us is pulling in different directions, which can make make things frustrating sometimes. But when it comes together, it’s harmonious. We all go on certain kicks. I remember right when we were writing a lot of the stuff on DOGINYA, Phil was really deep into Queens of the Stone Age, like early-2000s riff rock.

Flanigan: You can really hear it on the EP. There’s a cohesion there, obviously, but definitely a lot of all those songs are coming from [those bands] for the most part. 

SLUG: Your song “Dancing Raw” off of DOGINYA is almost a glam rock song with big synths. And I loved it. But it also followed after the deeply philosophical track, “Radio Jesus.” Who put that glam rock track together and what were you feeling inspirationally in that moment to make that track? 

Kosman: That was almost like a pure jam that started as a practice session, and Aiden started just throwing words over it. 

Flanigan: Definitely pulling from Talking Heads and the kind of stuff that they were doing on whatever that album is, with “Burning Down the House” on it. And I think it was like, me and Mason got to practice early or something…

Kosman: I was late.

Flanigan: We just were sort of jamming and as soon as he started playing that bass riff and I started doing the drum beat, I was like, ‘Okay, I want to sort of imagine what David Byrne [would] do over this,’ and that was sort of the impetus of “Dancing Raw.” 

Mincar: Oh, yeah, guitar-wise too. Like, I got pretty into Television last summer. These guys put me on to them, and hearing how their influence carried into some of the stuff like Interpol—just that kind of lineage of inspiration, I think, really carried it to some of the guitar riffs. 

Bern: In terms of musical influences, I think we’re really varied, and part of that is because the way that at least I listen to music … and kids our age, is that we’ll put together Spotify playlists and and then we’ll listen to that. Instead of putting on an album that was made in 1968 and listening through to it, you have your own collection of music that takes just one click to add any song from any era, and you’re listening to them [one] right after another. You can take influences from so many different places that you never think to combine, like on the first track on RADIO JESUS. It’s a post-punk song, mostly, but my guitar lines on that one—I was super listening to, like, Kiss [at the time] and so that’s where that kind of comes from. Now you can reach from anywhere, it’s a lot easier to push out whatever we’re inspired by without having to pick and choose genres and categories. 

SLUG: What are some artists outside of your sound and genre that you would love to collaborate with?

Flanigan: I do some home recording stuff on my own and  I’ve been listening a lot to this Paul McCartney album, Chaos and Creation in the Backyard, that he made with Nigel Godrich, who’s famous for Radiohead. It would just be a crazy thrill to try and record an album with Paul McCartney, but [to] do it in my shitty apartment studio and with a shitty mixer connected with Ableton. 

Mincar: I’d have to say Daft Punk. I’m definitely more [of] a live player, and I’ve really grown as musician. So I would love to be on stage and do live improvisational music like them. 

Kosman: I was thinking Aphex Twin. Someone that’s so completely different than how you formally record rock music.

SLUG: I’ve talked to a lot of people who are, like, more into indie rock and the straight-down, four-piece band level and when they collaborate with people that are in the hip-hop world they say it’s such a different way of thinking about constructing songs—because you have almost everything at your disposal but nothing at your disposal in terms of physical instruments, you know.

Bern: I think it would be so sick to do something with like Yung Lean or Bladee, someone in that realm, because their songs lean more rock-y. Even some rappers like Denzel Curry or JPEGMafia, like, they’ve got these songs that you can totally play with a rock band. 

Mincar: Thundercat.

SLUG: If Brunch had a smell, what would it be? 

Bern: I was gonna say sweat and beer. 

Flanigan: Cigarettes. Narragansett. DIY basement.

Mincar: Plastic, blood, incense. 

Bern: Burning circuitry.

Kosman: I think the distinctive smell is the smell, the smell of a good tube amp … the smell that a tube makes when you’ve accidentally cracked it, packed into a vape and then blown in your face.

SLUG: So a lot of poisons, yeah?  

Bern: Temu vape, too. 

SLUG: Do y’all want to plug anything? 

Bern: Red Eye, they’re awesome. New Jersey emo. We love them. They’re really good friends of ours. Cam made the album art for their album that came out, and it’s super good. Mason and Aiden are also in a band. It’s called Neato. They’re also super good and I think they have an EP coming out. You should listen to that.

Brunch are still largely playing shows only in Burlington, but you can keep up to date with them on their Instagram page @brunchtheband and hopefully they’ll bring their post-punk group across the US soon.

Read more interviews with musicians:
Into the Bonestorm
Picking Flowers: Alvvays’ Mindful Approach to Music